Introduction

Decentralisation has been implemented and used as a critical tool for governance in the majority of previously highly centralised African countries under the pretext of bringing government closer to the people (Van de Walle 2009). Ribot (2002) defines decentralisation as a process which produces a realm of local authorities with autonomy, defined by inclusive local processes, empowered with decisions and resources that are meaningful to local people. The understanding of decentralisation derived from Ribot’s definition is that it produces self-governing, representative and devolved statutory sub-national structures of government, whose primary purpose is the delivery of service to the residents of their constituents. Within the broader definition of decentralisation, there is an emphasis on representativeness, inclusiveness and accountability of decentralised institutions. These three elements bring to the fore the issue of public participation/active citizenry in local government. Public participation is a critical right for citizens, it ensures that the citizens are in control and in charge of their life including making decisions about the services they receive (Mansuri and Rao 2012). Decentralisation is assumed to promote good governance, which requires a democratic and an engaged civil society that defends the rights of the citizen through active public participation/citizenry (Stoker 1998).

The world over, decentralised institutions are regarded as more responsive to citizens than centralised government institutions (Gaventa and Valderama 1999). There is the belief that decentralised local government structures increase citizen participation and accountability of the government to the people (Nabatchi 2012). Decentralisation has been viewed as a vehicle which can be used to improve resource allocative efficiency, and that it improves equity in service distribution (Van de Walle 2009). In countries which adopted structural adjustment policies like Zimbabwe, decentralisation was used as a tool for deregulation, privatisation and reduction of public expenditure on social services. The assumption was that decentralisation decongests central state and leaves the central state to deal with those issues of national and international importance. Currently, in the COH in Zimbabwe, the political mantra exuded is that decentralisation brings government closer to the people and furthers the principle of government of the people, by the people, for the people. Zimbabwe currently purports to pursue representative democracy where the citizens participate in electing national parliamentary and local government representatives. The expectation under such a form of democracy is that the residents, in this case, have considerable power to make development decisions and also have the power to hold those in power accountable for their actions. The COH, in particular, has been experiencing a decline in service delivery with poor infrastructure maintenance and development, poor water supply, and poor waste and sewage removal. The poor service delivery has resulted in the outbreak of waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid. Amidst these challenges, it important to examine how the consuming public who are supposed to be decision-makers are contributing to decision-making within the COH. In a country which claims to be a democracy and which has decentralised it is important to examine the role being played by the residents in the decision-making process within the COH. The examination of the residents’ role in decision-making in the COH will be done using the lens of the principles of public participation/ empowered deliberative democracy.

In order to achieve the objectives of this study, this researcher will use the COH’s budget formulation process as a case to examine the level of public participation. The reason behind choosing the budget formulation process is that it is the only official process which mandates the city to consult the residents. The process of budget formulation in the COH is critical in the sense that it sets the city’s spending agenda and defines the various development and service delivery programmes which the city carries out throughout the following year. The approach to this paper is to examine how the budget formulation process adheres to the following components of public participation: transparency, accountability, responsiveness and inclusiveness. Transparency is defined as any attempt by the state or citizens to place information or processes that were previously opaque in the public domain, accessible for the use by citizen groups or policy makers (Gaventa 2002). Accountability refers to the process of holding actors responsible for their actions (Gaventa 2002). Actors are administrators, public officials or private organisations. Responsiveness in this paper is regarded as the process by which public policies and decisions are designed based on received citizen input and preferences (Nabatchi 2012). Inclusiveness is the process by which the voices of the often marginalised or excluded groups are included in the governing process (Mansuri and Rao 2012). This study is designed to answer the research questions below:

  • What is the level of citizen engagement with regard to budget formulation process?

  • How do citizens hold COH officials accountable for their actions?

  • What is the level of government responsiveness with regard to received inputs for budget formulation process?

  • How inclusive is the process of budget consultation?

