TRACKING down your MP during constituency time requires considerable persistence, not to mention access to the internet and a telephone.
The hurdles begin with Parliament. There is no list of which constituency each MP serves, nor details of the addresses and phone numbers of the constituency offices where parliamentarians this year are required to spend 10 weeks in all serving voters.
Parliament's website lists every MP but, overwhelmingly, the space provided for constituency contact details is blank. Most individual MPs' entries give only an e-mail address and a phone number for their parliamentary office.
Yet they are supposed to "be available to the public, help solve problems and report back to their constituents", according to Parliament's website.
Under the heading "Contact your Member", the website gives Parliament's switchboard number and advises that "constituency offices are usually listed in the local telephone directory".
There are three ANC constituency offices in the Cape Town telephone directory. That in Hout Bay referred queries to a member of the provincial legislature, and calling the number for the office in Macassar did not even produce a ringing tone.
The DA lists its provincial and branch party offices. Neither the United Democratic Movement nor Cope is listed, and the IFP's listing is for its parliamentary office.
None of this information sheds any light on which MP is responsible for interacting with citizens in a particular area.
Parliament used to publish a booklet with each MP's photograph and phone numbers during sessions and in recess, as well as other contact details, such as cellphone numbers and the address and phone number of constituency offices. It seems to have been published last in 2002.
A search led to a somewhat outdated list of four political parties' constituency details, carefully filed away.
Parliament referred all enquiries to the political parties represented in the national legislature - and that became the second hurdle.
The ANC has a constituency co-ordinator, who initially promised to supply a list, but then referred the request to the parliamentary caucus spokes-man, who then referred us to www.anc.org.za/caucus. While this lists all ANC MPs, there are a number of them who give no details about their constituency.
The entry for Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula shows only his government contact details in Cape Town and Pretoria, unlike Deputy Co-operative Governance Minister Yunus Carrim, who serves Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, and State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, who serves Port Shepstone.
Although Geoff Doidge and Barbara Hogan left Parliament in President Jacob Zuma's cabinet shuffle on October 31, they remain listed as representing constituencies in the Eastern Cape and Johannesburg.
Without the internet or a phone, none of this information is easily accessible.
Perhaps Parliament, which describes itself as being "activist" and a "People's Parliament", and which is giving political parties R298 million this year to perform constituency and other political work and to support party leaders - is comfortable allowing parties to operate on the principle that word of mouth and branding the office work best.
A new ANC constituency office sign in Tsolo, Eastern Cape, may be noticeable, but finding the constituency office of Deputy International Relations Minister Marius Fransman and Planning Minister Trevor Manuel in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, required the assistance of a homeless couple and a car guard.
The DA seems to operate mainly with a network of constituency operations managers and volunteers using cellphones. A request for a list of constituency offices was referred to the operations managers, all of whom seemed to work from home or the provincial DA office.
Parliament's 2005 policy document on political allowances states in section 8.7 that "a party must lease office space for the exclusive use of constituency offices".
That's apart from outlining that while parties may determine the location of these offices, which should be clearly signposted, they must, each March, inform the secretary of Parliament which MP is allocated to which office and give its address.
Tracking down DA MPs' constituencies was most easily done by contacting the party's provincial offices. It helped to know the MP's name, otherwise it required holding on before the suburb and an MP were matched.
E-mail addresses were readily given, as were assistants' office numbers - but MPs' cellphone numbers not so readily on many occasions. Getting hold of the MP would require another phone call.
There wasn't a physical DA constituency office to go to. While DA office signs are clearly visible at the Mitchells Plain town centre, the office on the first floor has been taken over by another tenant.
In Athlone, Cape Town, the office where DA leader Helen Zille and others celebrated winning Ward 46 from the ANC in a by-election, was locked up.
The Freedom Front Plus appears to run its constituency operations from its provincial party offices - the details are on its website.
On request, Cope provided a bare bones list, giving a surname alongside regions such as "Western Cape 1", or several entries for Limpopo. With a handful of exceptions, Cope constituency offices have no landlines. The Athlone office was found to be locked, although it was lunch time.
"Sometimes they are here, sometimes not," another tenant said.
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