R2K Western Cape calls on Mayor to release service delivery docs

R2K Western Cape media statement

The Right2Know Western Cape calls on Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille to make the City’s Service Delivery Agreements available to civil society and investigate the actions of officials who failed to provide adequate access to information.

We note with concern that two of our member organisations, the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), have made several unsuccessful attempts to access service delivery agreements between the city and private contractors who are responsible for refuse collection in informal settlements.

This kind of information is vital to community struggles for decent services; without it, community leaders cannot hold officials to account on services. By withholding the information, the City is also preventing communities from exercising accountability over private contractors to whom these services have been outsourced.

The Right2Know campaign believes this is symptomatic of a deep-set, country-wide challenge to civil society’s attempts to hold government to account; requests for information are too often denied or simply ignored, often unlawfully, contributing to a climate of ‘secrecy’ in local government that undermines struggles for delivery and accountability.

We therefore call on the Mayor to make the relevant information available to the public as a matter of urgency.