Conceptual Framework

Public participation is a very important concept in decentralisation as it is regarded as the driving force for better governance and service delivery. Gaventa and Valderama (1999) define public participation as the exercise of power by different actors in the spaces created for the interaction between citizens and local authorities. In this paper, public participation is defined as a process whereby citizens claim the right to participate in informing decisions which affect their lives and well-being. Public participation entails the redistribution of power from the state to the citizens as a core element of a democratic governance system (Bora and Hausendorf 2010). In democracies, public participation is regarded as a basic principle; governments derive their power from the citizens so they have an obligation to respond to the citizen’s needs. It is also assumed that in every democracy, citizens have responsibilities to demand accountability from their government. There is an understanding that public participation does not necessarily lead to accountability but is an important avenue to achieve good governance in decentralisation (Gaventa 2002). The spaces for public participation are controlled by the state and the nature of the state influences the outcomes of public participation. In some cases, the spaces are not accessible to the general citizens as the elites make decisions on behalf of the citizens behind closed doors (Gaventa 2003). At the present moment, there is a realisation in democratic countries that the absence of citizen deliberation and participation makes the democratic system empty and meaningless (Pimbert and Wakeford 2001). There is a push to transform representative democracy so that it includes deliberative democracy principles.

In the Zimbabwean context, the main objective for decentralising is ‘bringing government closer to the people’ (Makumbe 1998). There is an emphasis in the decentralisation policy framework on involving the local communities in decision-making. The argument is that effective public participation will improve the efficiency of public institutions, that it will make decentralised institutions more accountable and responsive, and therefore will deepen democracy (Gaventa and Valderama 1999). In other African countries like Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda etc., a lot of attention has been paid to strengthening accountability and responsiveness of government institutions through institutional reform (through pressure from internal and external stakeholders) but very little has actually been done to implement effective public participation (Fung and Wright 2001). Countries in Africa such as Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Chad, Zambia and Tanzania practise tokenism (described by Arnstein (1969) as a form of participation which is characterised by any of the following: placation, consultation and informing) as a form of participation (McKinley 2006 and Chabal & Daloz 1999). The tokenistic approach reduces public participation to a process of ticking boxes and quantifying the number of attendees to consultative meetings. Hingels et al (2009) noted that it is not the volume of participants but how effective is the process of participation in changing and incorporating decisions of the citizens in government institutions. Hingels et al. went further and highlighted the example of Nazi Germany and other eastern European countries which practised mass participation but without the necessary democratic or beneficial consequences. This shows that the gap between the rhetoric of participation and reality is wide. In Port Alegre in Brazil, there is evidence to show that effective participation has resulted in increased public expenditure on sanitation and health (Baiocchi 2001).

Zimbabwe as a country adopted some form of representative of democracy, where at a local level, the residents elect councillors as their representatives and members of the National Assembly at the national level. Participation in a representative democracy manifests in citizens engaging in political parties, and voting in national and local elections (Hingels et al 2009). In a mature democracy, the legitimacy of the elected representatives depends on effective performance in delivering development or services and goods to the citizens. Failure to deliver development influences the attitude of the citizens; hence, through elections, they can change the elected representatives (Kohli 1993). The assumption is that in a democracy, the electorate is supposed to reward office holders they approve of and throw out the ones they are dissatisfied with (Randall and Svasand 2002). It is important to note that voting/elections occur periodically and what is critical is to understand what happens between election periods; do the citizens have the power and opportunity to influence decisions in-between elections? The answer to this question especially in Zimbabwe is not clear but it is important to note that ‘traditionally in a representative democracy, the assumption has been that citizens express their preference through electoral politics and in turn, it is the job of the elected representatives to make policy and to hold state accountable’ (Gaventa 2003). The underlying general agreement is that in Zimbabwe and other African countries there is very little attempts by governments to achieve full citizen control of public decision-making process in decentralised institutions (Olowu 1997). Cornwall and Gaventa (2001) noted that for citizen control to be achieved, there is a need for changing of perception of citizens from being ‘users and choosers’ to being ‘makers and shapers’ of interventions and services. For full participation to be achieved, Gaventa and Valderama (1999) identified citizen education and awareness building, training of officials and alliances with civil society and advocacy as crucial for citizen control. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Pieterse (2000) indicated public participation in urban governance has faced several problems which are political instability, poor centre-local relationships, dictatorial and centralised management, reduced fiscal authority, inefficient and ineffective administrations and inadequate representation and participation of civil society. In the case of the COH, these problems define the current context, and civil societies are regarded as appendages of regime change agents and, therefore, not easily accepted by all the parties.

