Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Africa Public Service Day: Public service in a structural and cultural quagmire

21 June 2022 | Story Prof Pearl Sithole | Photo Sonia Small

Opinion article by Prof Pearl Sithole, Vice-Principal: Academic and Research, Qwaqwa Campus, University of the Free State.

Public service is the heart of the strategic and operational compass of any country. Whereas politics is in the space of driving the national vision, socio-economic positioning of a country and consolidating the symbolic essence of a nation; public service is the heartbeat of monitoring strategy against present coalface realities. Political leadership can successfully focus on visioning if its relationship with public administration is healthy. This means there must be professionals who can, on the one hand, advise on strategic scenarios to achieve a political vision, and on the other, fine-tune professionalism for the everyday service experience of the citizen as they tap into government products to assist living and livelihoods. A healthy relationship is one that has sufficient thresholds of expertise, operational agility, ethics and visioning for both political office-bearers and public servants. It is that mutual respect for vision and professional lines that influence each other that makes or breaks the functionality of public administration in any country. It has to be a tango of political and professional strategising that happens best when the country has a fair degree of patriotism amongst its important stakeholders, including business.

Sadly, in recent times there is very little good news regarding the performance of the public service in South Africa. Of course, some within a largely failing system are trying very hard to do their best. Yet public service and public administration in South Africa is deteriorating from a culture, structure and agency perspective. The issues are as follows:

• Inability to balance routine maintenance, new projects and growth for real places: ‘Service’ and ‘delivery’ are not seen as two missions that can benefit from quality execution. Since their conflation into ‘service delivery’ the phrase is more of a political statement exemplifying point scoring. Basically, whether it is at municipal level or provincial level, routine maintenance of roads, robots, servicing drainage systems is a difficult task for the South African public service. Tasks that were once done directly by government departments for reasons to do with regular service routine are now thrown into the outsourcing culture.

• Medium- to long-term planning is good on paper rather than afforded champions and structures to see these through: In South Africa we do not need to be reminded about the aging infrastructure in most municipalities – it is a reality seen in the quality of tap water in some municipalities. There should have been professionals doing projections for growing capacity demands on energy and water. Clearly this was not to be – despite the existence of technical units within local and provincial government, and huge national departments and Commissions existing to support these specialisations. South Africa is seen aspiring and punting 4IR aligned ways of doing things, including acquiring health equipment that cannot be sustained locally. Even innovation and advancement is not planned from the point of view of sustainability and carefully funding national capability.

• Professionalism is not receiving continuous attention within institutions and in monitoring and evaluation approaches: South Africa is wrestling with a huge human resource bill with many sitting in positions where they lament capacity. Studies are yet to be done to ascertain the lag between capacity and capability – given the changing world of work and the need for dynamic systems to respond to issues. Many academic institutions share amazing potential solutions to everyday problems – solutions for which public administration is not ready because of its unchanging formats. In fact, academic institutions, which are sometimes blamed for not preparing students for the (changing) world of work, have reason to suspect that public administration wants to tame the critical innovative thinkers they produce into imbibing the archaic formatted processes that are not changing with the times.

• Data-driven, evidence-based approaches have purged all qualitative, context-driven service: Communities are suffering from an impersonality of service and systems that refuse to offer human service. Tele-systems with voice prompts and generic emails are supposedly ‘servicing’ people with nuanced problems, and there is no way to follow-up on issues. Things may be reported to human professionals in certain locations but they ultimately find themselves as data in impersonal systems. Recent talk of special relief social grant applicants accessing the internet to supply or change their details, as well as connect with banks – is an amazing case of middle-class consciousness imposed on poor people, most of whom are in rural areas and informal settlements. Clearly South Africa has blunted its capability to respond to real people in real time through its devaluing of qualitative experience. ‘Service’ has removed ‘the person’ on either end of the need-and-service spectrum. This exacerbates alienation and bitterness towards public service establishments.

• Cycles of planning away poverty are an end in themselves: No country speaks of planning and reporting more than South Africa. The only problem is that the physical impact does not match the planning and reporting. Instead it does seem that the plans have certain descriptors that have lost ‘feeling’ and ‘lost entitlement for change’. One of them is reference to ‘the poor’. No descriptor legitimises planning, conferencing and reporting, than the concept of ‘the poor’; but the static nature of numbers and criteria forcing people to remain poor in order to access help is an inbuilt conundrum of South African planning.

A question has to be asked as to whether a typical South African public service manager would be scared for their job if they woke up to ‘no poor people’. The point is: If public service mainly exists to ‘solve poverty’ then developing countries actually do not want to be developed. I am making this point because it seems there is no aspiration for ‘quality of service’, ‘solving poverty’, ‘creating a service blend suitable for circumstance’, or ‘growing development precincts in real spaces’ in South Africa. public servants are working on reducing people to data and generating overlays of faceless needs.

