/ 21 May 2004

Directors general on the front line

With a new Cabinet in place, there are fears of a shakeup among directors general (DGs), who are in the front line of government service delivery.

In the past, political and personal differences between Cabinet ministers and their DGs have often led to the latter leaving the civil service.

Labour DG Rams Ramashia left his job earlier this month because of clashes with his minister.

Intelligence DG Vusi Mavimbela is said to be resigning to explore options in the private sector. A spokes-person for the Ministry of Intelligence Services, Lorna Daniels, refused to confirm or deny the reports.

Ramashia says it is inherent in the relationship between ministers and DGs that differences will occur.

Sipho Pityana, a former labour DG and now chairperson of Izingwe Consortium, gives one reason the job can be less than fulfilling: the public does not know what a DG does. This means that when the department does well, credit goes to the minister, but when its performance is below par, the department is blamed.

The role of the DG can be described, says one line expert, as ”a glorified personal assistant”. The DG works in the background as the interface between line experts, making sure the minister is fully briefed and the department is delivering.

The job is rather more than that, according to Pityana: ”The DG controls the purse strings of the department”, accountable for the financial management of the budget and the administration of the department. The power to allocate resources may have an ”alienating effect on the minister”.

If a minister comes up with an idea in the middle of the financial year, he says, the DG will be the one to curb expenditure on it because it is outside the Cabinet mandate for how the budget is supposed to be spent.

The role is not apolitical; because of the nature of the government, a DG must have a degree of political astuteness.

DGs are in powerful positions and can be seen as a political threat, Pityana says; and sometimes, the DG must ”massage the minister’s ego”.

Not surprisingly, over the years many DGs have moved to the private sector.

Some are poached by private companies for huge salaries and perks. Government officials point out that the invaluable experience of running big departments makes them targets for private-sector firms that are after their experience and influence. They are often offered twice their salaries, with share options a useful bonus. DGs earn around R700 000 a year but this figure is easily matched and even doubled by the private sector.

”These people are running a country but their salaries are badly skewed,” says one chief director. ”You find a situation where Maria Ramos was Treasury DG but the chief executive officers of parastatals were earning three times more than she was.

”The demands on them are enormous. They mostly only have five-year performance contracts, which makes it difficult to plan their lives. There is so much travelling that the family units sometimes suffer. Their salary is a drop in the ocean compared to the sacrifices they make.”

Government head of policy Joel Netshitenzhe says it is impossible

to generalise why DGs leave; many depart because they believe they have fulfilled their goals in the government.

Each case, he says, has to be treated on its merits. ”They are highly skilled professionals who are in demand in the public as well as private sector. When they come to government they do so on the basis of contracts that expire. When their contracts expire some might leave because they feel they have played their role in the evolution of the government.

”Initially their role might have been on policy formulation, but as the slant changes towards policy monitoring and evaluation, they might feel they want to move on.” Indeed, he says, many government officials view working for the state as a form of national service.

DGs are appointed by the president after recommendations made by an interviewing panel of government ministers. The relevant minister sits on the panel.

Yet this is no guarantee that the DG and the minister will work well together.

”There is a clear delineation of functions between the minister and the DG. They don’t have to be friends. The president expects them to have a professional relationship,” says Netshitenzhe. ”But it would not be unnatural if issues of personal relations did arise.”

Pityana sees the interpersonal relationship between DG and minister as paramount to the success of the department. ”If this relationship collapses, the whole governing process does not work.”

The line expert agrees. ”This relationship is like that in any other organisation or company where you have, for example, a vice-chancellor who is dependent on his senior manager.” If the relationship works, she says, it is evident in the success of the department.

Clashes have occurred when the DG has begun to have a political profile. Most top civil servants in the government during the first half of the decade came from a political background, and they had not yet separated political work from their role as civil servants.

A solution? ”We need more clearly defined job descriptions,” says the line expert. ”But it is not always easy. There are too many grey areas.”