The conceptual underpinning of this study is based on the assumption that for decentralisation to achieve its objectives, then the citizens must have the control of the decentralised institution’s decision-making process. This approach is adopted from the Empowered Deliberative Democracy (EDD) model by Fung and Wright (2001). The model is centred on devolving decision-making to individuals and local units within local authorities. These units are supported, but not directed by a central state (Fung and Wright 2001). This model was experimented in Porto Alegre where it was used for the participatory budgeting process. In Porto Alegre, the residents were organised as individuals in their neighbourhood committees, and in turn, these committees send representatives to represent them at the city-level budget committee. According to Baiocchi (2001), the model ‘aims to foster redistributive and efficient decision-making process that is deliberative and democratic and superior to command and control structure on a number of counts’. The approach in this model is to cede considerable decision-making power to residents. The context in the COH is marked by political polarity and violence, poor centre-local relationship, limited fiscal resources and intra-local authority contestation. In this paper, the approach is to examine how the COH budgeting process measures up to the EDD model and how the budgeting process transforms the traditional representative democracy which thrusts decision-making in the hands of the few political elite.

Context of the COH

Public participation in development planning in post-colonial Zimbabwe started in 1984 through a government policy document, termed the prime minister’s directive and authored by the then Prime Minister, Mr Robert Mugabe (Wekwete and Mlalazi 1990). The policy structured participatory planning in such a way that it created a hierarchy of command from the village level to the national government level, with the lowest structure of participatory planning being the Village Development Committee (VIDCO) (in rural areas), followed by the Ward Development Committee (WADCO) (lowest structure in urban areas) and the District Development Council (DDC). The VIDCOs and WADCOs were formed by elected representatives in villages and wards, respectively, with the expectation that the elected representatives were expected to prioritise issues in their committees. The expectation was that these structures would meet bimonthly and deliberate on developmental issues. The DDCs would consolidate the views from the lower structures and produce a district development plan which was then forwarded to the provincial council which then feeds into a national planning body).

The participatory development planning was primed to feed into national planning system, not local authorities. With the introduction of more autonomy to local authorities in the 1990s, these structures became absolute and died their natural death. However, there are lessons which can be learnt from the experience of this nature of development planning. Makumbe (1998) highlighted that the structures become forums where the villagers and ward members come with shopping lists, and this can be attributed to deconcentrated structure of government which was detached from day to day needs of the people. There was also a problem that in some cases these structures ended up being controlled/ captured by ZANU PF; hence, they ended up as structures of the ruling party (De Valk and Wekwete 1990). With more autonomy acceded to urban local authorities, one would have expected the more pronounced public participation policy in Zimbabwe. In the COH, there was no formal public participation policy, and it was left to the individual councillors as representatives to devise ways of incorporating the residents in decision-making. This was the case until the Ministry of Local Government introduced a policy directive on budget formulation process in the urban local authorities.

The Ministry of Local Government and Urban Develeopment (2012) in Circular 3 of 2012 requires that all local councils conduct pre-budget consultations with the residents before the annual budget is crafted and adopted. The circular provides guidance in terms of the level of consultations which are supposed to take place before a budget is adopted. Section 288 of the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29.15) requires that before the expiry of any financial year, the local government authority’s Finance Committee shall draw up and present for the approval of the Council, estimates in such detail as the Council may require of, the income and expenditure on revenue and capital accounts of the Council for the next succeeding financial year. The Minister of Local Government is responsible for administering this piece of legislation. The Act is in the form of carrot and stick. The carrot is realised when the council consults the residents thereby legitimising its operations thereby creating a buy-in from the residents in the event of effective consultation. The stick is realised in the form of the Ministry which has the powers to not approve the budget in the absence of non-consultation. The legislation is silent on the consultation methods and expected outcomes; this leaves room for local government authorities to have their own interpretation and this might result in unintended outcomes.

