B Mbete: Official opening of Association of African Public Service
Commissions

16 February 2009

Salutation
Programme director
Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mr Richard Baloyi
Minister of State for Public Service in Kenya, Honourable Dalmas Otiento
Anyango
Interim President of the Association of African Public Service Commissions,
Professor Stan Sangweni
Interim Vice Presidents from East, West and southern Africa
Chairpersons, members of commissions and secretaries
Representatives of the South African Government
Sponsors and academic institutions
Ladies and gentlemen

I wish to welcome you, on behalf of the South African Government and my own
behalf, to our country and thank you for choosing South Africa to host the
launch and the first General Assembly of the Association of African Public
Service Commissions, known as AAPSComs.

We commend all the Public Service Commissions, for their bold move that led
to establishment of the AAPSComs.

I have no doubt that this association that we are inaugurating today will
enable its member commissions to collaborate and share experiences and best
practices in order to promote good governance and improve service delivery in
public services within the continent.

Some of us who are in government are inspired by the wisdom of Mwalimu,
Julius Nyerere, who advised that government will always have to work with
others to achieve the general good. He said in his address of October 1998 on
“good governance for Africa:”

“Governments bear the final responsibility for the state of the nation it is
internal and external peace, and the well-being of its people. It is the
distinction between the words 'governance' and 'government' which draws
attention to the reality that, despite its enforcement agencies, government (in
the sense of the executive authority) is not the sole determinant of whether
those responsibilities are fulfilled. There are always other forces within the
country which, in practice, can help or hinder the effectiveness of a
government, and which it therefore ignores at its peril.”

In South Africa, we have come to appreciate the role of our Public Service
Commission which is established as a constitutional body to, among others:

* promote the constitutionally prescribed values and principles governing
public administration in the public service
* investigate, monitor and evaluate the organisation and administration, and
the personnel practices, of the public service
* propose measures to ensure effective and efficient performance within the
public service
* give directions aimed at ensuring that personnel procedures relating to
recruitment, transfers promotions and dismissals comply with the
constitutionally prescribed values and principles
* report in respect of its activities and the performance of its functions,
including any finding it may make and directions and advice it may give, and to
provide an evaluation of the extent to which the constitutionally prescribed
values and principles are complied with.

Programme director, the fourteen (14) commissioners at the helm of our
Public Service Commission have made an important contribution to the
achievements of our young democracy in their tireless work to realise this
mandate given to them by our Constitution. The reports they produce and studies
they conduct do not only help us set standards and targets for the performance
of our public services; they are also the conscience we need to constantly
improve our delivery of services to our people.

Honourable guests

The AAPSComs, as a network of oversight institutions which generate
evaluative knowledge, is a critical addition to structures we have been
establishing as Africans for over a decade now to turn around our continent for
a better life for our people.

Evaluative knowledge is a source of immense power and influence and has,
indeed, been used by a number of agencies in the north to influence critical
investment and other decisions affecting our countries.

Africa has been subjected to monitoring and evaluation by countless external
agencies. But this has been top down and disempowering, resulting in a slew of
results that puts Africa and Africans on most indices in lower quintiles.

We should however, not be afraid to hold the mirror up to ourselves, and
locally drive monitoring and evaluation to serve as a critical element of the
management of our respective countries.

The critical question we need to pose to ourselves is how can we use our own
expertise, forged in incubators like AAPSComs, to do rigorous evaluations of
our policies and programmes, and thus, improve the quality of our
governance?

Programme director

In the summer of 2004 in this host city of ours, the African Evaluation
Association Conference (Africa), drew 600 delegates from 50 of our African
countries where they debated the linkages between development and democracy,
and committed that evaluative knowledge must be a local preserve.

The African Evaluation Association bears a relationship to AAPSComs, in that
they both seek to improve oversight in the important business of improving
service delivery through better governance.

There are many more instances of our initiatives, and what is thus required
is a harmonising of our efforts towards good governance so that we can be a
formidable Africa.

I am aware that in the next few days you will be engaging in critical
discussions, covering a wide range of issues including:

* the role of public administration in the promotion of good governance in
Africa
* priorities in public administration on the continent
* capacity constraints in the African public service
* the promotion of ethics and integrity in the African public service
* the enhancement of good governance through citizen participation.

I am confident that the outcomes of your deliberations will ensure that you
deepen the influence of AAPSComs into the very Public Services that will
benefit from it.

Ladies and gentlemen

The AAPSComs will be challenged to link its work to continental initiatives
currently unfolding within the auspices of the African union. Your association,
by bringing together Public Services Commissions from countries across our
continent, will contribute to the advancement of our agenda for continental
integration.

By providing a mechanism for our Public Services Commissions to share
experiences and learn from each other, the AAPSComs will help soften borders
between our countries and diverse cultures, and harmonise our institutions and
practices, from Cape to Cairo, for the promotion of good governance.

Our efforts towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
include, as you know, improving the public service machinery charged with the
responsibility of delivering services to our people.

Countries in conflict and those emerging from the ravages of war will also
have interest in the work of AAPSComs.

Our recognition of the dialectical linkage between good governance,
development and peace and security, resulted in the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (NEPAD). This programme represents an attempt by African
leaders to place the African continent on a path of sustainable development
encompassing good governance and prosperity with a consolidation of peace,
security and stability.

One of NEPAD’s achievements is the African Peer Review Mechanism whose
membership now includes the bulk of our 54 countries on the continent. The
African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) creates conditions conducive for the work
of Public Services Commissions.

Ladies and gentlemen

The AAPSComs will also have to interact with the programme of African
Ministers of Public Service which operates within the overall structure of the
African Union as a continental programme on capacity development for public
service effectiveness. The emphasis of this programme is aimed at strengthening
the capacities of the African states for effective public service delivery.

It is thanks to this programme of Ministers that today we celebrate,
annually, the Continental Africa Public Service Day whose key objective is the
recognition of the plight of men and women who devote their lives to serve the
public.

At their sixth Pan African Conference which was held in our country last
year, the Ministers adopted the African Public Service Charter on Values and
Principles which, as you would expect, has implications for Public Services
Commissions and the AAPSComs.

Programme director

Our leaders, meeting at the 12th Ordinary Session of the African Union last
month in Addis Ababa, established the Advisory Board which will ensure and
oversee the implementation of our Convention on Prevention and Combating
Corruption. The AAPSComs should have interest in the implementation of this
convention and its domestication within our countries. You will also be
challenged to explore a relationship with the Advisory Board.

Distinguished guests

The knowledge and insight that the Public Service Commissions in Africa
collectively possess, make them pivotal in advancing African public service
transformation.

I hope therefore, you will not only take this opportunity to launch the
association, but you will also see this as a challenge to contribute to the
advancement of our continent.

We have achieved a lot as a continent, and we will need the lessons we
continue to learn to navigate through the future. We celebrate with Zimbabweans
when they overcome a hurdle towards restoring their country to what we know it
to be.

We have listened to Mwalimu’s advice that governments need to work with
others to achieve the general good. Public Services Commissions and the
AAPSComs can partner with government to improve our public service.

We have listened to Mwalimu and as a government, and governments on the
continent, we are ready to work with you.

I thank you

Issued by: The Presidency
16 February 2009