Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi(Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Cabinet has just approved a policy framework geared towards professionalising South Africa’s public service. This brings a possible end to a dithering process that was first mooted by Vincent Maphai’s Presidential Review Commission in 2007.
Maphai’s commission had sought to rectify the unintended consequences of appointments that had been made in the preceding years, since 1994. Four years later, the National Planning Commission revived Maphai’s proposal to professionalise public administration. Nothing happened in the subsequent 10 years. Can the latest initiative really deliver, where others have failed?
The prospects of success for the latest reform measure are a lot better than the previous ones. This time around the obstacles are different and fewer. But, before expanding further on this point, it’s worth reminding ourselves that professionalising the public service was always going to be a tricky exercise. It was one of the poisoned chalices inherited by the post-apartheid state. Soon after inauguration, the new government had to amalgamate two sets of administrations: one set from the four provinces and another from the 10 bantustans. Out of the 14 jurisdictions, nine new provinces had to be created.
Fusing the many previous administrations into fewer ones meant that there would be excess staff. The excess was particularly concentrated in the bantustans. Carved out as labour reservoirs, and places to die from diseases contracted from long years of toiling in the belly of the earth, bantustans were never intended to prosper. They had to be sufficiently miserable to push natives into migrant labour.
Public service, therefore, emerged as the major employer. Albeit brutally oppressive, the bantustan leaders also sought some legitimacy for their quasi-states through massive employment in the public service. The result was bloated administrations, some of which were filled by unqualified individuals.
Some got into the habit of simply showing up only to hang their jackets on a chair, giving the impression that they were in the office when they had actually left. Some jackets even accumulated dust from days of being left on chairs, as their owners stayed away from work.
The apartheid bureaucracy was no different. From the formation of the Union in 1910, race and ethnicity trumped competence. The Job Reservation Act ensured that whites had certain jobs reserved only for them and, where they competed with Africans, they got preference.
Whites were employed in positions, even when they were not properly qualified, and were always supervisors, at times even over Africans who were more qualified than them. It was broerskap all round, both in the republic and the bantustans. Competence was hardly a priority in the South African bureaucracy from its very inception.
It was inevitable, therefore, that the new government would have to downsize and prioritise meritocracy. But, it was not an easy exercise. Though it encouraged excess staff to leave, the government was still considerate. Retrenchments were voluntary. This meant that some redundant staff were kept in the service and their number grew as the old habits of nepotism and broerskap resurfaced under the new dispensation.
It was in this context that the ANC’s policy of cadre deployment got contaminated. The introduction of that policy was necessary to reconfigure the state. In a bureaucracy filled with conservatives, and political loyalists to a party of racial segregation, the implementation of a progressive social transformation agenda was always in danger.
Employment of competent individuals, with progressive credentials and receptive to the new foundational values, was key to transformation. The problem was that, with time, recruitment was narrowed down to party apparatchiks and miscreants. This not only meant the exclusion of competent, progressive candidates but also the theft of state resources. Politicians simply employed executive managers to facilitate plunder. That is why some of them insisted on appointing their preferred candidates and meddled in their work.
The newly adopted policy framework, therefore, seeks to prioritise something that officialdom has never fully embraced since the inception of the Union. Most praiseworthy in the framework are the accent on the continuous acquisition of knowledge, the use of specialised skills and drawing expertise from academia.
This exchange of personnel, through the secondment of academics and civil servants going on a sabbatical to learn, will be most beneficial to both academia and the public service. A number of academics hardly do any fieldwork and are simply content with pontification using outdated material derived from desktop research.
A considerable number of issues they write about barely manifest in the manner prescribed in text or legislation. To fully understand how the state functions, one needs to undertake actual work within the state apparatus, to interact with the actors. There’s a wealth of knowledge to be acquired from applied research.
Spending time at a university will enable civil servants to make sense of the many details they’re always grappling with as they go about their jobs. Universities are great spaces to reflect, especially because they expose one to different perspectives and new conversations. Civil servants will most likely return to their posts, not only refreshed, but also armed with new perspectives to tackle the range of issues that come before their desks.
It is equally encouraging to note that the framework prescribes a working arrangement that makes directors general somewhat independent of their ministers. They’ll report to, and will be closely monitored by, the newly established office of the Head of the Public Administration (HoPA). This will effectively be the director general in the presidency. The idea here is to free directors general from a sense of obligation to please their ministers, which has often meant doing wrong things, for fear of being reshuffled or suspended on spurious grounds.
Under the new arrangement, the HoPA will be central in performance evaluation and contract renewal (or non-renewal) of other directors general. This gives some assurance that the evaluation process will be objective and that diligent civil servants will not be punished for doing their jobs.
That said, the recruitment process is not entirely reassuring. The earlier draft of the framework had the option of an independent process, driven entirely by the Public Service Commission. Once they had been selected and interviewed, the selection panel would then recommend to the minister or municipal council a candidate to appoint either as director general or municipal manager.
That was ignored. Instead, the new regulation is that politicians will still be involved in advertising and shortlisting. The Public Service Commission will recommend experts to be part of the selection panel, which includes politicians. This means the calibre and range of applicants will be picked by politicians and the panel will select from the pre-determined choices.
It is understandable that politicians would want reassurance that the right person is appointed. After all, the successful applicant will have to ensure that political heads are able to deliver on their mandate. They must make politicians look good.
Securing a competent candidate, however, doesn’t require the involvement of a politician in the appointment process. What any department, or municipality, does is not a mystery. Experts know, more than politicians in some cases, what is required of a director general, or a municipal manager, to fulfil the mandate of any given department or municipality.
Politicians obviously don’t want to give up control. Granted, the new reporting line to the HoPA promises to free directors general from political influence. But, why not take the entire process out of the hands of politicians, especially the identifying of applicants?
We’re here today, beset with incompetent bureaucrats, and with competent ones hounded out, all because of political involvement. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be an illusion of progress.
Mcebisi Ndletyana is a professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg and co-author of a forthcoming book on the centenary history of Fort Hare University.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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