Publications
Partners
South Africa needs a public service that is ethical, value-driven and eschews corruption.
Corruption steals from the poor, undermines service delivery and stifles economic growth, which promotes employment and distribution of wealth.
The Constitution outlines the values that should be embraced by our public service, which include a high standard of professional ethics, development orientation, responsiveness and fairness, and encouraging public participation in public policy-making.
Public servants are expected to use public resources effectively and economically, and services rendered to citizens should be without discrimination.
These values are the steering mechanisms for the achievement of a professional and effective public service that is transparent and accountable, as also envisaged by the African Charter on Values and Principles of Public Service and Administration.
The increasing expressions of dissatisfaction by citizens in the form of petitions and service-delivery protests are not only about service delivery – they are also about the failure of public servants to remain accountable and responsive to the needs of the very people that they are meant to serve.
It is also about the failure to include the poor and voiceless in development programmes meant to improve their wellbeing.
In response, the Public Service Charter was introduced in 2013 and called for the setting up of service standards by departments for the services they render to the population.
It is aimed at ensuring that citizens are able to hold the public service accountable and to encourage citizens to participate in their own development.
However, this charter needs to be effectively monitored and implemented.
The public service must also be about strong, citizen-oriented institutions.
Strong institutions depend on the professionalism, career-orientation, performance and, in our context, the representativeness (especially race, gender and disability) of the public service personnel corps.
Productivity of the public service workforce from an economic perspective speaks to value for money and return on investment. Higher salaries are generally justified if accompanied by higher productivity.
Yet, since public service departments differ, it is difficult to come up with a similar index of productivity indicators that can compare the productivity of different departments.
As a consequence, the determination of remuneration is currently not directly linked to productivity.
Further to this are the challenges experienced with the public service wage bill. Our Brics partners spend less of their total government expenditure on salaries in comparison to us.
Reducing this expenditure is not straightforward.
The National Development Plan calls for government to reduce unemployment by creating jobs. Although government has introduced measures to freeze posts to control the wage bill, this has to be implemented in a careful and sensitive manner so it does not add to the already high unemployment rate and contradict government’s role in addressing its National Development Plan objective of job creation.
The Presidential Remuneration Review Commission was established in 2013 to look at the pay and working conditions of civil servants. It is expected to put in place best practices on how to control the wage bill and improve productivity.
We need to make public service a career of choice with continuous opportunities for development of technical and specialist professional skills.
Continuous development in the public service is critical for growth, which does not only refer to generic management and technical skills, but includes competencies such as improvement of our political system, economic literacy and financial management capabilities, among other things.
We also need to become more innovative in how we apply the recognition of prior learning during recruitment and selection.
For example, in some cases candidates have considerable work-related experience, which can be accepted for the purpose of qualification to meet the job requirements.
Failure to address this recognition of prior learning has marginalised a lot of people with relevant and required experience in the public service.
Finally, our public service must put the people first as directed by the Batho Pele principle.
The rationale for this was given by Henry Mintzberg in Alternative Service Delivery: Sharing Governance in Canada, when he argued that the relationship between an individual and their government should be understood as follows:
“I am not a mere customer of my government, thank you. I expect something more than arm’s-length trading and something less than the encouragement to consume. But most importantly, I am a citizen, with rights that go far beyond those of customers or even clients.”
This is an extract from Public Service Commission chair Advocate Sizani’s contribution at the celebration of Africa Public Service Day
TALK TO US
What do you think should be done to improve public service in your community?
SMS us on 35697 using the keyword SERVICE. Please include your name and province. SMSes cost R1.50
