The move toward the finalization of the Public Service Amendment Bill (2023), the Public Administration Management Amendment Bill (2023), and the Public Service Commission Bill (2022) represent significant progress toward legislating the National Development Plan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (NDP) recommendations for the professionalization of the public service, according to Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Ms. Noxolo Kiviet.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Despite the Batho Pele Principles, South Africans complain about unprofessional public servants [which is something that] has been cited as the main cause of poor service delivery,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Minister Kiviet.
\nMinister Kiviet delivered the keynote address at the Public Service Commission conference on Public Service Reforms towards the Professionalization of the Public Sector, yesterday, 12 October 2023, at the Government Communications Information System (GCIS) headquarters in Pretoria.
\nAttended by delegates from Government and academic institutions, the purpose of the conference was to reflect on the transformation journey of the post-apartheid public service. The delegates interrogated issues, including the macro-organisation of government and how the PSC could support the Head of the Public Service Administration in the Presidency in managing the recruitment and performance management of Directors-General in the Public Service.
\nIn her keynote address, Minister Kiviet provided a historical analysis of the history of the public service globally, on the African continent and in post-apartheid South Africa, zooming in on the transformative interventions adopted during the first 15 years in the new dispensation.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Democratic South Africa inherited a racially skewed public service in which 95.5% of the top 3239 civil servants were white, and only 0.6% were black African,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she recounted.
\nBeginning in the mid-1990s, the situation had been turned around demographically and from a public service reform perspective grounded on the Constitutional requirements to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153put people first\u00e2\u20ac\u009d through professionalism driven by values and principles of ethical public service.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153South Africa has gone through significant transitions. At the same time, the public sector has also changed, becoming more representative of the diverse backgrounds and needs of the South African people,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reflected Minister Kiviet.
\nHowever, the Minister said while the face of the public service has changed during the first decade and a half, several subsequent reviews \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including the NDP \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have shown slow progress in substantive reforms and changes, especially relating to professionalism and ethical conduct.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The evolution of the public service since 1994 has not been without challenges\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6such as corruption in some government departments, a lack of accountability resulting in the tarnishing of the image of the public service,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said the Minister.
\nThe three Bills mark the start of a new era in the transformative journey of the South African Public Service, she emphasised.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153[These] public service reform efforts need to embrace the changes that have been done and draw on a range of public management models that are appropriate to different contexts while putting the needs and interests of the people at the heart of reform efforts consistent with new Public Service approaches.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is a compelling case for drawing elements of the new public service approach to ensure that public sector reforms are grounded in the interests and needs of citizens rather than driven by the technocratic impetus of public officials,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Minister Kiviet concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The move toward the finalization of the Public Service Amendment Bill (2023), the Public Administration Management Amendment Bill (2023), and the Public Service Commission Bill (2022) represent significant progress toward legislating the National Development Plan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (NDP) recommendations for the professionalization of the public service, according to Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Ms. Noxolo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3610,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions\/3610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpsa.gov.za\/thepublicservant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}