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Address by the Director-General in The Presidency and Secretary to Cabinet, The Reverend Frank Chikane, at the fourth Commonwealth Heads of African Public Services Forum
11 July 2007
Address by the Director-General in The Presidency and Secretary to Cabinet, The Reverend Frank Chikane, at the fourth Commonwealth Heads of African Public Services Forum, Mount Grace Hotel, Magaliesburg.
South Africa is indeed honoured to be hosting the fourth Forum of Commonwealth Heads of African Public Services together with the Commonwealth Secretariat on the theme: 'Creating a Responsive and Citizen-Centred Public Service in Africa.' I would like to echo the words of welcome expressed by Professor Levin and extend our warmest hospitality to our esteemed colleagues from our sister countries on the African Continent and our special guests and friends from the global village to which we all belong.
The Forum of Commonwealth heads of African Public Services is important to African public servants and policy makers as it provides us with an opportunity to examine the common challenges that Africa faces and to share country experiences and good practices developed in response to these challenges. I have no doubt that, as in the past, this Forum will emerge with practical solutions to the public service and administration challenges facing our continent. I wish to acknowledge the support of the Commonwealth Secretariat for the Forum and for partnering with us to make this three-day meeting possible. We appreciate the services offered by the Secretariat to make it possible for us to address the common challenges we face on the continent.
As we advance towards the African Renaissance that President Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders have envisioned, we are aware that for Africa to prosper we will have to work collectively, not only among ourselves as members of the Commonwealth family of nations, but also with colleagues in the Lusophone and Francophone Africa, the Maghreb countries as well as the African Diaspora.
New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad)
The 2004 inaugural meeting of this Forum considered the role of African public services in facilitating the primary objectives of Nepad. As you would know, the New Partnership for Africa's Development is a pledge made by African leaders based on a common vision and shared conviction that they have a duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic.
Nepad is anchored in the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion or exploitative forms of inclusion in a globalising world. Its strategic objectives include the strengthening of mechanisms for conflict prevention, promoting and protecting democracy and human rights, developing infrastructure, like roads, railways, ports, Information Communication Technology (ICT) etc, growing economies of our countries and regions, developing a culture of good economic and corporate governance, creating conditions conducive to investment and inflows for developmental purposes, developing the necessary human resources and skills requirements, improving the health facilities to deal effectively with debilitating diseases, etc., and promoting the role of women in socio-economic development.
The challenge we are facing is finding the capacity to translate these agreed noble policy goals into practical programmes and projects as well as developing implementation strategies. The Regional Economic Communities (RECs), which we had thought would be implementation organs of Nepad, were not initially geared to undertake such programmes.
At the World Economic Forum meeting a month ago, President Thabo Mbeki, looking back on the multilateral consensus for Nepad, praised the agreements for setting up the implementing organs of the economic communities. They have "good staffs and headquarters," he said. "But when we came to implementation of cross-boundary projects and commitments from development partners we found that we don't have the capacity to design a project. It is a discovery. (Programmes) won't translate into reality if the commitments to capacity are not made."
South Africa is experiencing similar challenges of capacity for different reasons. During the last thirteen years, South Africa followed a tough programme of fiscal discipline, underwent economic restructuring and transformation of the apartheid economy and a sustained effort to improve our implementation mechanisms and systems. As a result, we have recently seen the economy growing at rates higher than many expected. This has created a crisis of capacity in both the public and private sectors, including serious skills shortages.
The growth of the economy has also resulted in unprecedented pressure on the capacity of our infrastructure to support such levels of growth. For example, we now have to import cement from China to meet the increasing demand arising from a growing construction industry and projects. The growth of the economy has also generated higher levels of revenues beyond the capacity of the State to spend, resulting in a budget surplus for the last financial year which is projected to run into the next financial year. Despite this phenomenal growth, the high levels of poverty still exist. To deal with this challenge, Government has developed strategic programmes like the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) to ensure that the economy is shared and to address the shortage of skills.
African Ministers' Programme
Under the auspices of the African Union and within the overall programme of Nepad, African Ministers of Public Service have established a continental programme on capacity development for public service effectiveness. The emphasis of this programme is to strengthen the capacities of the African states for effective public service delivery. The programme originates from the Third Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service held in February 2001 in Windhoek, where the African Public Service Charter was adopted and at the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers in May 2003, where the Stellenbosch Declaration was adopted. The Declaration affirmed the need for the work of governance and public administration to be located within Nepad and the social and economic programme of the African Union. It also reaffirmed the need to identify specific programmes of action that give effect to the spirit and intent of the Charter for the Public Service in Africa.
The fifth Pan African Conference adopted the Addis Ababa declaration that builds on the two past conferences and sets the broad agenda for the Ministers' Programme. The declaration also outlines the following practical and feasible strategies and programmes for the implementation of the Ministers' Programme for the tenure of the 5th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service:
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implementation of the Capacity Building Programme on Governance and Public Administration,
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review of the African Public Service Charter and its institutionalisation as an instrument of the African Union,
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building the institutional capacity of management development Institutes to be relevant in enhancing public service delivery,
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engaging with Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on public sector reforms,
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working on ethics and anti-corruption,
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addressing the issues of human resource management on the continent given the challenges of HIV and AIDS, skills flight and scarce public resources,
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addressing post-conflict reconstruction of the public service.
I sketch this history of the efforts of the African continent because I believe that the implementation of these programmes can assist us in terms of capacity of our public services. After all, it is our responsibility as Heads of African Public Services, Directors-General and Permanent Secretaries responsible for public service matters to implement the Ministers' Programme. As you would know, one project of the Ministers' Programme is the all-Africa Innovation Awards. This project will be implemented in four phases to culminate in the presentation of the awards during the 6th Pan-African Ministers' Conference in the first quarter of 2008. I believe that initiatives like this will assist us to learn from the ingenuity and creativity of our peers.
Capacity and Organisation of the State
In his 2004 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki promised South Africans that government would "ensure that the public sector discharges its responsibilities to our people as a critical player in the process of the growth, reconstruction and development of our country." In the same address, President Mbeki emphasised that government would "focus especially on raising skills levels within the public sector, and ensure its managerial and technological modernisation, driven by a clear understanding of the developmental tasks of our democratic state."
Against this background, I would like to share some insights with you regarding the investigation we have conducted into the capacity of the South African state. In 2004 President Mbeki asked Ministers whether we have the all-round capacity, the proper organisational structures and the resources, successfully to implement our developmental programmes. After conducting various sectoral capacity assessments, we have found that we have, to a large degree, sufficient resources and adequate numbers of public servants but there are critical skills shortages and our capacity building efforts are not resulting in the desired outcomes and impact.
One of the lessons of our study is the importance of professionals in service delivery in the public service. This includes doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers and teachers among others. We offered adequate remuneration at entry level but we were losing many professionals and experienced workers to the private sector largely because of lower salaries. That meant that the public service perpetually had to train new intakes. Specific dispensations for professionals have been devised, which we hope will promote the attraction and retention of these valued human resources.
The way in which the State is structured to deliver services impacts on the quality of service delivery. In our study we found that co-ordination and integration are challenges, especially in joint programmes which require co-operation from all the spheres of government. Fragmentation was also identified as impeding the over-the-counter service delivery, where citizens are required to travel long distances to obtain services which could be delivered locally. To remedy these problems, we are planning to create a 'Single Public Service' of national, provincial and local government. The development of an overarching legislation for the 'Single Public Service' is under consideration will be tabled in Parliament soon.
The nature of the State
I would like to consider briefly the role of the nation state as the primary driver of service delivery. Efforts to improve service delivery in African countries are located within the context of a globalised world where developed countries have sought to impose an approach which dictates a reduced role for a 'right-sized' state. Within public administration New Public Management, espousing management 'autonomy' and lean bureaucracies was fashionable for some time in established democracies.
