Turnover not good for civil service, says Sisulu
THE unusually high turnover of directors-general is a source of instability, according to senior ANC leaders, two of them cabinet ministers.
However, they cautioned that this was a continuation of a trend dating back to a few years after 1994 when the ANC came to power.
Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told the Sunday Times that the turnover rate was disturbingly high.
“It is in your face. There are too many [such incidents]. The turnover creates a great deal of instability. That is not good for the civil service,” she said.
President Jacob Zuma was in the process of taking back from the ministers the power to appoint directors-general, Sisulu said. The cabinet decided in the first year of the Zuma presidency to allow ministers to appoint directorsgeneral. This was a departure from Thabo Mbeki’s administration, during which he hired and fired them.
The devolution of this power from the president to ministers increased friction, and directors-general often fell prey to political changes, according to a minister who spoke on condition of anonymity this week.
Other top officials said civil servants suffered a great deal of anxiety when ministers are changed. There have been four cabinet reshuffles since Zuma took over in 2009.
Civil servants — also speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the media — said the pace of government service delivery was often slowed down by frequent changes at the helm of the administration.
In 2008, the Public Service Commission conducted research into turnover trends between 2003 and 2007.
“Even in the period we looked at the numbers are high,” said commission head Richard Levin.
He said the turnover trends analysed by the commission showed that some of the top civil servants who left the pub-
Zuma has decided he is going to take the power back to himself
lic service were still keen to work for the government. They ended up leaving not because they were lured by better salaries elsewhere, but because of the frustration of working in a complex environment often fraught with conflict between politicians and administrators.
It was evident that the public service was losing committed administrators, he said. This was echoed by Sisulu, who said: “Over time we have bled significantly.”
Parliament’s public service and administration portfolio committee head, Joyce MoloiMoropa, said it had also been analysing worrying trends.
“We believe that the heads of department turnover can indeed lead to instability unless the transition is properly managed,” she said.
Levin said there were 159 turnover incidents in the fouryear period the commission had analysed. Its 2008 research looked at events affecting national and provincial departments between 2003 and 2007.
Sisulu said Zuma had “decided he is going to take the power back to himself”.
She had been instructed by Zuma to put regulations in place to tighten up “blurred areas” of how ministers related to directors-general.
She said civil servants needed a professional environment that respected their expertise. They also needed to be cushioned from politicians.
“For some reason, directorsgeneral end up being the most vulnerable,” she said.
“They are the only people employed on a contract basis and therefore, by nature, are very vulnerable. ”
The National Development Plan has suggested that a position of a “super” directorgeneral be created. This person would then appoint other directors-general and manage their “redeployment”, which would protect them against politicians’ interference.
Sisulu, however, said this had been considered but it was felt it “won’t suit our situation” because only the president or ministers were by law bestowed with the executive authority to appoint directorsgeneral.