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Our spherical system of national, provincial and local government is often impossible to manage as turf wars and incompetence slow down progress of directors general.
All the delivery departments — housing, social development, water, agriculture and land — depend on the competence and cooperation with provincial and local counterparts.
With President Thabo Mbeki’s system of governing in clusters, it also depends on cooperation with linked departments. Often, it’s work tantamount to getting clawing cats into a single basket. It’s a mostly thankless task.
”While managing an individual department is critical, a director general has to understand that there are so many linkages between departments and therefore they should understand the strategic context within which projects are being implemented.
”They have to understand the linkages between them and that of linked departments. A director general of health, for example, who is planning to build a clinic, must liaise with transport because there is a need for a road leading to a clinic. Other departments must provide water and electricity,” says Joel Netshitenzhe, who is the head of the policy unit in the Presidency.
In the implementation phase, technocratic skills are arguably more important than political skills. Are we at a point where directors generals do not have to be deployed by the ruling ANC?
”What is needed is an ability to understand the context in which policy has been formulated. This is simply because you have to understand that policy for you to translate it into programmes. The more appreciation of that policy, the better,” adds Netshitenzhe.
Directors general often complain that ministers do not understand the distinction between roles.
One deputy director general, who asked not to be named, says: ”The director general’s role is generally misunderstood. Besides the political issue, the director general is the top civil servant in the government department.
”In the private sector its equivalent is that of a CEO — the person who implements, while the minister would be like the chairperson, responsible for the strategic direction of the organisation.”
The official says, unlike in the private sector, directors general were expected to be administrative heads as well as financial accounting officers. ”It is very difficult to have the same qualities — administrative strength and ability to implement strategic policies — in one person.”
The deputy director general says the perception that directors general were necessarily political appointments, was misguided.
Directors-general appointments are approved by the Cabinet and appointed by the president, causing the impression that those appointments were political.
”Because we are in a transition stage and because many of the directors general are black, people assume that they are from the ANC or that they are political appointees. It is not true for many of them,” says the deputy director general.
This certainly appears to be the case. The era of the party mandarins, such as former communications director general Andile Ngcaba and trade and industry’s Allister Ruiters, appears to be ebbing.
And with a looming crackdown on the revolving door between the director general’s office and corporate boardrooms, the job may become even less attractive to the politically connected, who can enter much more lucrative black economic empowerment deals.
Centre for Policy Studies senior researcher Ebrahim Fakir says though directors general do not have to be political party cadres, they should at least be sympathetic to the government.
”You don’t want them to be political but they should at least be politically informed and sussed and they must understand the political strategy. If they don’t share government’s perspectives, how are they going to deliver on its mandates?”
He adds that a good director general would have a fair balance of technical skills and conceptual and ideological perspective.
Fakir says now that the institutions of delivery had been set up in the first years of democracy, current directors general had to give effect to the mandates of those institutions. ”Mbeki’s great legacy is that he has built the state, developing institutions from scratch.”
He says directors general played the central role of providing the link between the internal management of a department with the political oversight.
”They work with internal staff, the minister and Parliament. They have to understand that ordinary people’s confidence in government will be undermined if they do not perform their work. While they are not political, they have to be responsive to the public.”
What it takes to be a DG
Technical expertise
An understanding of how your department links to others
A working knowledge of the three spheres of government
Good interpersonal skills
Political suss, if not ANC party membership
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