Methodology

This study was based on the research philosophy of critical realism. The objective was to examine how public participation is at play in the COH Budget participatory process. According to Kitchen and Tate (2000), critical realists want to find out what produces changes, what makes things to happen and what allows or forces changes? Critical realists believe that there are many dimensions of social reality- the surface dimension we see and the other layers we cannot see. Taking off from the critical realism perspective, this study adopted a research design which ensured that various sources and methods were used to collect data from different social actors. The data collection methods used include; observations of budget consultative meetings, document analysis (both primary and secondary) and unstructured interviews with city officials and residents. Data collection was done in a systematic way; the first step was to perform a document analysis from both primary sources and secondary sources. The documents analysed include COH pre-budget statements, an actual budget, public participation policy, COH election reports, and local government policies which have an impact on the affairs of the COH directly and indirectly.

After document analysis, the second step was to conduct observations of the consultative meetings. In order to address the issue of validity, this researcher used an observation schedule with predetermined key components for observation these components were mainly descriptive. The researcher also recorded reflective information during the observations. The observations were also done covertly so there was no procedural reactivity amongst the respondents. During the observations, this researcher also managed to identify the participants for the in-depth unstructured interviews which were conducted after the consultative meetings. The target was to interview at least 3 attendees of the consultative meetings per ward. The researcher also purposefully selected those who did not attend the consultative meetings and asked them only two questions which are why did they not attend the meeting and what was their opinion on the budget consultation process? The table below shows the total interviews and observations carried out (Table 1).

Table 1 Total interviews and observations
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The Harare budget consultation process, according to the directive of Circular 3 of 2012 of the Ministry of local government has to take place in all the 46 wards in the COH. The 2015 budget consultation process took place between September and October 2014. The strategy was to choose at least 30% of the consultative meetings as a sample for observations. The main reason was that most of the meetings in different wards were running concurrently which made it impossible for the researcher to observe each and every consultative meeting. The sample was stratified so that a fair distribution of low, middle and high-income wards was captured. The researcher attended a total of 12 consultative meetings which were divided as follows: 5 low-income wards, 4 middle-income wards, and 3 high-income wards were captured. The other meetings which the researcher did not attend, the researcher depended on the reports of consultations produced by the COH budget consultative team and a report by the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), a non-governmental organisation representing the residents in Harare. Relying on these two reports had its own limitations as there was no guarantee of the objectivity of the individuals who attended the meetings and produced the reports. However, the researcher used these two reports’ findings to triangulate with own findings.

Results

The Consultation Process

The consultation process for the 2015 budget followed the guidelines of Circular 3 of 2012. Notices for the consultative meetings were published in the newspapers, council district offices, radio and online media platforms. It was the responsibility of councillors to make sure their wards were notified of the budget consultative meetings. Because of political polarity in the COH this researcher observed some issues with regard to the residents’ notification of these meetings. There was clear partisanship by councillors in terms of how they interacted with their wards. In most cases, councillors used ward party political structures to communicate council related notices. This created the likelihood that the meeting notices were mainly targeted at members of the councillors’ political party. This argument is supported by observations at some of these meetings where the majority of the attendees were from a certain political party evidenced by residents wearing the political paraphernalia of the councillor’s political party. This goes against the principle of inclusiveness in public participation. If the process is not inclusive then it does not advance the ideals of effective public participation as it does not afford all the residents equal opportunity to decide on how they are governed and to influence development decisions in their wards.

The consultative meetings were chaired by administrative officials from the COH. An interesting observation in some situations was that administrative officials who were there were not prepared to answer some of the questions posed to them by residents despite the fact that they were representing the city’s various departments. In some cases, the contingent of the administrative officials was more than the number of residents present at some consultative meetings. This created an intimidating environment which did not encourage robust debate on issues affecting the residents. The average number of administrative officials per meeting was between ten and twenty (See Table 2 two below for average attendance per ward). A residents’ association official was of the opinion that the high number of administrative officials was as a result of the allowances they are paid to attend these meetings, this view could not be verified.

Table 2 Consultative meeting attendance
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The meetings were being conducted in a rushed manner; the chair was adhering to strict time frames and there was no opportunity for proper deliberation and feedback. The approach was mainly to document what the people expected in the 2015 budget. In most cases, the consultative meetings degenerated into a fault reporting meeting about street lights not working, unavailability of water, potholes etc. What can be deduced from these meetings is that there is a lack of continuous engagement by the COH with residents. Continuous engagement with the residents builds capacity and trust between the residents and the city officials. The was no deliberation of issues or agreeing on/voting on issues hence the meetings ended without agreeing on any issues. In other wards, meetings were punctuated by party political sloganeering and singing thereby turning the consultative meetings into party political rallies. The environment was intimidating for the neutrals let alone to the members of other political parties.

