Civil servants must step up and serve the public
The National Development Plan (NDP) vision 2030 will remain a pipe dream if there is no urgency put into the professionalisation of the public service in SA.
Building a capable state requires more than rhetoric.
The recent cabinet lekgotla and successive statements by President Cyril Ramaphosa on appointing qualified people to do the job is the start of building a capable and development-orientated state.
From the early days, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has advocated for a public service that is highly professional, and that only pays allegiance to the constitution and the people of the republic.
Questions have been raised many times on how public servants are appointed and the credibility of the process.
Others have also associated some of the mediocrity playing itself out in government to sheer incompetence, unethical public servants, and political interference.
The truth is that the true path for a developmental state lies on its strong institutions, such as the public service, which must have the capability to design and implement development programmes of government successfully.
For any noble plans to produce the required results, we require capable and ethical professionals who can execute with precision, given the magnitude of the space in which we find ourselves.
Experts in the field of good governance and service delivery in developing economies often tell us that by 2023 countries in Africa should have achieved annual GDP growth rate of at least 7% compared with the 1.2% estimated by the SA Reserve Bank for 2020 recently.
While many of our problems are from scoring own goals, to change the status quo does not need any waving of a magic wand but simply to remain true to the values and principles of our constitution.
This change of behaviour will cut through perceived complexity and provide an immediate solution to the challenges our country is facing.
Today, it gives us a great sense of pride that our voice has been heard, even though the announcement of the appointment of the head of public administration by the president commencing April 2020 comes late, when a lot of havoc has been wreaked.
I welcome this appointment, which is in line with what the NDP envisaged. Furthermore, consideration must be given to centralise the recruitment and selection of top appointments to the head of public administration.
This will put to bed the paradox that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The desired outcome of our developmental state is that of economic development and social justice, restoration of human dignity, and entrenched democratic values and principles.
The only way to achieve this is to appoint management based on ability, objectivity and fairness, devoid of any patronage. The reassignment of recruitment of senior management from the executive authorities is long overdue and could not have come at a better time.
Integrity and professional ethics are the life support of the success of the NDP vision 2030 for building a capable state.
China recently building a hospital in a week serves as a potent symbol of a government’s drive to do what needs to be done. Where there is a will, there is always a way.
Ethical conduct is not something that lies in the eyes of the beholder.
It is conforming to generally accepted social norms.
Public institutions exist for the public good and employ public servants to render services that will better the lives of South Africans.
In our submission, at the invitation of the president during the state of the nation address in 2019 to make suggestions on how best to reconfigure the government to meet the needs and the interests of the people of SA, a key aspect that requires urgent attention is a valuesdriven public service.
Since the enactment of the constitution, a plethora of laws has been promulgated and this has led to an increasingly rulesdriven public administration at the expense of the values and principles espoused in the constitution.
Laws and regulations are important and frame conduct in a particular, defined manner.
However, the consequence is often that of creating a compliance-based environment as opposed to a values-based paradigm.
It is critical for the public service to pursue rules and regulations that are balanced with an ethical organisational culture to guide the professional conduct of all public servants.
We must go back to the basics.
The preamble to the constitution outlines the fundamental values on which government should build a transformed public service.
Adherence to these values should not be optional.
The synergy and nexus between the constitutional founding values and principles, the fundamental values of the constitution, are often overlooked, but, crucially, they represent the building blocks of a capable developmental state.
Such a state, as envisaged by the constitution and NDP, will struggle to flourish if the foundational values underpinning it have not taken root.
The truism echoed by Martin Luther King Jnr, that a nation or civilisation that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on [the] instalment plan, could not be any truer than now.
Unless public servants become stewards of the rights of the people and serve according to the values and principles in the constitution, the outcomes we want from the NDP will not see fruition.
The true path for a developmental state lies on its strong institutions, such as the public service