Build Pressure with Petitions
Have you tried reporting your problem, got your councillor, your residents’ association involved, and still nothing is done to address it? We hear you. It can take determination and grit to deal with local municipality problems. Too often, local municipalities are very unresponsive. One good way to escalate your concern is to collect signatures on a public petition. Everyone has the right to submit a petition to the government and to get a response to it.
Steps for creating a petition
1. Find the right person to send the petition to
Make sure your petition or letter is addressed to someone who is in a position to take action on your complaint. Fixlocal’s Report tool may help you find the right contacts.
You may also want to submit your petition or letter to someone who is in a position to hold a person or government department to account. For example, if your issue is about a councillor who isn’t assisting you, you may want to send a letter to the speaker of the council or the whip of the councillor’s political party - the whip is a Member of Parliament (MP) who is appointed by a political party to help organize its members and ensure party discipline. At the top of the letter or petition, indicate who it’s addressed to.
2. Write a strong, concise motivation
Use specific, reliable facts to support your claims and include photos and other supporting documents if you can. It’s a good idea to detail any times you have reported your issue in the past and include the report reference numbers to give background. Include all the necessary information, but keep it short and to the point.
Take a look at these examples:
An update on a successful petition to the Minister of Finance to support funding for youth work opportunities.
An effective petition by a ward councillor to protect the City of Joburg’s municipal records.
These examples are petitions that have been managed digitally. You can also collect signatures on paper and submit the whole pile to the person who has the responsibility to make sure your problem is fixed.
3. Suggest clear, actionable solutions
The best petitions demand clear solutions with a deadline. Propose a specific path forward to address your issue so that it's possible to follow up and hold the receiver to account if they do not take action by the specified date.
4. Collect signatures and endorsements
Creating an online petition through sites like Amandla.mobi, Avaaz’s community petitions and Change.org make it easy to collect signatures. Sometimes, communities use online form sites like Google Forms as petition sites because they allow you to collect more information on signatories.
Share the petition on community WhatsApp and Facebook groups so that as many people as possible can sign on. Reach out to other community groups and organisations that may be supportive of your petition to see if they can endorse or share it with their members.
5. Create public pressure for action as you submit your petition
Often, community and activist groups choose to publicly hand over their petitions so that they can use the media to hold officials or elected representatives to account. Once your petition has been submitted, monitor whether the recipient acknowledges it and takes steps to act. If they ignore you, don’t be scared to get in touch with the media. This often makes those responsible act more quickly. You can find out more about getting your voice heard in the media here.
6. Submit your petition and keep following up
All municipal councils, provincial legislatures and even the national assembly of parliament allow citizens to submit petitions. All councils and legislatures are required by law to promptly respond to petitions.
Your municipal council
If your petition is about an issue with local government service in your neighbourhood, it’s a good idea to submit it to your municipal council. Submit your petition directly to the Office of the Speaker of the municipal council. The contact details for the Office of the Speaker for every municipality are listed here. You can also hand the petition to your ward councillor, who should submit it to the council on your behalf.
The municipal council is the decision-making body of local government and is made up of elected councillors who have the power to vote on issues related to bylaws and municipal budgets on behalf of their wards.
Timing matters here. It’s a good idea to submit a petition just before a council meeting and attend the meeting to ask for a response.
####Provincial legislatures
All provincial legislatures allow you to submit a petition to the Speaker's Office via the internet or deliver a hard copy in person. Provincial legislatures are not directly responsible for local government service delivery, but many of them provide oversight to municipalities and can help them take action on local issues. The links below connect you to the correct process to follow and include petition forms for you to fill in for submission.
Submit a petition to:
National Legislature (Parliament)
If you feel your issue is of broad enough significance, all South African residents can submit petitions to parliament. (This link also gives important information on what to include in a petition, as well as the official form to use in the submission.) However, it is necessary to reach out to and gain the endorsement of at least one member of parliament to have your petition introduced to the National Assembly. You can approach any MP by contacting them directly or by reaching out to their political party.
Don’t give up. You can do it! Keep reaching out to the office or council you submitted your petition to and make sure it does not get ignored. You have a right to a response.
Remember that your voice is even more powerful when combined with those of others in your community. Throughout the petition writing process, get your neighbours and other active citizens involved. The more people, the greater the pressure. We are stronger together!
Johannesburg
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