This speaks to the ethos, ethics and culture of public service locally and the public administration system internationally. Let me be blunt about this point: there has never been freedom from colonial formats of public administration because it is in the interest of certain global bodies to find docile public service in African countries. Their ‘poor’ is the less dynamic systems in developing countries. This is what I call the qualitative colonial dividend.

In conclusion

Of course, no one wants to over-emphasise bad news but a deterioration of public service is one of the notable trends of post-independence in many African countries. Why is it that a professional layer of government is not able to salvage its country, and we all blame the politicians? The reasons are both structural and related to devaluing professionalism. An over-arching culture of formats importation that structure the relationship between the globe and former colonies speaks to structural colonial dividends to be gained from dysfunctional public administration regimes. The colonial dividends strategy seems to be: ‘Beyond making countries beg for foreign investment, tame their tools and call that “a request for a permitting environment” – then excessively format the way they work’.

Let me end by specifying the real sore points that must to be sorted if we are to resuscitate the South African public service:

• We need to sort human resource systems and practices: Currently HR recruitment systems are not versatile and they discourage agility in their recruitment criteria. There are no mechanisms to assess the capable “butterflies” that have been bravely hopping between related sectors. The people who hold the answer to the responsive leadership and discretion are often punished for not being stagnant.

• A need to resolve the capacity vs capability debacle: Responsive capability is curtailed by valorising already existing ways of doing things in spite of a technology mix that may be afforded, a possibility of designing new cross-sector policies that allow different specialists to work together, of retraining needed to respond to new situations.

• Speaking truth to powers of vigilance – that should be supporting core business: No matter how versatile public service can be in response to developmentalism, if the disciplines that see their role as vigilance over resources are only operating from the stance of distrust, there shall be no responsiveness. These disciplines are Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, as well as Finance and Auditing. In South Africa they are famous for stating ‘why things cannot be done’ rather than ‘how they can be done’. If this will change, they will need to see sector partners as equal partners with essential expertise for advancing the development mission. These ‘disciplines of vigilance’ may even create accountable discretionary points closer to the coalface instead of only recognising a priori planning-based expenditure even for unforeseen situations.

Finally, someone needs to whisper to all future presidents, especially for their State of the Nation Addresses (SONA), that: “it is OK to prioritise and pinpoint focal areas when it comes to designing an annual strategic direction”. SONAs actually endorse silos. In South Africa even cameras will point to a specific minister as the President jumps from one sector to the next. Being issue-based and resolving major developmental conundrums that have a spiralling effect on other issues is the way to go. SONAs are short, but they can garner determination towards a well-considered mission.

News Archive

SRC Inauguration speech: 22 January 2005

2005-01-22

Campus Head (Prof Peter Mbati). Dean of Students (Dr Natie Luyt). Deputy Director: Student Affairs and my boss (Mr. Teboho Manchu), Members of the University executive and Academic staff members, SRC members, Leaders of trade Unions and Student organizations, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, most importantly first entering students and Parents receive my heartfelt revolutionary greetings.

Let me extend my word of appreciation to our distinguished guests for adding value and dignity to this event. Your presence here means a lot to us. Program Director what I bring here with me, assisted by facts, and is therefore just the work of my imagination. Like a love letter addressed to a sweetheart miles away, even though you do not know how she feels, what she wants to hear, and do not even know how her face looks like.

To me a speech is just an honest and intimate conversation. That is why I got into the habit of establishing a dialogue, or a debate, with my acquaintances looking at their faces and trying to persuade them of what I am telling them.

Mr. Speaker and Madam Deputy Speaker of the Student Parliament we are gathering at this ceremony, significantly few weeks after the release of grade 12 results, with the exception of those from Mpumalanga because of fraud. The Grade 12 results also show that only 18% of Black learners matriculated with exemptions, as compared to 53, 6% of white learners. This is an indication that our education system needs an overhaul.

We are also gathered here significantly a day after the management retreat held in Bloemfontein, Masselspoort. The retreat discussed, among other things, the transformation agenda, and some possible solutions to challenges we are facing now.

Most regrettably, we are gathered here when the whole world morns the victims of Tsunami tragedy. Let me therefore tore the line and convey our deepest condolences, from the last robot of my heart, to the affected families. Our hearts and thoughts will always be occupied by this horrified tragedy.

