RDP officer Frank Meintjies reacts to criticisms by Nicoli Nattrass in a recent edition of the Mail & Guardian
Government (and Cabinet) is aware that mechanisms such as the RDP Fund, the Presidential Lead Projects and, for example, RDP offices in provinces are an anomaly. They are in tension with the idea that all government policy, programmes and objectives should be inherently RDP in content and focus. Yet Cabinet has consciously and politically chosen these measures — Cabinet’s job is to push for change.
Nattrass seems to believe that change will come organically, that transformation can be obtained without intrusive tools, ones that disturb the established ways of working.
Specifically on the RDP Fund. It should be conceded that what we gain — an immediate diversion of resources to basic needs — comes at the price of running two funding systems. The RDP Office has made proposals on minimising the damage to sound budgeting: we have called for departmental budget bids and RDP applications to be made jointly and assessed simultaneously.
The Government of National Unity (GNU) has inherited a second-hand system. It sputters, it doesn’t go at times and in many ways was not built for its new purpose — delivery on the goals of the RDP. Does one hold those doing repair work on the vehicle for its dysfunction? Does one present the system as relatively fine, save for the interference of change agents?
Change operatives in the Gauteng administration have a nice phrase: “Did the new dispensation break it, or did we find it broken?”
Nattrass does not propose alternative strategies or instruments for change. She appears to say: Leave it to bureaucracy to unfreeze the system and make it work for people’s needs, community participation, work creation and the use of small contractors.
Our experience tells us the opposite, namely:
* An RDP process (guidelines, targets, monitoring instruments) shaped and driven by Cabinet is vital in ensuring that we don’t merely get transition but transformation.
* The programme (with its range of suggested planning and monitoring tools) has played a crucially supportive role to ministries and their change agents in working to change practice and performance in departments.
* Large parts of the system are still stricken with inertia: civil servants who don’t know how to work in new ways with regard to planning and implementing programmes. The result: for many ordinary people, much has changed and much remains the same in their interactions with government.
It would be crazy at this time to campaign for dismantling the RDP’s mechanisms for change. It would be folly (if not malicious) to suggest that change can happen without a centralised (Cabinet- owned) management plan. Now is the time, through feedback, debate and suggestions, to strengthen the operations of the programme. For the sake of redistribution, equity and social justice.
Frank Meintjies is chief director of human resources for the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) Office.