Attendance at Budget Consultative Meetings

The attendance across the wards highlights the issue of apathy with regard to the consultative process. It has to be noted that in the 2014 financial year, this was the only meeting which was called for by the city administrators. Councillors have also conducted, on average, only one feedback meeting in their wards for the whole year. This might also explain the low attendance as there is no culture of deliberative interaction between the city authorities and the residents. Table 2 shows the range of attendance at consultative meetings.

It has to be noted that scheduling of only one consultative meeting per ward with an average of 4000 active voters is not conducive if the views of all the citizens were to be captured. Too many people hamper effective deliberative process, and this opens up for the meetings to be dominated by the elite in these wards. In 12 of the 46 wards in the COH, only less than 25 residents (ordinary residents not representatives) attended the consultative meetings. It is important to note the observation that the way in which the residents contributed to these meetings showed that they had not met, deliberated and agreed on common positions prior to the consultative meeting. This weakened the bargaining power of the residents and created discord in the residents’ voices. In Zimbabwe, there is a very low culture of active citizenry through community-based forums and other spaces afforded to communities. If there was a strong active citizen engagement, then attendance to these meetings and their effectiveness would be improved. By virtue of residents coming together and agreeing on common positions before the budget consultative meeting, residents would increase their bargaining power as they will be speaking with one voice.

Residents revealed the underlying reasons why they did not attend these meetings. Most of the reasons are based on the perception that the consultative meetings were not effective and that they are a fruitless process. One resident said ‘… we are tired of meetings which do not yield anything’. This statement shows that residents draw from their previous experience and perceive these meetings as a waste of time because they are not effective in influencing the final budget. Another resident bolstered this view by saying ‘… if they cannot solve our day to day problems like potholes how can we expect them to take our views seriously in these meetings?’

What is clear from the residents’ perspective is that they feel that they do not have a say in the decision-making process within the COH. If there was continuous engagement with the residents, most of the issues raised above would not have occurred. It is important to note that the objective of the Ministry of Local Government in enforcing the budget consultation process is that there will be a sense of ownership of the budget by the residents. It seems that the whole participatory budgeting process is alienating the very same residents who are supposed to be owners of the budget.

COH Budget Priorities

Prior to commencement of the budget consultation process, the Harare City Council’s Finance Department consolidates priorities from various city departments and comes up with draft proposals which are taken to the residents for consultation. An analysis of the 2015 budget draft proposals shows that the proposals were actually based on the previous year’s budget priorities with no or little deviation. The city’s pre-budget draft proposals are discussed below. Most of the 2014 projects were not completed because of limited funding which is compounded by growing debt.

The first priority was to address the water and sanitation infrastructure. This component of the budget is being funded through loans acquired from international stakeholders. The justification of the city is that for them to provide clean adequate water to the residents, they will have to rehabilitate the water system. The second priority was road maintenance, with the main objective being the forming and capacitating of zonal road repair teams. These teams are responsible for maintaining the road networks in Harare. The third priority was refuse collection capacitation; the city acknowledges that for a number of years they have failed to provide a full service to the city residents with regard to the provision of refuse collection despite the fact that residents are paying for it on a monthly basis. The final two priorities were the construction of public transport holding bays and improving WLAN connectivity within the various COH offices.

Residents’ Priorities

During residents’ consultative meetings in Harare, the majority highlighted certain priorities which they wanted to be addressed in the 2015 budget. What is unique about the priorities of the residents is that most of them highlighted issues which are to do with basic services which they feel are not being delivered by the city authorities. The first issue was that of clean safe water for domestic use. This priority is related to the rehabilitation of the water and sanitation infrastructure pre-budget proposal by the city officials. The issue of clean reliable water supply is a contentious issue in the COH. Some suburbs such as Mabvuku, Tafara, Sunningdale, Budiriro etc. go for days without water, but at the end of the month, there is no significant change in the water bill. Some residents angrily told the city officials this ‘… the water which you are providing is discoloured and smells; it’s not suitable for consumption… You are charging us for pumping dirty water to our homes.’ Other residents highlighted the problem of the shortage of water in such as in the following statement: ‘At times we go for weeks without water but still we still receive bills with no variation in water usage, this is daylight robbery.’ The issue of water cuts and shortage was a common problem raised in all the meetings across all the residential areas. The COH water department officials stated that the city has an average daily demand of 1.4 million cubic litres, while the council is only able to deliver 600,000 cubic litres a day.