Creating a new Institution

I would submit, for purposes of debate and discussions that this Institution should strive to specialize and excel in regional rural development studies. Since our higher education, institutions in South Africa are generally weak in rural development studies. Instead, most of them tend to have an urban orientation to their programmes. Training everybody for the cities, big business and the private sector. This is a big weakness in a country with such large rural areas and population trapped in poverty, disease and ignorance.

Women’s studies

Program Director, it is only a moron who can argue against the fact that for us to reposition the institution around the regional development challenge, we need to start first with women empowerment. It is a fact that in most of our poor communities and families, it is women who withstand the worst of poverty. They are the ones who daily have to wipe tears from children who are hungry. It is women who look after the sick, the elderly, those dying from AIDS and the jobless. They are the one who have to fetch water, make fire and cook. There can therefore be no rural development studies without women studies, in particular on how to empower them and assist in the provision of basic services, so that they are relieved from some of the burdensome task of the society.

Registration Process

Mr. Speaker and Madam Deputy Speaker of the Student Parliament let me indicate that the registration is a process and not an event, so it cannot be concluded overnight. This huge process demands for people to stay calm, as there is no crisis. People should stop being excited. At the same time, no organization should use its cheap popularity and unilaterally disrupt the continuous and smooth running of the registration process at hand.

Let me strongly indicate, madam deputy speaker, that I am on record for stating that I have forgiven all those who have wronged us. I harbour no bitterness towards the protagonists of our painful and unfortunate events of the past week. And we will overcome this process not by our own devices but by the help of Almighty God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Concerning registration of first years, we have programs, concerning that of senior students, we have programs, regarding graduations we have programs, and concerning HIV\AIDS we have programs. So, there is no need for people to press panicking buttons.

Mr. Speaker and Madam Deputy Speaker of the Student Parliament let me be opportunistic and welcome the entire student body on Campus for the academic year 2005. May our lovely first entering students have a happy and momentous year as part of Qwaqwa Campus of University of the Free State. May your studies be fruitful and enjoyable.

Student years are generally the happiest years of your life, so please make the most of them. While you are doing, all your preparations bear in mind that University is not an opportunity, it is just creating opportunities for a person.

On behalf of SRC members, our people, our students and management members I would like to welcome you all. Even though your parents are far away, here at Uniqwa you have more brothers, more sisters and more parents. Since we will love you with the same love as if we are from one family, and I have no doubts that management members will love and care for you as if you are their own children. Should you encounter any problem while studying at the Qwaqwa Campus of University of the Free State do not hesitate to contact us at the SRC offices because we need to ameliorate any factor influencing you negatively while on campus. I wish you well in the attainment of your academic pursuit.

Senior Students: We are not faced with just a new year but another academic year where we all have to work together to achieve our common goal of building our Institution through the development of human power. I urge you to invest your whole selves in this SRC.

For quite some time now, a debate has been ranging as to, whether has there been any progress in this incorporation process, or we are just moving with no direction. This debate is important, but I hasten to add not essential. The SRC is also involved in this debate, but with definite shift in emphasis. For us it is not important to participate in the debate than it is in finding solutions for the challenges of this new chapter in the history of humankind.

To my colleagues: Comrades, we are leading this Institution with a sense of pride and duty, and I know very well that we lead men and women, students who are determined to ensure that we all reach our destination safely and on time.

I said in one of our meetings that there are more enemies on our way, more than we can imagine. I think you witnessed that during the course of this week. The excitement and unnecessary confusions caused by some confused and loosed charlatans bear testimony to my statements. We should not reveal our game plans unless we are ready to slam.

Let me also borrow from the words of the late Albert Lethuli when he said and I quote: “There remains before us the building of the new land, from the ruins of the old narrow groups, a synthesis of the rich cultural strains which we have inherited. The task is immense”. Lastly, a navy divided within its ranks will be vanquished and destroyed by the enemy, but a navy united in purpose and action, loyalty and commitment will not drawn but sail on to victory.

In conclusion, let me call upon all political structures, church denominations, developmental structures, clubs, societies and forums to put aside all their differences, ideological insinuations and forge unity towards transforming Qwaqwa Campus of University of the Free State into an institution that is seen playing vigilant role in developing students academically, politically, socially, spiritually, religiously, culturally and otherwise.

Program Director, let me end my speech by indicating that every drop of my blood is telling me that Uniqwa is my home. I firstly became a student here, I became an activist here, I became a leader here, I became a president here, I will become a graduant here and hopefully I will become an employee here. So never, doubt my commitment towards the community of this campus.

Please be informed, in a central University of Technology’s way, that if there is no UNIQWA in HEAVEN, then I am not GOING.

Let us broaden the social base.

Tello Titus Wa-Motloung President General

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept