Ministers’ report cards a worrying failure
The cabinet report card borders on the abuse of science
THE ANNUAL rituals of South Africa are i) the festive season’s road traffic accidents and deaths, ii) the national “matric” pass rates, iii) the ANC’s January 8 statement and cabinet report card. Most South Africans take a great interest in the cabinet report cards. In this article, I focus on a deeper analysis of the 2017 report cards.
The flawed methodology used in the current assessment systems such as a lack of objectivity, absence of correlation between two systems of similar origins and the obvious biased scores suggests that the cabinet score cards do not measure cabinet ministerial performance, but instead seem to horoscopically describe biases, stereotypes and many “ghosts” of our past history using historically trusted grades.
However, these falsely derived grades are presented as truths. The cabinet report card borders on the abuse of science, possibly for political ends.
Over the years and early in the dawn of our democracy, the Mail & Guardian developed and provided an annual cabinet report card system to assess, measure and score the performance of each individual cabinet minister, and provided a qualitative commentary.
Over time the report card has become the gold standard of assessing the country’s ministers and a “barometer of government performance”.
More importantly the nation and the “poor” cabinet ministers read these grades religiously and some are terrified or even traumatised by the outcomes to the same extent that examination school reports did to all of us as pupils.
However, the scientific basis of what is being measured or how it is being measured or computed has remained elusive and not transparent.
Even more mysterious are the qualifications, competencies or expertise of the assessors who do these important assessments and provide the grades. So where do the assessors derive their authority from and how are they selected to be truly representative of our society?
All ministers sign annual performance contracts with the president.
These contracts specify the Key Performance Areas (KPAs) of government priority, focus and assessment for the year. These are the official KPAs.
However, these official KPAs are certainly not what the cabinet report cards measure.
So, which KPAs are being assessed by these systems; how and when these are selected is not transparent.
As South Africans, we wait to receive subjective performance grades made objective through simple graded scores annually; the basis and authority of which we have no clue and have not interrogated.
Despite these, the assessors confidently and unashamedly continue to parade these scores ranging from As to Fs, as “the most reliable barometers of government performance”.
Fortunately, most South Africans are able to translate these grades into understandable interpretations as an A means outstanding or a distinction and an F means total failure, which is irredeemable.
A minister who scores an A is outstanding, trustworthy and one who scores an F is incompetent and deserves to be “relieved of her/his responsibilities”.
Because of impact on the reputation, the wellbeing, the national character and the integrity of our most important public servants, one would have thought greater care and attention should have been given to the methodology used.
Being the most unequal society globally (Gini Co-efficient of 0.68), with a long history of colonial apartheid oppression, stereotypes and racism, greater care and attention should have been paid to the method used for performance assessment and scoring.
The media is full of such stereotypes as blacks are inferior; blacks are lazy; blacks are corrupt; blacks are incompetent and the opposite is true for whites. A system of assessment of such immense importance, and in such a complex and fractured society, needs to be scientifically squeaky clean and beyond reproach.
We may pretend to assess “government performances” as claimed by the scores, while in reality and subtly and unintentionally we are measuring “biases, stereotypes, the ‘ghosts’ of our past” and how well colonised we are.
We cannot pretend to be oblivious to the fact that the government whose performances are being scored is a “black government” driving transformation in a highly racialised society.
Report cards – without questioning the basis and robustness of the methodology, perceptions, stereotypes, subjective indicators or even gossips – are easily and falsely presented, and given accuracy, objectivity and a measure of scientific truth.
In this scenario, the old adage that “perceptions” become “reality” or “the more a lie is repeated, the more it begins to assume a measure of truth” become realised. Through this process we are able to “dress mutton as lamb”. The report card has been with us for 20 years.
Not to be outdone, and not surprising, the DA has quickly adopted this approach to provide a cabinet report card. Even less transparent are the selected KPAs, the people and competencies of those who do the assessment and the scoring for the main opposition party.
On December 4, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said that the government “failed” in his party’s report card, an appraisal of the ANC government’s performance over the past year. The DA analysed and scored the performances of 37 cabinet ministers in its report card.
On December 21, the Mail & Guardian newspaper published its annual Cabinet Report Card – Leaders and Losers.
It also analysed the same 37 ministers, and scored their respective performances.
In short, both systems score government performance on poor scientific basis, rigour and validity. There is very poor correlation between the scores of the two systems that purport to assess and to measure the performance in the same person over the same period, that is, ministerial performance.
For every cabinet minister assessed, the DA scores were worse than those of the Mail & Guardian. There is no single instance where the DA score was higher or better than the newpaper’s score. This is concerning and troubling.
Only 2 (5.4%) ministers out of 37 in the DA system performed above the acceptable norm of a “C” compared with the 14 (37.83%) in the M&G scoring system.
The score distribution in the DA’s system is not only narrow but was also heavily biased towards the scores of the very poorest performances, a total of 30 (E and F grades) versus 14 (E and F grades) in the M & G scores; 81.1% versus 37.8% very poor cabinet performers. The distribution of scoring in the paper’s system seemed reasonably fair and normal within each category and each category represented compared with the DA’s scoring system.
Despite these differences, the two scoring systems agree that the majority of ministers perform poorly (94.6% v 62.2%).
In both systems 12 ministers were scored similarly in the worst performing categories, below C and finally, with 12 ministers the scores were not only totally different but were also irreconcilable and devoid of logic or rationale.
However, these agreements or disagreements become meaningless as the basis of scoring is flawed.
Take and compare the grades of Pandor, Motsoaledi, Ramaphosa Zulu, Nkoana-Mashabane and Kubayi in the two systems; C, F, E, E, E, F versus A, B, B, C, C, C respectively in the DA v the M&G system. The score variations make it inconceivable that we are assessing or grading the same indicators for each of these ministers.
Assuming the M&G system is the original and thus more matured and fairer, it makes the DA scoring system even more irrational and more about political point-scoring than about genuine assessment or objective scoring.
One can safely conclude that both systems lack objectivity and are obsolete, which raises the question of the intended purposes for these scoring systems. Both appear to be proxies for “political point-scoring, racism and a relic of colonial superiority”.
If they are so entrenched, so popularised and yet so flawed, why are we paying so much attention to them and why are some of our ministers so terrified of such falsehoods? It is quite possible the young black government was fearful to question and challenge such an assessment system early on in our democracy.
One can only wonder how this fear contributed to “sunset” clauses; the failure to address the land question and the failure to fundamentally transform the higher education system at Codesa. These cabinet report card systems are meant to measure something else invisible but are masquerading as measurements of “government performance”.
The mushrooming of different measurement systems is essential and bodes well for our growing democracy. As South Africans, we are rightly deserving of transparent accountability especially of our public officials and our government. Good and reliable measurement systems build trust, reputation, investor confidence, allow for comparisons to be made over time within society and the international community. These systems project our image much better.
As South Africans, we can do better and deserve to do better than the current hoax cabinet report card system. These systems need to be reviewed and completely overhauled, lest they undermine the national project of social cohesion and of building a non-racial, non-sexist and equitable society.
Professor MW Makgoba is the health ombud. He writes in his personal capacity.