South Africa does not have a constituency based parliamentary system, which means that the members of parliament are not seen as a means of direct access to policy. However, the revolving parliament and cabinet legkotla’s provide parlimentarians access to the goings on in communities. However, these occur infrequently and do not address many issues because of budget and time constraints. As a result of this, the parliament does not always perform the function it does in other countries: of allowing for community participation in policy development.
Community representation takes place at the ward level, where elected councillors represent the community. At a national level, each district is allocated a political champion. This is a cabinet minister who supposedly concerns himself/herself with the development issues from that particular area. Many communities are unaware of who their political champion is and others report never seeing them, this also applies to people interviewed in Jozini.
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