F Chikane: Commonwealth Heads of African Public Services Forum

11 July 2007

Excellencies,
Heads of African Public Services,
Directors-General and Permanent Secretaries,
Distinguished delegates and guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

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:
* implementation of the Capacity Building Programme on Governance and Public
Administration,
* review of the African Public Service Charter and its institutionalisation as
an instrument of the African Union,
* building the institutional capacity of management development Institutes to
be relevant in enhancing public service delivery,
* engaging with Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on public sector
reforms,
* working on ethics and anti-corruption,
* addressing the issues of human resource management on the continent given the
challenges of HIV and AIDS, skills flight and scarce public resources,
* 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:

* 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,
* expresses the political and moral commitment of the African States to improve
service delivery and ensure the efficient use of resources,
* reflects on issues affecting public services: the working conditions of civil
servants, rewarding good initiatives, promotion of professionalism and
efficiency,
* 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:
* promotion and maintenance of a high standard of professional ethics,
* promotion of efficient, economic and effective use of resources,
* a development-oriented Public Administration,
* provision of services in an impartial, fair, equitable way without
bias,
* response to people's needs and encouragement of the public to participate in
policy-making,
* an accountable Public Administration,
* fostering transparency by providing the public with timely, accessible and
accurate information,
* cultivating good human resource management and career development practices
to maximise human potential,
* 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:
* fostering friendly relations,
* assisting and supporting one another,
* informing one another of, and consulting one another on, matters of common
interest,
* co-ordinating their actions and legislation with one another,
* adhering to agreed procedure,
* 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.

I thank you

Issued by: The Presidency
11 July 2007
Source: The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za)