Community Engagement Central to Ral’s Business Strategy

Roads Agency Limpopo’s business model is built on the ideals of democratic centralism and Batho Pele traditions, writes Mmileng editor Maropeng Manyathela.

The democratisation of the road governance space cannot be complete without effectively engaged, involved and empowered communities. Batho Pele teachings and ideals put the community engagement burden squarely on Roads Agency Limpopo’s shoulders.

Chapter 2 and Section 32 of the South African Constitution obligate RAL to design and implement impactful community participation schemes. As a creature of the statutes, RAL has a statutory bond to integrate unique community needs and preferences into its business plans.

The constitution expects communities to be at the centre of RAL’s intervention strategy. If we take the moral argument into account, one would strongly argue that as a statutory morally-agent, RAL cannot afford to treat community engagement lightly.

As the real owners of local road assets, the risk of alienating local communities in RAL’s road planning, designing, construction and maintenance effort is enormous. The past 10 years gave us a strong hint of what happens when a public entity of RAL’s stature takes a casual

approach to community engagement.

We have seen that in settings where communities are not properly engaged, violent service delivery protests are inevitable. It is common knowledge that the failure to engage local communities in any community development matrix is a known driver of community protests.

Community engagement is at the centre of RAL’s business strategy. The idea of a result-driven community interface strategy perfectly fits well into RAL’s embedded value system. RAL’s business model is built on the ideals of democratic centralism and Batho Pele traditions.

McMillan, du Plessis, van Dyk, Dippenaar & Malekane (2013) argue that as part of its democratic agenda, every public entity needs to adopt a strong community-focus.

A strong-community focus means that a public entity put community interests at the centre of its core interventions. Such an entity consistently harnesses the inputs of community members when formulating its intervention plans, strategies and programmes.

It is on the basis of these embedded values that RAL is compelled to keep strengthening community engagement strategies.

Many scholars see community engagement as a “process whereby a service system proactively identify community values, concerns and aspirations; incorporates those values, concerns and aspirations into its decision-making processes; and then finally establishes an ongoing partnership with the community to ensure that the community’s priorities and values continue to shape services and the service system”.

The United Nations Brisbane Declaration International Conference on Engaging Communities (2005) echoed this view by defining community engagement as “a two way process by which the aspirations, concerns, needs and values of citizens and communities are incorporated at all levels and in all sectors in policy development, planning, decision-making, service delivery and assessment”.

The concept of community engagement is not only peculiar to RAL. The practice of community engagement is based on the recognition that communities play an integral role in the success of every organisation.

RAL’s secret to success over the years hinged around its combative community engagement style.

The majority view within RAL is that given the centrality of local communities in the provincial road development framework, more energies need to be deployed towards re-energising the Agency’s community engagement environment.

The vital contribution of local communities in the governance of RAL’s corporate affairs cannot be over emphasised. Community interface sessions accord local communities an opportunity to shape and influence RAL’s business strategy and operational policies.

As a firm believer in Batho Pele

teachings, RAL hereby reassures all citizens that it will not spare any opportunity to amplify community voices in all aspects of its interventions. Thus, management is of the view that the best way to ring-fence RAL against the many risks presented by community protests remains to step up its community engagement framework.

“COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IS AT THE CENTRE OF ROADS AGENCY LIMPOPO’S BUSINESS STRATEGY. “