Even the city council officials admit that some areas have gone for years without water. ‘Areas that have gone for years without water have begun to experience some positive results of the on-going water and wastewater rehabilitation programmes.’ (COH official). Observations in most of the middle and higher income areas show that most of the residents now source their water from private boreholes drilled on their properties. In low-income areas, some depend on council drilled boreholes but in some suburbs, residents depend on open unsecured wells for water. The general availability of piped water is erratic and most of the residents do not use it for drinking purposes because of its perceived poor quality. The problem of water supply is a perennial problem; water-borne diseases (like cholera and typhoid) breaking out is not new in Harare. A careful analysis of the COH budget shows that water revenue contributes about 50% of the total city revenue.

The second major issue raised during the consultation process was the issue of leaking sewage and non-collected refuse. This priority also concurs to some extent with the city’s pre-budget proposal of capacitating waste removal teams. It is a very emotive issue which was raised by residents. Some residents said ‘… this past year I can count on my fingers the number of times the city collected refuse from our street. We rely on burning whatever refuse we produce and some families do not burn they just dump their refuse in the streets. This is a health hazard.’ One resident emphasised this point by saying ‘… look around our streets, they are full of used diapers and flowing raw sewage, but every month you charge us for refuse removal.’

Poor refuse removal has a direct bearing on the quality of water which the city receives at its treatment plants. The COH is situated in the middle of a water catchment area which then supplies water to the city. Improper sewage and refuse removal means that this waste can work its way into the water supply which means that the city has to pay more in water purification costs.

The third major issue raised was that of street lighting; residents complained that because broken street lights are not fixed on time, thieves are taking advantage of the darkness at night to rob residents. In some suburbs in Harare, the city authorities are encouraging residents to fit lights on their fences to provide street lighting. Most suburbs, especially in middle-income and high-income areas, have gone for years without street lighting which is not ideal as this increased exposure of residents to the danger of criminals.

Residents also highlighted the problem of the dilapidated road network infrastructure. The major concern of the road network in Harare is that it is old and most of the roads in residential areas are in dire need of repair. One resident at a meeting in Highfield Township said “These roads were inherited from the colonial administration and since then they have never been repaired. Most of them have reverted from being tarred to gravel roads.” The impact of poor roads is mainly felt in the damage it causes to vehicles and the number of road accidents which are related to the poor road network. In order to address this, a pre-budget proposal from the city was to capacitate zonal road rehabilitation teams so that they are able to repair roads within the city. Observations show that the majority of the roads are beyond normal pothole patching but need resurfacing.

The final contentious issue raised by the residents was the high ratio of employment costs as compared to service delivery costs. The Ministry of Local Government guidelines stipulate that both the rural and the urban councils are to cap their employment costs at 30% of the total budget. The Harare City Council has not met this requirement for the past 5 years. The majority of the city’s budget is to finance employment costs. In 2009 and 2010, the city spent 96 and 73% of the income on employment costs respectively. COH residents raised this issue in several meetings but it was not dealt with adequately during the consultation process. One resident said ‘If most of the revenue raised goes to pay salaries instead of offering a service, then something is wrong in this city. How can we pay someone a salary for not doing their job?’ Another resident concurred with this view by saying ‘…. We are just donating money to the council’.

The cause of high employment costs in the past years has to be understood in the context that the city employs a workforce of around 9271 to serve a total population of 1.6 million as of June 2014. The other context with regard to the salaries is the high salaries paid to directors and their deputies. In 2014, the salary schedule submitted to a parliamentary portfolio committee on local government shows that the average salary of the directors of the COH was around US$15,000 per month (allowances not included) (Machivenyika 2014). This is more than some of the average salaries paid to municipal officials in developed countries who have a bigger budget and provide better quality services compared to the COH. It has to be noted that there is a lot of secrecy with regard to the salaries of top officials to the extent that what they earn is not easily accessible to the public or the city councillors (Table 3).

