EDITORIAL: Reforming the civil service must be a priority

Coalition governments are here to stay.

Given the chaos that previously played out in those attempting to govern Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg, it is clear that SA’s volatile political landscape makes such arrangements inherently unstable.

That makes the case for a professionalised civil service free of executive interference ever more compelling.

While it is reasonable for a new political dispensation to seek to limit the risk that senior administrators undermine key policies by placing their own people in critical positions, it is time to curb the unfettered power of ministers and MECs to hire and fire.

The DA’s recent success in obtaining the ANC’s records of its cadre deployment to senior positions in government departments and state-owned enterprises offered a glimpse of just how deep the tentacles of the executive reached into the administration. Candidates for positions as low as deputy directors-general had to be approved by the party’s cadre deployment committee before they could even be interviewed.

That policy — combined with political infighting, which has seen new people take up pivotal positions each time a new ANC faction rises to ascendancy — has left many national and provincial departments reeling. While a handful of national departments, such as the Treasury, have been left relatively unscathed, far too many have been in constant flux. Gauteng’s health department, which is riven by corruption and lurches from one crisis to the next, is a forceful reminder of the damage wrought by a rapid succession of senior administrators. Rare is the Gauteng head of health who lasted more than a year.

Unpalatable though it may be, the ANC’s cadre deployment programme didn’t break any laws. It was aligned with the Public Service Act of 1994, which gives executive authorities such as cabinet ministers and MECs the power to make appointments in the administration unless they decide to delegate the job. There is a sound reason for this: SA’s first democratic government was deeply mistrustful of the civil servants it inherited from apartheid SA and wanted to be sure they didn’t undermine it.

As the ANC itself has recognised, this approach is no longer fit for purpose. In February the National Assembly passed the Public Service Amendment Bill, which seeks to limit the ability of politicians to meddle in administrative matters.

It is vital that SA’s new MPs revive the bill and ensure it continues its passage through parliament and on to the president’s desk for assent.

The government also needs to professionalise the civil service and ensure that SA’s 1.3-million public servants are appropriately skilled and held to account for their failings. There are plenty of hard-working people employed by the state who care deeply about the service they provide, but there are still far too many who display utter disdain for the people they serve, be they officials turning a blind eye to grannies queuing for hours for their old age grants, or those demanding bribes from citizens seeking identity documents.

The department of public service & administration took an important step in the right direction earlier this year when it issued guidance to government departments on how to professionalise the civil service, including pre-entry tests and ongoing training. It is now time to put those plans into action, stabilise the civil service and give senior administrators the room to get on with their jobs.