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26 October 2018 Photo Stephen Collett
Parks Tau at JN Boshoff lecture, believes that the state should assume role as leader
Parks Tau, who delivered this year’s JN Boshoff lecture, believes that the state should assume its rightful role as leader of all citizens.

The state entered into a covenant with society. The state is therefore obliged to provide essential services to the people. Holding into account the public sector is the White Paper on Local Government which was implemented at the birth of democracy. Now that the post-apartheid period has matured, leaders are unpacking the loaded subject of public service.

In his capacity as the South African Local Government Association president, Parks Tau delivered the 2018 JN Boshoff Memorial Lecture. He shared his views on: ‘What is the significance of the Public Service in nation-building within a democracy?’ 

The lecture was hosted by the Department of Public Administration and Management, at the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus on Wednesday 17 October 2018. Tau reiterated that the founding principles of social development and economic growth, integration, empowerment, and learning should be treated as a commitment by the government to the citizens of South Africa.

Constitutional rights reserved

In addition to communities being entitled to basic services such as the provision of water, sanitation, and safety, it is necessary to “move beyond merely stating the principle of Batho Pele. It requires of us to appreciate the role of the state in promoting equity and development in all communities”, Tau said.

Rights coupled with responsibilities 

Citizens and communities are responsible for safeguarding public property and making certain public officials are held accountable. “This covenant therefore goes both ways. It is about a relationship of mutual interest and benefit, and one that promotes both community and nationhood,” said the former Executive Mayor of the city of Johannesburg.

Tau stated that much work needed to be done through effective policies, legislation and investments to return the country to the levels of investor confidence that our national economy enjoyed during its highest rating from Moody’s in the 2008/9 financial year. This would ensure that the state assumed its rightful role as leader and organiser of different stakeholders and “takes its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations”, as enshrined in the constitution.

News Archive

PSP produces first Y1-rating in UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences
2015-12-14

Dr Andrew Cohen, a research fellow at the University of the Free State, recently received a distinguished National Research Foundation Y1-rating.
Photo: Sonia Small

The latest success story of the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP) is that the first National Research Foundation (NRF) Y1-rating was awarded recently to a scholar while teaching in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS).

Dr Andrew Cohen received this distinguished rating on 10 November 2015. It is awarded to a “young” (younger than 40) scholar five years or less post-PhD, whose curriculum vitae predicts, according to a panel of international and local reviewers, that he is poised to become a leader in his field. Dr Cohen is a research fellow at the UFS.

This rating is a reflection of Dr Cohen’s record over the past eight years, and the scholarly environment he was part of at the UFS under leadership of Prof Ian Phimister. Cohen is currently a research fellow in Prof Phimister’s International Studies Group.  He taught economic history in the Department of Economics until September 2015, when he joined the School of History at the University of Kent.

Dr Cohen’s professional trajectory is emblematic of the visionary approach of the UFS Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP): to support prestige scholars with advanced mentorship, and the creation of a college of peers in order to nurture intellectual breadth and depth to generate knowledge over disciplines.

The PSP was initiated by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS in 2011.

“Jonathan Jansen’s prestige scholars have become sought after in the academic community at large, as this recent appointment at the University of Kent indicates,” says Professor Neil Roos, co-director of the PSP. “Yet the alumni’s commitment to the programme, the university and their peers continues.”

Cohen is the editor (with Casper Andersen) of the five volume, The Government and Administration of Africa, 1880-1939. Dr Cohen’s next project is forthcoming from I.B. Tauris, The Politics and Economics of Decolonisation: The Failed Experiment of the Central African Federation.

 

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