The challenges we face in South Africa - following 350 years of economic exclusion and deliberate impoverishment of the majority of the people - have led us to move from this 'narrow approach' or 'prescription' in favour of a developmental state. In a Developmental State the state assumes a prominent role in mobilising the society's resources towards developmental priorities. It does not only intervene to transform its economic base by promoting productive, income-generating economic activities, but it also ensures that economic growth has the effect of improving the living conditions of the majority of its population through fundamental changes in socio-economic conditions leading to qualitative improvement in the material conditions of citizens.
Apartheid's racial capitalism has left us with a legacy and phenomenon which President Mbeki has described as two economies in one. The First Economy is modern, produces the bulk of our country's wealth and is integrated with the global economy. The Second Economy is characterised by underdevelopment, contributes little to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and incorporates the poorest of our urban and rural poor. It is structurally disconnected from both the first and global economies, and is incapable of self-generated growth and development. Again, because of many years of apartheid, this phenomenon expresses itself in racial terms. Almost all the people in the second economy are black.
The developmental state is meant to correct this negative legacy of apartheid as part of the process of building a just, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and equitable society. The developmental state aims to alleviate poverty, address inequalities in social and economic conditions, provide safety and security and deliver services impartially to all South Africans. The evolution of a developmental state is invariably dependent upon the strength, competency and coherence of public servants who must convert the stated developmental goals into reality. The State therefore requires a capable and effective Public Service in order to plan and guide the implementation of its national development plan.
Values and principles of Public Administration
This brings me to the theme of this Forum, 'Creating a Responsive and Citizen-Centred Public Service in Africa.' The creation of a responsive public service in Africa cannot be undertaken in isolation from the overall developmental goals of African societies. The public service in Africa must support and promote programmes to ensure national development, nation building and national unity while simultaneously collaborating at regional, continental and international levels in support of the African agenda and Africa's achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
The challenges we face as African public services cannot be easily overcome unless the public service embodies the values and principles which will make it responsive to the needs of citizens, thereby becoming citizen-centred in its orientation and character. The African Public Service Charter, which was adopted by the 3rd Biennial Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service in Namibia in 2001, provides an ethical framework as well as rules governing relations between the public service and the users which must underpin responsive and citizen-focused service delivery. The Charter:
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defines a framework to guide the public services in Africa in taking legislative, regulatory, technical and practical measures to create favourable conditions for the proper functioning of public service,
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expresses the political and moral commitment of the African States to improve service delivery and ensure the efficient use of resources,
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reflects on issues affecting public services: the working conditions of civil servants, rewarding good initiatives, promotion of professionalism and efficiency,
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defines the principles and rules of conduct for public servants in order to foster a neutral and stable environment conducive to the strengthening of ethical values and the improved image of public service.
Recently South Africa hosted a Southern African Development Community (SADC) workshop to consider the challenges impeding the speedy implementation of the Charter. The workshop's findings will feed into the continental review and updating of the Charter.
The values and principles of public administration are also enshrined in democratic South Africa's Constitution in an effort to address the legacy of apartheid in the post-apartheid society:
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promotion and maintenance of a high standard of professional ethics,
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promotion of efficient, economic and effective use of resources,
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a development-oriented Public Administration,
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provision of services in an impartial, fair, equitable way without bias,
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response to people's needs and encouragement of the public to participate in policy-making,
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an accountable Public Administration,
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fostering transparency by providing the public with timely, accessible and accurate information,
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cultivating good human resource management and career development practices to maximise human potential,
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a broadly representative Public Administration.
Let me share with you some of the elements of our programmes as part of an effort to ensure that these values and principles are translated into a system and culture of governance that is people-centred. Some of these elements have been identified and cited by the Panel of Eminent Persons who conducted the African Peer Review process in South Africa over the last two years as constituting 'best practice.'