Table 3 Percentage of employment costs in the COH budget
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There is a need for the city to contain the employment costs so that the larger portion (at least 70%) of the budget can be directed towards improving service delivery. There are several ways in which the issue of employment costs can be addressed. The residents suggested that the city administration can reduce its number of workers through a human resource audit and weed out redundant staff. This would have an impact on reducing the salary bill and related costs. The majority of the residents recognise that laying off of employees has various social implications especially in a country experiencing economic decay but on the other hand, it is not fair for residents not to receive services due to the expense of paying wages for redundant staff. The second approach suggested by the residents was to adjust salaries so that they reflect the financial situation of the municipality and the overall economic situation of the country. It is folly to continue paying inflated (mega) salaries at the expense of better service delivery to the residents who are the clients. An analysis of the suggestions made by the residents show that they understand the economic situation of the city hence their emphasis is that the city at the very minimum must be able to prioritise its resources and deliver basic services.

Discussion

Taking Ideas to the People

In the COH, the approach to budget formulation process is centred on taking ideas to the people instead of taking ideas from the people. The final budget allocation shows that consultations are only conducted as a result of fulfilling the legal obligations mandated by the Ministry of Local Government. The final budget did not address or include the critical issues raised by the residents; instead, the budget did not deviate from the finance committee’s pre-agreed proposals. Of note is the issue of the city’s large salary bill which was not addressed and caused delays in the approval of the budget by the Ministry of Local government. The funding for road repair and maintenance was dependent on the national funding from vehicle licencing fees. This funding is unreliable, and at times, it is not paid out timeously. It is important to note that for the 2015 financial period, there was no funding allocated for major infrastructure projects; the rehabilitation of water treatment plants and sewage reticulation plants was funded from loans acquired during the previous financial years. The only new deviation was the introduction of the policy which advocated for the retention of the 10% of revenue collected by the various city’s districts. The objective of the policy was that the residents must decide on the projects they can carry with the 10% of revenue collected within their district.

An analysis of the whole process shows that the attitude of the city authorities is that the whole process is a matter of ticking boxes, thereby fulfilling the requirements of Circular 3 of 2012. There was no genuine zeal to effectively include residents in decision-making. This view is supported by the allocation of the 2015 budget which does not reflect the priorities raised by the residents during the consultation. The underlying finding of the final budget allocation was that it did not deviate from the city authorities’ pre-budget proposals. It is clear that the public consultation process in the COH is devoid of substance and effectiveness and geared to mollify the residents.

Representative Democracy Inadequacies and Public Participation in the COH

Zimbabwe is pursuing representative democracy, and its principles are that once a ward councillor is elected, he/she is expected to represent all the residents of that particular ward. In the COH, this is not the case; councillors invite residents for meetings using their political party structures, and this excludes the residents from other political parties and those who are not active members of political parties. The fact that some of the residents attend these meetings wearing political party regalia and councillors chant their party’s political slogans, transforms a state event into a political party event which is not inclusive. There is a need for a clear separation of state functions from political party events. Although the context in Zimbabwe is of high political polarity, there is a need for a clear separation of state functions from political party events.

There is a belief by city administrators that there is no need to be continuously engaging with citizens since the citizens are represented by councillors. Most of the councillors only held an average of two meetings in 2 years. Councillors heavily depend on their political party caucus for policy direction, hence the poor record of consultation and feedback meetings. This may be addressed by enacting the necessary acts and policies which ensure that residents of local authorities form a critical component (backed by active citizenry) in the governance structures of these institutions. One can argue that because the residents are represented by democratically elected councillors, then there is no need for continuous engagement with residents of the local government authorities. This argument goes against decentralisation principles where the citizens are supposed to have a voice in decision-making; in the COH, it is clear that what the city administrators and councillors put forward is completely different from what the residents want. The councillors are elected on the pretext that they will represent all the residents in their wards, but in the COH, this is not the case. I argue that within the acts and policies of local government, there should be a framework which makes it possible for the residents to hold both the administrative officials and councillors accountable for their actions. In the event that the councillors no longer represent the aspirations of their wards, then there should be a provision for recalling them. In the case of the COH, there is little conceptualisation of who is accountable to whom in what domain of life or how a person might deal with a variety of often contesting individuals. Strengthening systems of accountability in the COH would lead to the greater inclusion of the residents in decision-making within the city, thereby increasing the effectiveness of public participation.

