By KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
President Cyril Ramaphosa said building an efficient, capable, and ethical state free from corruption was among his foremost priorities. Ramaphosa in his weekly letter said only a capable, efficient, ethical and development-oriented state can deliver on the commitment to improve the lives of the people of this country.
“This means that the public service must be staffed by men and women who are professional, skilled, selfless, and honest. They must be committed to upholding the values of the constitution, and must, as I said in my inaugural speech, “faithfully serve no other cause than that of the public”.
“Over the past two weeks, public consultations have been underway on an important policy document that will give greater impetus to our efforts to bolster, strengthen and capacitate the civil service,” he said.
However, the ANC-led government has been accused of malpractice of parachuting of poorly qualified individuals into positions of authority through political patronage.
Ramaphosa shared the same sentiments and said even though 27 years into democracy, it can be said of the public service that while several pockets of excellence exist, they have serious challenges in many government departments with regards to skills, competence, and professionalism.
“All too often, people have been hired into and promoted to key positions for which they are neither suitable nor qualified. This affects government performance, but also contributes to nepotism, political interference in the work of departments, lack of accountability, mismanagement, and corruption.
“There is also the related problem of political and executive interference in the administration of the public service. One need only to look at the instability in government departments when senior managers are swopped or replaced each time a new Minister is appointed,” said Ramaphosa.
He said Directors-General and provincial heads of departments are particularly affected. Ramaphosa added that in some departments, DGs, HoDs, and executive managers have had the stability of tenure, enabling the departments to function with little disruption.
“In most of these departments where there is leadership stability, audit outcomes tend to be positive and public funds can be accounted for. Where there is a high turnover of heads of department, there is often administrative turmoil.
“One of the key recommendations made in the draft, framework is that the public service must be depoliticised and that government departments must be insulated from politics,” he said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, Dr Leon Schreiber said: “Ramaphosa recycles the same empty words he has used countless times before to declare his supposed commitment to building a professional public service.
“On 21 January 2020, Ramaphosa declared himself committed to ending the practice of poorly qualified individuals being parachuted into positions of authority through political patronage. Over a year later, he again complains that all too often, people have been hired into and promoted to key positions for which they are neither suitable nor qualified.”
Schreiber said this begs several questions that why has Ramaphosa done absolutely nothing about this problem since he complained about it last year. He asked why does the Ramphosa only ever moan and whinge, instead of taking concrete action.
The Guardian 