The Role of South Africa's Gauteng Provincial Legislature in Promoting Public Participation 

The involvement of the populace in governance legitimises the governance system, translating to a reciprocal relationship between the electorate and the elected. It facilitates collaboration between the governor and the governed in order to attain envisaged policy trajectories and attributes of an effective and efficient service delivery process. Based on this sentiment, this article focused on the role of South Africa's Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) in promoting public participation and assessed the effectiveness thereof. The study establishes that the GPL has several participative instruments to cater for all sectors in the province. At face value, this creates an impression of absolute inclusivity. However, findings proved otherwise. The institution's participatory apparatus is unable to attract and sustain the desired participation characteristic of the province's demographical makeup. The study established the educative and informative quality of the institution's public participative machinery. It also revealed the ailing feedback mechanism and the inadequate or lack of transmission of matters from public participation to oversight committees. As a remedial action, the article suggests the augmenting of the institution's inclusivity scale by debunking preconceived notions about the institution's political inclinations. The article further recommends strengthening the feedback mechanism by facilitating regular and relevant feedback sessions. In response to the inadequate or lack of transmitting matters to oversight committees, the article recommends the involvement of oversight committee members in the institution's public participation activities. It further proposes the timely transmission and incorporation of public inputs to the house committee system.