Enforcing Active Citizenry

This study has shown that the COH does not provide adequate capacity building opportunities and channels of information to the public so as to enhance their participation capabilities. An informed citizenry forms the basis of effective and active citizen engagement. In the COH, there is no system which ensures a two-way flow of information from the council to the residents and from the residents to the council. For residents to engage effectively there is a need for the continuous building of their capacity. Capacity building is not a once off event; there is a need to continuously build the capacity of the residents so that they reach a point where they can contribute effectively to decision-making within the COH. Civic societies and other non-governmental organisations can play a role in building the capacity of residents so that they are equipped with the skills to participate. This can only be possible if the political environment is conducive to the formation of community forums and encourages the operation of civic organisations without impediments.

The local government system in Zimbabwe provides for people’s participation in choosing their representatives in council with a degree of success. It is when it comes to planning and provision of services that the local government system faces the greatest challenge leading to services which residents and communities have no ownership of or affection for, thereby creating serious challenges. It is recommended that active public participation in all council operations should start from the planning stage up to full implementation including the design, monitoring and evaluation. The budgetary process should be a continuous exercise in order for people to appreciate the need for and levels of rates and service charges. Residents must have an influential stake, accountability and oversight powers in the governance system in the COH.

Is Empowered Deliberative Democracy Possible in the COH?

The findings of this study have shown that the system of public participation is very minimalist. The city has a narrow view of representative democracy where meaningful participation is mainly during local elections. In some aspects, the city fails to embrace and reach the basic principles of representative democracy. This condition is also echoed by Pimbert and Wakeford (2001) when they said that ‘in a representative democracy, the poor are often badly organised and ill-served by the organisations that mobilise their votes and claim their interests’. The residents do not have any other mechanism to hold the city accountable, participate in decision-making and control of the governance process within the city. The polarised political environment in the country also has a negative impact where state functions have been turned into political party rallies. The political environment of polarity and violence also does not promote public participation as residents themselves feel uncomfortable working with other residents from other political parties. The civil society has not been effective in some wards; it is non-existent, and there are no politically neutral avenues where residents can participate in governing the COH. The resident’s associations, because of the political polarity, are always viewed with suspicion; hence, some of the political parties are reluctant to work with them. Civil society is not functioning as a repository for public participation; instead, it is regarded as politically captured and anti-ruling party.

Empowered Deliberative Democracy seeks communicative influence, and in the case of the COH, this is impossible to achieve because of the context and issues highlighted above. For EDD to be effective in the COH, it is important to reform the system of public participation and place the residents at the centre of the system. The system reforms must ensure inclusiveness, accountability, openness and responsiveness. This can be achieved through reforming the legislation and governance policies. The approach of organising neighbourhood committees which are represented at city level budget committee as in Porto Alegre (Fung and Wright 2001) might be a starting point in the COH. The state must play a supportive role in the formation of the committees, and the civil society can play a facilitatory role in diffusing the politically polarised environment. However, it is important to note that there is a high chance the committees might be captured by the political elite. The neighbourhood committees will provide a politically neutral environment which is conducive for deliberative democracy purpose, and they will also help the residents to agree on positions which will feed into the city’s budget.

Conclusion

This paper has shown that in the COH, the system of governance is devoid of genuine public participation. The system of governance barely meets the representative democracy principles. The paper has also shown that the political context is not conducive for deliberative democracy and the residents are mere bystanders in the decision-making process. In the COH, there is a need for a public participation system which is inclusive, accountable, responsive and open. The administrative officials and the councillors need to change their attitude on public participation and ensure that they respond in an open manner to the issues raised by the residents. The residents’ views must not be viewed as optional but must be integral in decision-making in the COH. This calls for a change in how the central state and local state tackle active citizen engagement. For the budget formulation process to succeed in the COH, there is a need for the whole process of public consultation to be part of a broader citizen engagement approach which is centred on inclusiveness, openness, accountability, and responsiveness.