With his strong union and civic background Thozamile Botha is well-placed to tackle the problems in the Eastern Cape, writes Shadley Nash
THE man whose job it is to turn governance in the Eastern Cape from “crisis management” to “strategic management of change” was one of the founders of the civic movement.
But Thozamile Botha, appointed the province’s director general last month, is right now more concerned with the province’s financial problems than community clout.
At a recent three-day bosberaad he warned civil servants that the government had two options: to continue with a “bloated civil service” or to pay off surplus bureaucrats while promoting development and encouraging new private sector investments.
“The dilemma facing the provincial government is the desire on the one hand to downsize the bureaucracy in order to create lean government while, on the other hand, seeking to uphold the provisions of the constitution which guarantee employment, salary scales and benefits of the incumbents,” he said.
The former Transkei, he said, has been operating on an “unauthorised” overdraft of between R300-million and R420-million; and an analysis of provincial budgets shows an abnormally large amount of money spent on recurring expenses, largely salaries, wages and allowances.
The bureaucracy he intends tackling is 150 000 strong, born of a merger of three very disparate civil services, including those of the former homelands of Ciskei and Transkei. Last year the province was forced to re-employ 3 000 Ciskei civil servants sacked by the Oupa Gqozo regime.
Botha is well-placed to tackle these problems: he is a former head of the ANC’s Department of Local and Regional Government. But his political roots are in the civics and trade unions. In the late 1970s he was a founder of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation and helped establish the Motor Assemblies and Component Workers’ Union of South Africa, a militant trade union.
A spate of detentions and banning orders followed, and in 1980 he went into exile — first to Lesotho, then to Zambia, and finally to Essex, England, where he acquired a master’s degree in political science and public administration. He returned after the ANC was unbanned in 1990.
Although he was elected to parliament, he gave up his seat to take a post as chairman of the Commission on Provincial Government, where he was dealing with the transition to non-racial municipalities. But the Eastern Cape government had lobbied for some time for Botha to return to the province and on February 1 this year he became the Eastern Cape’s new director general.
He assumed office at a perilous time: crisis followed crisis, from the blockages erected in Umtata by disaffected policemen to the St Albans prison hostage
His zeal to turn things on their head was encapsulated during the opening address of the bosberaad when he said Bisho had to turn from being a government of “crisis management” to one that focused on the “strategic management” of the necessary changes.
Key to the changes he envisages is fiscal discipline, tighter budgetary control, human resource development and strategic management of the public sector.
This week Botha publicly acknowledged the need to offer “golden handshakes” to those aged 50 or with 30 years’ service. And he questioned the wisdom of having to fill 11 000 new public sector posts, advertised nationally last year, while the process of rationalisation needed to be accelerated.
Mooting the need for a well-defined government strategic plan which will enable Bisho to achieve administrative efficiency, he urged the government to build “its own professional capacity”.
He said it was realistic for people to strive for promotions and for those who have been outside the system to aspire to enter it. “But to expect government to increase people’s salaries overnight and to create jobs within the administration for those who supported the struggle is unrealistic.”
Key issues under discussion at the three-day bosberaad include staffing, Bisho’s institutional capacity, financial matters, safety and security and departmentalisation and staffing.
Premier Raymond Mhlaba told the bosberaad that Botha’s appointment as director-general will enable the government to fill management positions and address service conditions –and a work ethic.