This month saw a flurry of public engagement at Parliament. The implementation of the Domestic Violence Act was critically examined, a process that resulted from an earlier consultation with civil society.

Parliament received public input on the Green Paper on national strategic planning.

The medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) came under public scrutiny in a process that, for the first time, could have resulted in amendments.

December will see service delivery problems tackled.

Parliament had fallen into a lacklustre approach to public consultation, which led to a Constitutional Court decision that forced it to reopen certain laws for input from civil society. This is doubtless one of the reasons MPs seem to be taking public hearings more seriously.

It is also in line with a government that finally acknowledges the problems that South Africans face.

Instead of the denial of before - "Aids, what Aids?" and "Crime, what crime?" - there is an almost disarming honesty, as could be seen at Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka's briefing earlier this month to an ad hoc committee set up to investigate the service delivery protests.

He identified the main factor behind the delivery shambles as battles over access to resources, whether jobs or tenders, at municipal level.

Corruption is rife; people are employed despite lacking skills. Meanwhile, councillors avoid accountability to the people they are supposed to serve.

Shiceka fingered Parliament as one of the culprits in allowing this situation to manifest. After all, Parliament is tasked with scrutinising the implementation of laws.

This task becomes more imperative when laws are being broken, as is the case with some municipalities.

His criticism is deserved. Ten years into democracy, it was not uncommon to hear politicians and even pundits say that, with Parliament having passed most of the laws necessary to give effect to the Constitution, "the action" had shifted elsewhere, which was why talented people had to move on.

This is reflected in the ever-diminishing resources that media companies are willing to expend on parliamentary coverage.

Parliament's shrinking role was due in no small measure to the heavy hand of the executive paralysing those MPs who remained behind, rendering them diligent only when doing the executive's bidding.

Whether the ad hoc committee's public hearings on service delivery will be effective depends on who gets to speak and, of course, whether they are listened to.

The public "consultation" that preceded the dismantling of the Scorpions should alert us to the danger of public hearings being a "formality used merely to further an existing government agenda", as Idasa's Shameela Seedat phrased it.

The just-completed MTBPS public consultation process unfortunately again serves as an example of the obstacles in the way of meaningful public consultation.

While Parliament's finance committee has throughout the years conducted public hearings on the budget, it did not have the necessary powers to amend the budget.

Despite a constitutional provision, it has taken until this year for the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act to see the light.

This empowers Parliament to revise the fiscal framework and the budget.

The lag should not be surprising, given the previous government leadership's resistance to public engagement on economic policy.

Insulating economic policy from democratic pressure in developing countries has long been promoted by conservative economists, including at the Bretton Woods institutions.

Comparing the finance committee's 2008 and 2009 reports on the MTBPS, one would hope for vastly different recommendations.

Instead, despite what should be a significantly enhanced process, there are some disturbing similarities.

Firstly, the finance committee's sparse recommendations to the National Assembly include that the parliamentary programme should allow more time for engagement with the MTBPS - which was recommended in last year's report.

Furthermore, the committee admitted to being unable to engage with the technical aspects of the MTBPS because the budget research office has not been set up yet.

This means MPs drafted those clauses in the act that stipulate research support, but took no steps to actualise them.

The law has been in place since April this year. Surely six months should be enough time to set up such an office?

Judging by the questions during the public hearings, the parliamentarians need that research support urgently.

MPs even sought clarity on economics jargon instead of digging into the substance of presentations.

Parliament is notorious for ignoring its own recommendations. Given that the request for more time to deal with the MTBPS was the same as last year, will we have another request in next year's report for research capacity?

Perhaps more troubling is the fact that the public submissions were from the usual crowd that has been making input at finance committee hearings over the past 15 years: organised business, organised labour and an economist from a large financial institution.

Only one civil society organisation, Idasa, featured.

Similarly, the appropriations committee - set up in terms of the act to consider departments' budgetary allocations - received public input only from economists and two statutory bodies.

The People's Budget Coalition could not make it.

Merely listening to the input of the same well-resourced and connected organisations and individuals flies in the face of democratic participation.

Civil society organisations should grasp this opportunity to influence where and how our money is spent.

But we also need more than lip service from MPs to the worn-out slogan of "taking Parliament to the people".

• This monthly column series by author and journalist Christi van der Westhuizen is made available by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa to monitor our democracy. The views expressed are her own. This  article was published in the Pretoria News on 25th November 2009
• See also:  Parliament, the Budget and Poverty in South Africa: A Shift in Power
  Edited by Len Verwey with Kate Lefko-Everett, Ahmed Mohammed and Musa Zamisa