For an ethical public sector, remove politics from its appointment

Politicians being responsible for senior public servants’ appointments has historical reasons that need to change in post-apartheid SADiscussions of ethical challenges in the public sector frequently lead to discussions of the “political-administrative interface”, which seems to be a euphemism for political interference in the bureaucratic systems of government. To which the solution is just as frequently given that we need a “more professional” public sector.

In an environment such as SA’s, where politics is factional and frequently used for patronage purposes, this ongoing shuffling has led to serious instability in the upper echelons of the public sector. A report by the Institute of Race Relations found that between 2009 and 2017, former president Jacob Zuma made 126 changes to his national executive .

If we work from the understanding that the ethical culture of an organisation is built by its leadership, as one will find in most research on the topic, we can understand that such instability will have almost predictable consequences and, indeed, anybody who has worked at an organisation in which senior staff come and go regularly will have experienced what those are.

The Public Service Commission has, however, published numerous reports arguing that those purposes have now been attained, and that we now need to move to a system that will lead to greater professionalism of the public sector. Only by significantly depoliticising the system can we attain the level of professionalism required for the public service to support a developmental state. Fortunately, we do not need to look far for solutions.

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