E-government can be seen as governing through the use of information technology. There is a compound entitled public participation in government. Public participation is a key element of democratic systems. It is the means by which the people interact with the government. Public participation is achieved by a range of means: votes at election time, referenda, consultative committees, public fora, community meetings, consumer fora, workshops, interviews, reports and other public hearing events. Nevertheless, the process is confounded by issues like a lack of resources (people, time and finance), lack of clarity of propositions or questions, erratic recording systems, leading to little impact on the issues on the table. In short, it is reputedly costly and inefficient. The use of technology is presumed able to reduce the waste of time, the waste of resources, and to enable efficacy and efficiency. Further more, web and mobile technologies are becoming increasingly popular, unfolding new opportunities.In many developing countries including South Africa, web and mobile technologies were introduced in order to improve the process of public participation. But it seems that the issues pointed earlier remain. The question is: Why don't they bring improvements; and then, how should they be embraced for greater impacts on the process? Supported by ways of literature review and semi-structured interviews of experts, this paper will look at public participation processes in South Africa, examine the relevant constrains (time, resources, skills, localisation, etc), the use of web and mobile technologies, their impact on the processes, and suggest scenarios of utilisation that will improve those democratic events.