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A capable meritorious state requires a back to basics mindset

One of the Government of National Unity's fundamental deliverables is rebuilding a capable and meritorious public service. In this area, the GNU will generate scripts or scenarios to recalibrate how service delivery will become a feature of governing RSA. As a result, concepts and labels, some with deep ideological intentions and baggage, are baying for centre stage as the vocabulary of rebuilding the public service.

From the battle to sustain the predominant 'public service transformation', 'public service reform', 'professionalisation of the public service', 'single public service' to 'back-to-basics' and 'meritorious capable public service' nomenclature, South Africa is faced with the reality of just getting the Public Service as an institution to get things done, emphasizing the urgent need for a 'back-to-basics' approach. Underscoring the societal preoccupation, the urgency to 'get things done' has become a significant weight in public service policy and practice, overshadowing the equally significant role of the theoretical issues that underpin the 'what and why' of public service; these have now become low politics. 

Given RSA's tormented history and how it has defined and potentially still defines the public, not everyone would agree on what issues should remain in the bucket of public service. The centrality of organs of state to the success of government as the most active agent of the state has sharpened the need to interrogate why defining the public service has been fluctuating. Ideological prejudice, which divides practitioners and scholars just as class provides fault lines, has still not changed the reality of just getting things done. 

 

The concept of public service has been a subject of debate in both theoretical and practical disciplines, serving as a platform for the application of public administration, politics, and other dimensions of management sciences. This debate has arguably broadened its definition, potentially moving it away from its core attribute of 'getting things done '. It would be beneficial for the GNU to ensure that its interpretation of 'meritorious' is shared among coalition partners or society, as unity in understanding is crucial for the success of their work in building a capable state. 

 

At its highest level of perfection, meritocracy banishes all sense of grace. It diminishes society's communal character, a substrate of being 'ubuntu' and potentially liquidates to the 'batho-pele' character-defining RSA public service. Meritocracy leaves little room for the solidarity that can arise when we reflect on what makes up our contingency as a society.

 

In South Africa, when the world was hard at work to reform its public service, the preoccupation was more with the constitutional order that must deal with the arrangements of how to govern each other. Chapter 10 of the RSA Constitution dealt with principles that the constitutional order had to unfold with as it searched for space in an otherwise redefined public administration and management terrain of content and practice. 

 

The provision in section 197 of the Constitution that "the public service must loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day" is instructive to the RSA public service's capability and meritoriousness. The public service can only execute within the parameters set by the establishing legislation, over which the Constitution enjoys supremacy. With provisions dealing with favouritism and prejudice in public service, a capable state presents an inarguable case for people-centric merit to reign as a criterion for commission into public service. 

 

As a result, meritoriousness can only be measured to the extent that those commissioned into the public service are qualified and can get the job done irrespective of who the government of the day is. Anything less is illegal and at variance with principles entrenched in the RSA Constitution. To the extent that a capable and meritorious public service is not left to the supply and demand dynamics of the RSA human capital, the increasingly skewed values of training and development will overwhelm the idea of the common good. 

 

The distortions of merit as a function of higher qualifications in the what of public service and less about the time spent on the how have upended the pyramid of public service composition. There is an uncharacteristic and disproportionate growth of public servants in post levels preoccupied with the whats and whys of the public service or sector and a marked shrinking of the how-to. What is inarguable is the tragic decline of the 'necessary paper-pushing', 'broom-moving', 'litter-picking', 'file-archiving', or similar character of the public service and the increase of unscrupulous insourced capacity loyal only to the bottom line set whence they are employed. 

 

The hollowing out of the organ of stateness in the public service, the institution or individual, has impacted the dignity of working in the public service. The social bonds commissioned into public service must have with society require more than human capital interventions; they must be mega nation-building interventions to frame a new path. The presence of the state is felt in the mundane tasks of public service. The civic-minded common good, which recognises the social esteem attached to public service, should be the new metric of merit and capability. 

In the thirty years that have passed, South Africa created a transitionocratic bureaucracy. As a result, it has a concentrated memory of constant change. Those in the public service field for the same number of years have more experience in experimenting than concretising. The base is fluid and, in some instances, sinking quicksand. Finding a base to go back to is critical. It is commendable that building a capable state is one of the priority areas of the GNU and is poised to be a central feature of the National Dialogue. CUT!!

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