SOUTH Africans need to play more active role in accomplishing the goals set out in the National Development Plan (NDP), an NGO said yesterday.

"People need to be integrally involved in engaging with all the priorities identified in the NDP, particularly [regarding] improving education and health," the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (Casac) said in a statement.

It said the Constitution "envisaged" a democracy where citizens played an active role in the development of their country, and that was what South Africans needed to do.

Casac released a report yesterday titled From Subject to Citizen: Let the People Govern, criticising the NDP. "It [the report] seeks to ensure that the vision articulated by the National Planning Commission (NPC) [in the NDP] is premised on the goals and standards to which South African society aspires, and which are embodied in the Constitution."

Casac said the NDP needed to clarify the role of traditional leaders in the creation of an "inclusive rural economy", and to investigate a new financial model for housing delivery.

The NPC, appointed in May 2010 to draft a vision and plan for the country, has identified nine problem areas that needed to be tackled, including unemployment and corruption.

Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel, who also acts as the NPC chairman, said in March that South Africans needed to be more active in politics than they were during the anti-apartheid struggle.