I WAS criticised last week for the cliffhanger in my column about how the price of sorghum beer is democratically decided in my village.

"No mhleli [editor], you can't do that," screamed a text message on my phone from one of the concerned readers...

Now, let me cleanse myself of the "cultural crime".

People are interested in influencing whatever affects their livelihoods, however trivial it might appear to others.

Judging by the attendance at the villagers' gathering, at which the price of sorghum beer was to be decided by discussion and tasting of the brew, it was a very important matter.

I believe there is wisdom to be derived from some of the practices of libandla or lekgotla (gathering) at which issues are thrashed out.

Politics literature is awash with how democracy originated in Greek city states and other European places.

The truth is that Africans have always practised some form of democracy. By democracy, I mean taking decisions by consensus, not leaving elected leaders to do as they wish.

When I wrote about the Ngwenyeni villagers I had in mind the toll fees that motorists have to pay around the country and the controversy sparked by the proposed e-tolls in Gauteng.

Toll fees are the kind of taxes that require discussions with those who pay them because motorists don't have optional routes.

Where there are limited or no optional means to obtain a service there should be greater emphasis on consultation.

The system that makes Eskom executives sweat before an application for electricity tariff hikes is approved is a good example.

I wonder why we can't have a tolling regulatory authority through which the South African National Roads Agency Limited can apply to raise toll fees and citizens can participate in the process.

However, our courts have instructed the government to adopt an anti-consultation stance. This is completely at odds with demands of a tension-ridden society in which consultation - or lack of it - on public policy is a matter of life and death.

In overturning an urgent interdict sought to block the implementation of e-tolls, the Constitutional Court went overboard by suggesting there was no need for consultation by the government in the way our taxes are derived and spent.

I have great respect for Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, but I found his majority judgment in the e-tolls matter a little off the mark, especially the untrammelled power it gives the government to tax and spend as it wishes.

"The duty of determining how public resources are to be drawn upon and reordered is at the heartland of executive government function and domain," Moseneke reasoned.

"What is more - absent any proof of unlawfulness or fraud or corruption - the power and prerogative to formulate and implement policy on how to finance public projects reside in the executive domain of the national executive subject to budgetary appropriation by Parliament."

Here he makes two qualifications. Firstly, if and when there is no proof of unlawfulness, fraud or corruption, there is nothing wrong with the government taxing and spending public money.

Secondly, for monies to be spent, Parliament must have authorised such budget and expenditure.

The judgment does not give room for citizens to participate in matters that relate to their taxes. This has implication beyond e-tolls. With the economy operating on a less than desirable footing, many citizens are becoming tax activists.

They are increasingly becoming conscious of what their monies are used for - on the arms deal or the Nkandla compound. They are beginning to understand that the government does not own the budget and that it belongs to citizens, but is held in trust by the government that collects it.

We cannot be satisfied with Moseneke's two criteria. They are too narrow. The unintended consequence of Moseneke's opinion is that the government has unlimited powers over our taxes. This approach to public money is dangerous to say the least.

The danger stares you in the face if you read the judgment by Judge Louis Vorster of the Pretoria High Court in which he dismissed an application to set aside the e-toll plan.

Citing Moseneke's ruling, Vorster argued that public financing of public projects does not require public consultation.

"It is clear from the Constitutional Court judgment, which I have noted that the capital costs of the proposed toll scheme as well as operating costs and likely tariff to be imposed are matters which are not open to public comment or public participation by potentially interested or affected persons as those matters fall squarely within the domain of the executive government as a matter of financial policy."

Vorster's views would be correct had the drafters of the constitution sought to create a tyranny of the executive arm of government.

I don't think that was their intention.