The Dark and Lovely Billboard on the building next to Nelson Mandela bridge in the City of Johannesburg. Pic: Sydney Seshibedi. 23/9/05. © Sunday Times.

While it is politicians who determine policy and officials who implement it, it makes no sense if recommendations by officials based on policy positions adopted by the council are simply overturned. But that is precisely what happened at the Nelson Mandela Bay Housing and Land Committee meeting on Tuesday when recommendations by officials based on the Walmer Policy Plan were simply rejected.

The purpose of having policy plans for specific areas of any city is to create a sense of certainty for residents purchasing property and to foster a climate conducive to a healthy and safe environment. As a result areas are set aside in the planning process for residential use of one kind or another with others zoned for commercial and industrial purposes, for example.

It cannot be right that a person buying a house in an area zoned residential should at the whim of a council committee find adjacent properties suddenly rezoned for business or other purposes.

That in no way falls foul of the social housing projects that seek to address the legacy of apartheid spatial planning.

We believe ANC councillors who voted to override the recommendations of Housing and Land Directorate officials and quite unilaterally and without public consultation acted in a manner that turns spatial planning on its head, should explain why they did so.

Specifically, they should explain why they ignored a constitutional imperative that public participation must precede what amounts to nothing other than a policy change.

The Constitutional Court has ruled decisively on this issue in, for example, the case where it held Matatiele residents were not properly consulted on the question of whether they should be part of the Eastern Cape or KwaZulu-Natal.

Residents of a specific area negatively affected by the arbitrary decisions of a council committee might well consider joint action in court as a result.

Equally disturbing is that the legitimate concerns of residents with regard, for example, to parking, were simply ignored even though they were found to be solidly grounded and had the support of the officials.

The result of the action of ANC councillors is to create a climate of suspicion around the motivation for their actions.

It is therefore in the interests of transparency and accountability that they should provide cogent reasons why they saw fit to vote as they did.

• Mann release raises questions

The pardoning of Simon Mann and four South Africans by Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema raises issues about the price paid for their release. The five were found guilty of being the ring- leaders of a plot to overthrow the president.

Understandably their families have welcomed their release, but we do not believe the President of Equatorial Guinea would have acted in this manner unless there was a quid pro quo. That is perhaps to be found in the fact President Jacob Zuma began a state visit to the West African nation yesterday at a time when Nguema is under increasing pressure from European nations and human rights groups.

That raises the question of whether we should be lending legitimacy to the president of a country who is a dictator and whose commitment to the promotion of the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution is non-existent.

Zuma denies intervening to secure the men’s release and the official line is that Nguema granted “compassionate forgiveness”. We are not convinced that is the truth and are concerned that by consorting with the dictators of the continent on this basis, Zuma is undermining the role we should be playing in promoting human rights.