OSF index reveals that SA's degree of openness has not progressed: Fiscal accountability doing particularly poorly

Twenty-two years after Nelson Mandela walked out of prison to realise his dream of an open and free society, and sixteen years after the sometimes fractious negotiations that gave rise to our Constitution, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa's (OSF-SA) latest monitoring index has found that little progress towards these ideals has been made.

This emerged from the results of the second round of Open Society Monitoring Index (OSMI) announced yesterday evening at the Women's Jail, Constitution Hill in Johannesburg.

The second OSMI, commissioned in April 2011, measures openness in South African society based on four broad dimensions: the Free Flow of Information; Inclusive, Accountable and Responsive Government Institutions; Fiscal Accountability; and the Rule of Law. Each dimension included several sub-dimensions.

As in the first round of OSMI conducted in 2010, not one of the four dimensions achieved a score above the midpoint (5.5 out of 10). Openness was most compromised with respect to "Fiscal Accountability", which was introduced as a fourth dimension in OSMI Round 2. This dimension earned an overall mean score of 3.8, compared to an average of 5.4 for "Accountable and Responsive Government", 4.7 for the "Rule of Law," and 4.6 for the "Free Flow of Information."

"Overall, these scores indicate that South Africa is not doing particularly well in any of these three dimensions, and is doing particularly poorly in the area of Fiscal Accountability," says Zohra Dawood, Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa.

Compared to OSMI Round 1 in 2010, there is a marginal improvement in the "Rule of Law" (2010: 4.4; 2012: 4.7). This may be driven by the 0.7 increase in score for the "Independence of Elite Law Enforcing Agencies" sub-dimension.

The improved score is surprising considering that national corruption-fighting unit, the Hawks - successor of the disbanded Scorpions, faces an uncertain future after the recent "Glenister Judgment", so-called when Johannesburg businessman, Hugh Glenister challenged the constitutional validity of the legislation that disbanded the Scorpions and established the Hawks within the SAPS.

Glenister won his case when the Constitutional Court ruled that the SAPS Amendment Bill was unconstitutional on the grounds of insufficient specialisation, and insulation from political interference.

"We have reasoned that despite the existing inadequacies of South Africa's anti-corruption unit, the favourable ruling in the Glenister Judgment represents progress for the rule of law. But more likely, we believe the outspoken and courageous voice of the Public Protector has gone some way to improving South Africans confidence in this regard," adds Dawood.

Despite little movement in the "Accountable and Responsive Government Institutions" dimension it carries the highest score (7.2) due to overwhelmingly positive evaluations of South Africa's ability to routinely conduct "Free and Fair Elections."

The second highest overall score of 5.5 - essentially unchanged from 2010 - was allocated to a "Free and Independent News Media." Its other sub-dimension, "Public Access to Information", received a score almost identical to the 2010 score of 4.4.

"This reflects a sense that the Protection of State Information Bill will be revised to allow for a public interest defense of the publication of classified information, or that it will ultimately fail to withstand court challenges. It might also reflect the fact that the existing laws on public access to information are already so complex and expensive to use that public access would not be appreciably diminished from its already problematic state," says Dawood.

The low score for Fiscal Accountability masks a very large variation between the 5.0 awarded to the sub-dimension of "National Government Fiscal Accountability" and the 2.6 given to "Political Party Fiscal Accountability," notably the lowest score earned by any of the 11 sub-dimensions.

"Measuring South Africa's progress toward creating a truly open society is essential not simply as a way of gauging its success in putting democratic principles into practice, but also as a way of assessing the country's ability to realise its transformative social aims through public policies informed by accurate information, responsive governance and reasoned debate," concluded Dawood.

As one response to the OSMI findings, the OSF-SA has contributed R5 million over 5 years to establish the Van Zyl Slabbert Chair at the University of Cape Town. The Chair will be tasked with formulating responses to some of the issues raised by the Index, and threats to an open society, through research, presentations, public lectures and teaching at post-graduate level.

The guest speakers at the launch of the OSMI Round 2 were Dr Mamphela Ramphele, Founder of Citizens Movement for Social Change (CMfSC) and Mr Nic Dawes - Editor-in-Chief of the Mail & Guardian.

Results for the Open Society Monitoring Index 2012

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Notes to editor

The Open Society Monitoring Index (OSMI)

First launched in August 2010 in collaboration with the Democracy in Africa Research Unit (DARU) in the University of Cape Town's Centre for Social Science Research, the OSMI measures the degree of openness/constitutional democracy in South African society as a means to establish how far the country has progressed in creating an open society, which is both a fundamental goal and founding principle of the Constitution.

The process

Each of the first two Rounds of OSMI consisted of a two stage process. 

In the first stage, empirical data about the openness of South African society was collected by the Democracy in Africa Research Unit (DARU) in the University of Cape Town's Centre for Social Science Research. In 2010, this was accomplished by means of an extensive review of the most comprehensive, accurate and current information published on each of the four dimensions comprising the index. For the second round of OSMI, DARU also commissioned independent analysts and expert researchers from the Institute for Security Studies, the Open Democracy Advice Centre, and the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit at UCT to assist them in updating and expanding this information across each of the dimensions.

Statement issued by FTI Consulting, South Africa on behalf of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, April 12 2012

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