Administration, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, during the Public Management
Conversation, Somerset West
18 April 2007
Honourable Minister Skweyiya
Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) Board
members
Honourable Members of Parliament
Directors-General
Esteemed academics, local and international
Other senior officials from all three spheres of government
CAPAM staff members
Distinguished co-conversationalists
As I stand here before you in both my capacity as Minister for Public
Service and Administration and President of CAPAM, I am struck by how many
strands of different initiatives, proverbial paths we have walked, sometime
together, sometimes with others and sometimes by ourselves. But somehow many of
them actually come together at this event, intersecting with one another. I am
excited at what opportunity this event offers us to make key connections
between activities and initiatives which hitherto might have seemed disparate
and unco-ordinated.
Connections and links that we can make across different experiences and
different knowledge bases, and I am struck by the wealth of experience and
knowledge that we have collected here under one roof, coming from many parts of
the Commonwealth and from a very wide range of institutions and geographical
settings here in South Africa.
One very important pathway that has led to today's event began in 1998 when
Dr Zola Skweyiya, then Minister for Public Administration, was elected as
President of CAPAM.
It is therefore a great honour to have him present this morning to initiate
our conversation with a keynote address. His Presidency, culminated in the 2000
Biennial conference, held at this very hotel. I might have been the serving
Minister already at that time, but all the preparatory work was undertaken
under his leadership.
Since we have an example in our midst how small tentative steps at the start
can become confident strides in a particular direction it is fitting that,
towards the second part of tomorrow, we will also start paving the road for
South African and African preparation towards the October 2008 Biennial
conference in Barbados, thus completing a 10 year journey since the election of
Dr Skweyiya as the first President of CAPAM that came from African soil. I will
reflect on this aspect a little more this evening.
Dr Skweyiya is part of a tradition of South African intellectuals working
towards rewriting international public agendas. It is thus fitting that we in
honour of these intelligentsia engage, from a developmental perspective, with
this past 'decade and a bit.' Perhaps we should conduct our own Ten Year Review
of the status of the discipline/theory and the practice of public
administration in South Africa specific and Africa somewhat more generally.
In an 'ANC Today' in July last year President Mbeki reminded us of the
centrality of public administration in our developmental setting. He
specifically reminded us of the importance of the leadership development of the
managers, or as he referred to them, the "Mandarins". Allow me to quote what he
wrote:
"Our Public Administration consists of more than one-and-a-quarter-million
people. In terms of responsibility and skill, its members range from our
Directors-General, corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and professionals,
to 'span' managers and unskilled workers. The state entity described as our
Public Administration is the biggest and most complex multi-task organisation
in our country.
In terms of our Constitution, this Public Administration has the
responsibility, among other things, to help:
* heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic
values, social justice and fundamental human rights
* improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each
person
* build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as
a sovereign state in the family of nations.
Obviously, an organisation as big, varied and differentiated as our Public
Administration, and charged with the task to contribute to the fulfilment of
these fundamentally important tasks, requires a skilled, educated and dedicated
leadership cadre."
We need to acknowledge that it is those of us who sit in this room this
morning and the organisations and constituencies we represent who are solely
responsible for creating and maintaining this public administration that is
outlined by President Mbeki. We need to reflect on how we are collectively
doing in this task, and what we can do better, collectively.
When undertaking such a review, we should remember that collectively as a
nation we tend to be highly self-critical. In the process we often forget our
strong points. We forget about our achievements both domestically and
internationally. Let me quote from 'ANC Today,' Aug 2006:
Perhaps the time has come that, as Chris Thomson said, we, as Africans, take
responsibility for how our continent is portrayed. We should therefore respond
to Chido Nwangwu's cry from the heart that, "for far too long, a majority of
Africans have been indifferent to misrepresentations about who they are. They
have remained 'objects' of the ill-informed caricatures of a once glorious
heritage disfigured by colonial and post-colonial predators."
As South Africans we have much to offer. We are often regarded as punching
above our weight, given the positions of responsibility we tend to assume on
the global stage. We are acknowledged for the particular angles we cover in
debates and the difficult questions we tend to raise, and raising those in a
particular way based on our experience of representing so many of the big and
tricky global debates, all within the boundaries of a single nation state and
within a relatively short history.
We have developed particular sensitivities in certain matters, taking
certain positions that can be deemed to be thoroughly counter-cultured, against
the stream of conventional wisdoms at particular times. But this has not
prevented us from taking up important roles in the international community.
It is not difficult to single out other examples of where we created forks
in the road and ventured onto the newly created roads. Let me highlight just
two areas where I think we contributed to reshaping the international agenda in
the area of public administration.
We were amongst the early contingent that critiqued New Public Management
(NPM), cautioning about the potential negative implications of taking an
approach of a minimalist state in a developing country setting and also
tendencies within the NPM tradition that ignored the necessary nuance that
contextual understanding brings to any discussion regarding good and
transferable practice. We pointed all along to the pitfalls of the uncritical
transfer of so-called "international best practice" and instead sought to
encourage the development of a particular "African" understanding.
We also walked a pioneering road in terms of redefining and reinventing the
theory and practice of post-conflict reconstruction, especially on the African
continent, building on the foundation of our very own experience in rebuilding
a new non-racial, non-sexist society.
But the question lingers:
* Have we gone far enough and deep enough in our impact and influence to
move beyond the high conceptual levels of engagement; to show the actual
effects on the ground; to make the poor of our county and continent experience
the benefits of what we are engaging with on the more abstract levels. For
example, from a public administration perspective, have we gone beyond
critiquing neo-Weberian theories or New Public Management and actually improved
or even developed new theories appropriate for our African context, inspired by
the academic-practitioner interface, or prompted through our CAPAM and other
such engagements on the international level?
* Have these developments contributed to better administration practices,
improvements in governance and have we developed sound Public Administration
curricula which can be rolled out to scale, given the needs that we have
identified, both domestically and on the continent in general?
* Have we come to a better understanding and sufficiently articulated the
role public tertiary institutions could, and ought to play in a developmental
context? And how far are we in implementing these changes? Have we adequately
utilised our position in professional and quasi-professional organisations both
within South Africa, but also as CAPAM, as tributaries to the international
debate? To put it differently: have we, as a multi-national community of theory
and practice, paved a new road that all our global counterparts are eager to
travel with us?
Let me make it clear: I do not believe for one moment that we are still
meandering on roads travelled by predecessors 20 or even 50 years ago but the
question is whether we are complacent, resting on our laurels and being
satisfied with what we have achieved or whether we are eager to ensure
excellence in every contribution we make, every small and large task entrusted
to us? Whether it is excellence in the academic papers we deliver, academic
rigour in our policy development, or honest commitment to a developmental
process when "reviewing" or giving feedback to our peers, especially to ensure
the quality of the dialogue we engage in.
I am sure that we are call committed to ensuring that as participants we
navigate through the continuum that we call Public Administration, and look
forward to plotting the road (albeit across the ocean) to Barbados 2008.
Issued by: Department of Public Service and Administration
18 April 2007