Batho Pele
The first I want to refer to is Batho Pele, which is a traditional Sesotho adage meaning 'people first'. Batho Pele is essentially a citizen's charter. It outlines eight principles for service delivery in South Africa: courtesy, consultation, value for money, service standards, access, information, redress, openness and transparency.
Batho Pele, which became public service policy in 1997, requires that departments set service delivery standards for their departments, and Ministers must make annual statements of public service commitment. Departments must report annually on performance against the standards they have set. Citizens must be consulted on services at all stages in the policy process. Departments must listen to and respond to complaints from citizens. Information on services must be provided. Laws protecting the rights of citizens to administrative justice and access to information support this principle. Service provision must as far as possible be located in proximity to where people live. Each of these principles, if applied rigorously by the officials, will ensure that we develop a responsive and citizen-centred public service.
The Batho Pele programme includes unannounced visits by Ministers to service delivery points, a campaign to assist citizens to know their service delivery rights and responsibilities and a targeted access programme implementing integrated service delivery. It also includes Khaedu - a TshiVenda word which means 'challenge' - which places senior civil servants at the coalface of service delivery (in a police station or a hospital, for example), after which they write a report to the relevant head of department. The Batho Pele policy is especially significant given the South African legacy of apartheid, where human rights and human dignity were denied by government, and services were provided to the minority at the expense of the majority of the people in the country.
Izimbizo
Another unique element of participatory democratic governance of which we are justly proud, and for which we received recognition from the African Peer Review team, is the Imbizo or Izimbizo (in plural) programme. An Imbizo is a forum which enables face-to-face dialogue between government leaders from all spheres of government and the public. It gives ordinary citizens the opportunity to engage the leadership of government directly in an unmediated way to express their views on the successes and failures of Government, especially in relation to governance and service delivery matters.
In this forum, the President and the government leaders listen to the people who use the opportunity to voice their concerns and grievances on issues of development, governance and service delivery. Indeed, the Imbizo offers a platform where the ordinary people inform the government leadership about their experiences and the challenges they face in their communities and at the same time suggest solutions to address these challenges. The Imbizo is also an opportunity for Government to communicate its programme of action, to note progress in implementation and challenges experienced.
The African Peer Review team described a Presidential Imbizo as follows:
"The President visits communities and sees for himself some of the challenges that people are grappling with and the conditions under which they live. Similarly, communities are afforded the opportunity to air their concerns and communicate their suggestions and aspirations directly with the President and, in the President's presence, the Premier, members of the provincial executive council, the mayors and local councils. In this way, Imbizo strengthens co-operative government and enables citizens to hold the three spheres of government accountable."
The Imbizo forum gives the poor and the previously disenfranchised the opportunity to speak 'truth to power'. Twice a year there is an Imbizo Focus Week where over 300 events take place in local communities across the country. In the last two years or so, both the President and the Deputy President have been holding, on average, one Imbizo per month. There are also Presidential Working Groups, which can be described as sectoral Izimbizo. These include labour, business, agriculture, women, youth, higher education and the religious sectors. The President meets with each one of these working groups twice a year, on average.
Multi-Purpose Community Centres
Part of the challenge of creating a responsive and citizen-focused public service in South Africa is the legacy of apartheid which has meant that the majority of the country's citizens live some distance outside major towns and cities or in under-serviced rural areas. Citizens have to travel great distances to obtain services, and many cannot afford these additional costs. In 1999 Government developed a plan to establish Multi-Purpose Community Centres (now called Thusong Service Centres). Thusong Service Centres are located in areas where the poor people live. They are a hub or one-stop centre for a number of services provided by national, provincial and local government and, as a result, bring government closer to the people. By the end of March 2007, 96 Thusong Service Centres were in operation.
Co-operative government
South Africa is a unitary state with three spheres of government. Each sphere is allocated certain functions, some of which are overlapping with another spheres. Within this system it is essential to have procedures and structures for the handling of disputes and for the management of intergovernmental relations. The Constitution states that the spheres are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated, and together they must provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the Republic as a whole.
