Spare us the farcical forums and pretend policy powwows
The liquor bill ‘consultation’ with stakeholders a farce of cherry-picked research and obfuscation, writes Leon Louw
Farcical "workshops", "consultations", "seminars" and "indabas" parade as compliance with the constitutional requirement that laws and policies must be preceded and influenced by public participation. Policy making starts with ideological or emotional impulses to "do something" about real or imagined problems. Lavishly funded surrogates and propagandists, usually academics and consultants, produce ill-considered proposals with profound implications. There are reluctant calls for comment and policy events. After the tedium of ignoring countervailing evidence, whimsical proposals are finalised and published in roughly original form. Lists of participants create the impression that contributions were taken seriously. Finally, the unsuspecting populace is subjected, without proper evaluation, to ill-considered policies. "Final" proposals can be comically absurd, such as provisions in the Liquor Bill prescribing where liquor licences will be lawful if enacted. I offered a prize at Monday...
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