In its efforts to promote participatory democracy, the public participation and petition act committee of the Limpopo Legislature conducted its first educational workshop at the municipal lapa with councillors and other community stakeholders last Wednesday. According to MPL Mr Thlelife Mashamaite, the primary purpose of the workshop was to educate people about the role of the legislature, to encourage public participation in order to ensure that there is transparency in the rendering of service delivery and awarding of tenders. Mashamaite said that the legislature views the importance of public participation as crucial in the decision-making process of the democratic government. “This is the people's government, so we expect them to defend and deepen this democracy,” he said. During the workshop, nepotism, fraud and corruption were also highlighted. Community members also stressed their dissatisfaction about the awarding of catering tenders to same people all the time. They also complained about the shabby job and uncompleted projects by developers. Mr Jeffrey Gohell, representing both the Chairperson’s Association and the Hlanganani Concerned Group, appreciated the giant step taken by the legislature of going down to the communities and teaching people about how their democratic government is run. “I think this a great initiative of informing our people about the roles of the legislature and as of now, we will be knowing how the provincial government is being operated. I think this is going to crush the ignorance of how the government works in the minds of our people. Once more, this is a good effort by the legislature; they have taken a step in the right direction,” he said. The president of the traditional healers’ council of South Africa, Mr Mmbulaheni Neluvhola, who was also supportive of the educational workshop, said that it would be important for the provincial government to realise the importance of budgeting a certain amount to establish a plantation where herbs can be planted. He said this would prevent government from spending millions of rands in importing medicine from Europe. Neluvhola added that the inclusion of traditional healers in the decision-making processes in the government would always play a significant role in morality.