The three spheres of government are required to co-operate with one another in mutual trust and good faith by:
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fostering friendly relations,
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assisting and supporting one another,
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informing one another of, and consulting one another on, matters of common interest,
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co-ordinating their actions and legislation with one another,
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adhering to agreed procedure,
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avoiding legal proceedings against one another.
Various structures are in place to ensure sound intergovernmental relations. The President meets with Premiers in the President's Co-ordinating Council, Premiers meet with district mayors in Premiers' Forums and district mayors head intergovernmental forums with local municipalities. National Ministers meet with provincial counterparts on sectoral matters including health, education, agriculture and transport. The system of co-operative government ensures that conflict resolution is fast-tracked and that the appropriate checks and balances are in place.
Social partnership for development
Another best practice ushered in by the new democratic government in South Africa, which is not cited by the African Peer Review team, was a social pact between civil society organisations and government to ensure broad participation in issues of development. Following extensive discussions between government, labour, business and community organisations and civil society generally after the democratic elections in 1994, it was agreed that a social partnership for development should be constituted. Accordingly, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), a statutory body, was formed to deal with economic and social policies for development. Certain types of legislation which affect labour or business are processed through the Council.
Professional ethics
I would like to touch on professional ethics, which are highlighted both in the African Public Service Charter and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. There is the potential in any country for the senior civil service to become a self-serving elite, concerned with their own welfare rather than the welfare of those they serve. In South Africa we inherited a society where there was, in the words of President Mbeki, "a deep-seated understanding that personal wealth constituted the only true measure of individual and social success". The corruption of apartheid in South Africa distorted and undermined the value systems of society. In contrast, our liberation struggle in South Africa was informed by sound communal values and the African philosophical concept of 'ubuntu', which means 'humanity towards others'. These values, which are based on a conception of the 'common good,' are shared by all Africans.
In March South Africa hosted the Africa Forum on Fighting Corruption, which was a preparatory meeting for the 5th Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity, and I would like to draw your attention to an extract from the Forum's declaration. The Ekurhuleni declaration on Fighting Corruption states that: "negative perceptions of corruption in African states, often depicted as institutionalised corruption and the inability of such States to control corruption, call(s) upon the African people to reassert traditional communal, egalitarian and democratic values and ensure that these values are infused in all institutions of government and form the basis of a national integrity system in order to counter the rampant pursuit of individual gain, and further call(s) upon African leaders at all levels and in all sectors of society to lead by example the campaign against corruption by prioritising prevention strategies."
We have a duty as heads of civil services to spearhead anti-corruption campaigns in our civil services, to lead by example, as the declaration says. President Mbeki in opening the 5th Global Forum articulated a broader understanding of corruption, moving way from the narrow definitions of corruption as the relationship between the bribe-giver and bribe-taker, and clarified the point that corruption is a multifaceted, systemic and institutional global phenomenon that exists in both developed and developing countries. Corruption takes place within all sectors of society at the interface between the public, private and civil society sectors. Corruption weakens democratic processes and public order and is an impediment to development.
By hosting the Global Forum, we were able to steer the global discourse on anti-corruption away from the complacent assumption that corruption is a problem of developing countries only. None the less having argued that corruption is pervasive we must acknowledge that it affects as us Africans too, including bribery of our public officials by foreign companies. We must be vigilant as we continue to build national integrity systems aimed at preventing future occurrences of corruption. The democratic state therefore needs to take the lead in combating, preventing and eliminating corruption.
Conclusion
Our three days of deliberation present us as the heads of public services in Africa with a rare opportunity to share ideas, debate, discuss, and offer advice, all in the spirit of improving public service delivery and public administration and governance throughout the continent. This Forum will assist us in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and our own national service delivery objectives. I wish you well in your deliberations and trust that in the next three days you will have fruitful discussions that will benefit the entire continent both in the immediate term and in the years to come.
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