In his final term in office and with huge delivery backlogs threatening his legacy, President Thabo Mbeki is moving to bolster the national government to give it greater decision-making powers over provinces and the local government.
The moves will require no constitutional changes to the enshrined independence of the three spheres of government. However, it is clear that Mbeki is seeking a stronger hand.
Cabinet is preparing a “thorough review of the governing system”, it was revealed this week. Elements of this include the Inter-Governmental Relations Bill introduced in Parliament last year, the creation of a unified public service and the introduction of community development workers who are a direct link between the national government and communities.
In addition, the national government will make increasing use of its powers to introduce teams into provincial and local government where service delivery has broken down.
These community development workers, who earn R900 a month, are intended to short-circuit local and provincial government by reporting delivery backlogs directly to the national government. The first of these teams started at the beginning of February in two provinces.
In addition, responsibility for the payment of welfare grants is being centralised in a national security agency, which will start operating later this year.
In his State of the Nation speech last Friday, Mbeki revealed his frustration at the inefficiencies in the state. “We need massively to improve the management, organisational, technical and other capacities of government.”
He complained that only 56% of the municipal infrastructure grant had been allocated to municipalities by December and said that this was an indication of a “lack of all-round capacity, particularly in the technical areas, with regard to water, sanitation and public works projects”.
During his interview on SABC on Sunday, he observed: “Maybe our desires run ahead of our capacities.”
Government figures released this week show that only 8% of the public service can be classified as highly skilled, while about 50% is low-skilled and 40% semi-skilled. Currently fewer than 8 000 government employees are considered redundant because of their lack of skills. A single public service will enable the state to move public servants to the level of government where they are needed.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said at a ministerial briefing in Parliament this week that she was mystified as to why children continued to learn under trees when the provinces had the money to build classrooms.
Mbeki has been embarrassed by the failure to deliver on his pledge last year that no children would learn outdoors by the time he next took the parliamentary podium.
“I am puzzled. Provinces will say they have no funding, but when I check the numbers I discover that they have not used their infrastructural grants,” Pandor said.
She said she had asked provincial ministers to be more vigilant in overseeing their departments.
Increasingly, national ministers will be expected to push their provincial and local government counterparts to execute the national agenda.
This is evident in housing policy. The launch this week of the N2 Gateway Project in Cape Town is a national plan to be implemented across the three levels of government. Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu sets the agenda, and has been given the political support to cut through the red tape at provincial and local government level that has bedevilled housing delivery.
The same trend is evident in the area of welfare grants, where payment is being centralised to cut out the graft and waste that has taken place in virtually all provinces. Research by the Department of Social Development last year showed that more than 50 000 corrupt government officials were drawing grants to which they were not entitled, amounting to between R17-million and R23-million a year.
Later this year the government will wrest control of the payment of grants when the National Social Security Agency is launched.
By next month the government will put the finishing touches to its “Operation Consolidate”, which allows for greater national oversight of dysfunctional municipalities. Instead of provinces taking over the administration of failing municipalities, the national government will deploy specialist teams.
“We require a responsive state. And to this effect, you need a strong centre. The spheres [of government] can become like glass ceilings,” said Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. “We’re not talking about something new here. We’re not taking away the functions [of any sphere of government], but we say that government has to function across the spheres.”