ANC’s chief cadre deployer repents

ONLY a capable, efficient, ethical state can deliver what is necessary to improve the lives of South Africans.

The public service must be staffed by men and women who are professional, skilled, selfless and honest.

All too often, people have been hired and promoted to key positions for which they are neither suitable nor qualified. This affects government performance and contributes to nepotism, political interference in the work of departments, a lack of accountability, mismanagement and corruption.

There is also political and executive interference in the administration of the public service. And then, finally, there is instability in government departments when senior managers are swopped or replaced each time a new minister is appointed.

Every word in those first four paragraphs was penned by none other than President Cyril Ramaphosa, in this week’s missive from “The Desk of the President”.

Typical Ramaphosa, his critics say. All talk and no action.

Except that this time the president has made some specific promises. A draft National Implementation Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Service was approved by the Cabinet late last year, and “structured consultation is under way”.

There will be integrity tests and a compulsory entrance exam. The public service will be “depoliticised and government departments … insulated from politics”.

When the first International Civil Service Effectiveness Index (InCiSE) was launched in 2017 to measure the effectiveness and accountability of the central government public services worldwide, they included only 31 nations.

In 2019, when InCiSE was expanded to 38 countries, a South American nation (Brazil) and an African nation (Nigeria) were included.

The results are predictable. As previously, aside from South Korea and the Netherlands, the top 10 are the four Commonwealth countries in the latest index (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK), and Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden).

The flaws that Ramaphosa catalogues in his missive are the predictable results of the ANC’s policies and those of its closest ally and ideological white cane, the SA Communist Party: cadre deployment to “capture” for the party every important post in government and its affiliates, as well as affirmative action taken to the point of institutional self-harm.

Even if Ramaphosa believed in what he is proposing, to insist on merit and integrity in public service appointments would be political suicide