The South African Public Service is in a crisis of being reduced into a terrain of in-ANC factional battles. The interference of party politics, especially the ANC, in the professional character of the Public Service is now a matter of public record, if court judgements are the minimum evidence to look at. The absence of a Public Service regulatory centre whose playbook is norms and standards, has increased the prerogative of executive authority wielding individuals in the system over the pulse and direction of 'public service', 'civil service', and the 'Public Service' itself.
The court cases that senior public servants win against the state, and as a result of the ill advised decisions of the executive authority wielding individuals is a symptom of fissures in our public service and administration system as a country. The impunity that accompanies the charging and suspending of senior public servants has made the public service a space talent will not chose as a destination to express itself. I dedicate this rendition to the unfairness that a friend was subjected to, when matters were as clear.
The Constitution of South Africa establishes a Public Service, "which must function, and be structured, in terms of national legislation, and which must loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day. The terms and conditions of employment in the public service must be regulated by national legislation. No employee of the public service may be favoured or prejudiced only because that person supports a particular political party or cause. Provincial governments are responsible for the recruitment, appointment, promotion, transfer and dismissal of members of the public service in their administrations within a framework of uniform norms and standards applying to the public service".
These provisions, when followed to the letter, will reduce the risk of scrupulous and arbitrary political meddling into the professional aspects of the public service. Professional occupational classes that require sheer qualifications for individuals to operate within them would be left to peer legitimation for individuals to be appointed into them. Politicians, will in such circumstances be given a short list of suitably qualified persons to select from, without a risk of ending up with unqualified persons presiding over occupation specific roles, purely because the 'elected' say so.
At its zenith, the South African public service should be able to operate as a system regulated by norms and standards whose adjudication can only be handled by professionally constituted tribunals. In such a regime they should not be occasions where 'qualified' individuals are subjected to the trauma of being labelled fraudulent whilst possessing in their persons unquestionable academic qualifications that meet the 'occupation specific requirements' of a public service post. A professional public service should have a occupation specific dispensation (OSD) that creates a career path which relaxes 'experience and related' requirements in favour of 'just being qualified'. In such a milieu, curriculum vitae of individuals that end up on the shortlist for consideration of a senior public service post must have been mechanically filtered by criteria that is independent of human prerogative.
As the practice notes of the Department of Public Service and Administration would attest, there has been a process of regulating entry into the senior management service (SMS) of the public service. This has in the main set hurdle rates that are years of experience based, and yet still recognising the OSD requirements, for certain of SMS posts. The health and engineering sector of the public service has experienced competence challenges that are traced to a misalignment between occupation specific demands of managerial posts, and those of administration and administration. To mitigate this, and in the health sector, a discipline community inspired call was made that heads of departments of health in provincial administrations should as far as it is possible preferably be professionals qualified as health practitioners, with doctors being at the apex of the pecking order. Experience in public service management, or additional qualifications in management would in such circumstances cut such health qualified individuals above the rest.
As evidence would attest in several auditor general reports on municipalities in particular, and the public service in general, the appointment into 'city engineer' positions of persons that are not engineers has had the greatest impact on the capability of the local state to meet its constitutional obligations. Similarly, provincial departments and hospitals were also found to have been in variance to the expectations of a health management system due to ignoring occupation specific requirements of those at the helm. There is compounding evidence gathering in South Africa of a chief executive officer who is presiding over a ESKOM that has thus far being reliable at switching off the lights than keeping them on.
On the 9th November 2021, the Mafikeng High Court acquitted Dr Lekalakala of fraud charges related to his appointment as head of the Department of Health in the North West Province. The charge was that he misrepresented his credentials when applying for the post. The 'state's prayer was for him to pay back the portion of the salary he received, and as such his pension was withheld until conclusion of the case'.
Whilst the case might have 'merits' in the political that was dominant at the time it was made, it was in fact a case of a state that goes to court and said our systems were able to appoint a MBChB qualified person, with a over 8 years SMS experience, served in the global federation of hospitals, served as a hospital manager of one of the big facilities in the province, and in possession of several management qualifications into a head of department post. We only want the state to find him guilty of fraud because we believe he lied when he said he was chief director at a time of his appointment, even though he was in fact acting as a chief director at the National department of health. We want the court to find him guilty of who 'we say he was'. What is fraudulent, according to the 'state' is the allegation of Dr Lekalakala having supposedly said he was a 'chief director' when he only 'acted as one for more that four years'.
The charge reads like a comedy script, if the prescripts explained herein above are followed. The court, after a punishing and costly, litigation period, could not find any evidence of fraud in Dr Lekalakala, but that of collusion and malice in the persons who acted as organs of state to lay charges. If the public service processes were at their constitution envisaged zenith, the matter would not have made it to any court of law. A competent prosecution authority would have found that it is not winnable, and lacks substance to be put on the court's roll.
Before, I conclude, it would be ethical for me to declare that whilst all care was taken to write this piece on the basis of its facts, I cannot separate myself from the subject of the case, Dr Lekalakala, who happens to also be a friend. In the event this piece has such biases, accept my apologies and disclaimer. But, the story still needs to be told.
This was an acquittal that should not have been. There was no need for this case. In fact, the department of health, should proffer an apology to the nation for having spent legal fees to argue that a 'qualified person' was 'fraudulently in a position he qualifies to occupy'. If clutching of straws had a name, this was classical. CUT!!!
🤷🏽♂️A ndzo tivulavulela
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