OPINION | Danger lurks in move to curb corrupt public service appointments

Every democratic society faces a difficult question: how do we build a professional public service that serves the people rather than political interests? South Africa is no exception.

In the wake of the Zondo commission into state capture, there has been an understandable demand for reforms that strengthen integrity, restore public confidence and insulate the public service from abuse.

The recent amendment to the Public Service Act has been welcomed by many as a bold step towards depoliticising public administration. By removing executive authorities from much of the appointment process and transferring these powers to heads of department, the amendment seeks to create a clearer distinction between politics and administration.

Its intentions are undoubtedly commendable. Every South African who values ethical government wants appointments to be based on merit, competence and fairness rather than patronage or political influence.

The question, however, is whether this amendment addresses the real problem. More importantly, does it risk creating new problems that may ultimately prove more damaging than those it seeks to solve?

These are questions that go to the heart of how the government functions and, ultimately, whether citizens receive the quality of public services they deserve.

As commissioners, we spent years investigating appointment grievances, overseeing compliance with public service legislation, conducting public administration investigations and examining systemic weaknesses across national and provincial departments

Our concern is not with the objective of professionalising the public service. That objective is beyond dispute. Rather, our concern is whether the diagnosis that informed this legislative reform was sufficiently grounded in evidence.

Having served as senior public servants before our appointments as commissioners of the Public Service Commission, we had the privilege of observing the public service from two distinct vantage points. As commissioners, we spent years investigating appointment grievances, overseeing compliance with public service legislation, conducting public administration investigations and examining systemic weaknesses across national and provincial departments.

Those experiences shaped our understanding of where the real problems lie.

Much of the public debate has proceeded on the assumption that executive authorities were the principal source of irregular appointments in the public service. Yet our experience suggests that the reality is considerably more complex.

During our years at the Public Service Commission, the overwhelming majority of appointment-related grievances that came before us did not arise because ministers or members of executive councils interfered in recruitment processes. Instead, they arose from failures within the administrative machinery itself. Human resource practitioners who ignored established procedures, selection committees that failed to apply merit consistently, line managers who manipulated recruitment processes and senior officials who disregarded legal requirements accounted for the overwhelming share of the complaints we investigated.

This distinction matters because effective reform depends upon accurately identifying the source of institutional failure.

No-one should misunderstand our argument. We do not suggest that executive authorities have always acted impeccably. There have been instances where some have abused their powers, ignored legal requirements or made irregular appointments. Such conduct deserves condemnation and appropriate sanction.

But public policy should not be designed around exceptional cases. Laws that fundamentally restructure governance should be based on evidence of systemic failure, not on assumptions or isolated examples, however serious those examples may be.

When exceptional cases become the basis for permanent legislative redesign, governments risk dismantling accountability mechanisms that, while imperfect, continue to perform important constitutional functions.

Political interference ... undermines fairness, transparency and merit. It deserves no place in a constitutional democracy

Equally important is the need to distinguish between political interference and the lawful exercise of statutory authority. These concepts are often treated as though they are interchangeable, yet they are fundamentally different.

Political interference occurs when individuals who have no lawful role in a recruitment process improperly seek to influence its outcome. Such interference undermines fairness, transparency and merit. It deserves no place in a constitutional democracy.

Executive authorities, however, were not outsiders to the recruitment system. Their powers were conferred by legislation. Their involvement in certain appointments formed part of the statutory framework established by parliament. One may legitimately debate whether those powers should be reduced or reconfigured, but it is inaccurate to characterise the lawful exercise of legislated authority as political interference simply because the office bearer is a politician.

South Africa’s legal framework already contained important safeguards. Executive authority over appointments operated within a network of delegations, oversight mechanisms, Public Service Commission scrutiny and, in many senior appointments, collective executive approval. The real question is whether those safeguards were consistently enforced — not whether they should have been abandoned altogether.

The danger in focusing exclusively on elected office bearers is that it diverts attention from a less visible but equally significant risk: bureaucratic abuse.

Officials are not immune from misconduct simply because they are career administrators. Administrative capture, favouritism, nepotism and manipulation of recruitment processes can flourish within bureaucratic structures just as easily as political patronage can flourish within political structures. Indeed, because such conduct often occurs away from public scrutiny, it may prove even more difficult to detect and correct.

• Nzimande and Sizani are former commissioners of the Public Service Commission