The National Assembly on Wednesday approved the controversial Public Service Amendment Bill, despite the objections of most opposition parties.
Essentially, the Bill provides for a single public service at national and provincial levels and allows for secondment of employees.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi dismissed allegations the Bill was a plot to centralise power. Rather, it is intended to improve the organisational and human-resource framework of the public service to enhance the state’s capacity to deliver services more effectively, she maintained.
”We need to recognise that certain organisational and human-resource practices in the current Public Service Act directly or indirectly obstruct service delivery,” she said.
Currently, some government functions are provided by national or provincial departments away from the point of delivery and without direct accountability — and decision making — by those functionaries responsible for their delivery.
”Other government departments are provided by entities outside the public service without being directly accountable to a political head. We have also come to recognise that compliance with the Public Service Act and its prescripts do not meet the desired standards,” she said.
This weakens human-resource management and results in time-consuming and costly legal proceedings. Employees dismissed by departments for corruption-related and other types of misconduct are often reappointed by other government departments soon after dismissal. This means that misconduct does not carry effective sanctions.
Employees suspected of transgressions sometimes resign and are appointed in other departments without disciplinary steps being instituted, and if instituted, without being sustained.
The primary aim of the Bill is therefore to improve the organisational and human-resource framework for the public service to address these obstacles to service delivery.
The Bill is also aimed at ensuring easier day-to-day administration of the Act by addressing certain legal difficulties, clarifying several provisions, removing obsolete provisions and aligning the Act with other legislation, Fraser-Moleketi said. — Sapa