Africa-Press – South-Africa. South Africa’s public servants have so little character formation, many do not realise their lazy conduct, such as playing computer games while on duty, is unethical.
This according to Public Service Commission (PSC) chief director Cameron Jacobs who said he believed South Africa should only push for the professionalisation of the public service with a proper plan.
On Thursday, Jacobs was one of the main speakers at a retreat on the national framework towards the professionalisation of the public sector hosted by the PSC and Department of Public Service and Administration.
He said part of the problem with professionalisation was the whole public service was in “a bit of a problem”.
“We don’t exactly know what we are doing. We just take a reform process and overlay it on a traditional reform process, and remember we come from apartheid. We are overlaying policy over policy.
“We are sitting with a skewed public administration process in the country. If we lack the capability and the competence, can we confidently say that we can develop an implementation plan?
“If we don’t know, where do we get that capability and capacity?”
According to Jacobs, there was a need to review the overlaying of legislation “that is creating the inherent contradiction”.
“We need to decide what it is what we want.”
He said character formation was critical within any public service.
“I was once at the office of the family advocate. I stood there at the reception, and I wanted to speak to the family advocate.
“The person at the desk asked for five minutes, but she didn’t know that I could see what she was doing.
“Simple things public servants do which is sort of subliminal in a way and don’t even realise that we are being unethical, but we are.”
Jacobs added more need3e to be done to deal with the framework.
“Often when I look at the framework, it is more linked to the technical aspects of professionalisation.
“In other words, the performance management development system.
“If we don’t have a uniform understanding of the Constitution of values and principles, how are we going to develop a curriculum?
“How are you going to induct employees when we ourselves don’t have an understanding,” he said.
Last month, News24 reported lifestyle audits among senior public servants remained a thorny issue for the government.
As of 31 March 2023, only 36 of 44 national departments and 89 of 103 provincial departments indicated they had performed lifestyle reviews for the 2022 financial year.
The audits, which is a decentralised function and is the responsibility of departments to implement, were part of the professionalisation of the public service.
Annually, at the end of January, departments provide progress reports regarding lifestyle audit implementation to the Department of Public Service and Administration.
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