A Mozambican minister of transport visits his colleague in Portugal. On a helicopter ride over the country, the Portuguese minister points to a bridge, a dam, a new road and a flyover. For each infrastructure project, he pats his back pocket, grins and says, “10%”. A year later, the visit is reciprocated, and now the Mozambican minister takes his Portuguese colleague on a helicopter ride. But there is nothing to be seen: no dam, no bridge, no freeway. The Mozambican laughs heartily, patting his back pocket, and says, “100%”.
There are of course important differences between the Mozambique as described in the anecdote and our country. However, few disagree that corruption penetrates our society at all levels, too. Fighting this scourge should be an absolute priority, lest we also arrive in a future where all our bridges, so to speak, have crumbled.
ARRESTING THE CORRUPT IS NOT ENOUGH
Fighting corruption is about more than catching and punishing the corrupt. Even if all the corrupt are arrested, no water will suddenly start flowing through broken pipes, no clinics will be immediately stocked with suitable medications and equipment, no schools will be provided with working toilets that — and this is crucial — will continue to work after being installed.
Our state institutions are not only plagued by corruption; they are very often dysfunctional, too. We must fight corruption within a larger programme to restore functionality to our state.
There are many reasons for our current dysfunctionality. Corruption is one of them. But dysfunctionality, bad all on its own, also breeds corruption. If a train does not move, and is falling apart at the seams, it becomes easier to remove and steal parts of it. And the corrupt will want the train to remain stationary and vulnerable. Dysfunctionality and corruption feed on each other.
The most effective way to combat corruption, therefore, is not to implement a separate anti-corruption plan, but to integrate anti-corruption measures into measures to make our institutions functional. These should include:
- A partnership between politicians and civil society in a programme that rebuilds ethical values in our country and in state institutions;
- Prioritising a small number of well-designed interventions in selected state institutions; and
- Repairing procurement, public service staffing and operations management functions across the whole of the government.
These are examples of a top-down approach. They are deliberately prioritised to a few institutions and to a few cross-cutting functions because our capabilities are limited. In addition, that effort must be complemented by a bottom-up effort, so that the two reinforce and accelerate one another.
The most effective way to combat corruption, therefore, is not to implement a separate anti-corruption plan, but to integrate anti-corruption measures into measures to make our institutions functional
There are presently still islands of functionality. Some police stations, clinics, schools and other facilities are well run and we as citizens instantly recognise the difference when we are there. These places are led by exceptional leaders who often go through hardship and personal sacrifice to maintain relatively good local working environments. Supporting such islands will be an important part of the required programme.
ANNIHILATED COMPETENCE
Doing this will, however, only be possible if we inject, firstly, the needed technical expertise and managerial competence in key loci in the public service. Over past years, effective specialists and managers have largely been replaced by political appointments of generalists, who are not systemic and have no incentives to learn the core businesses.
Such appointments have ripped through institutions, including state enterprises. This environment is manna to ambitious, unprincipled, unproductive smooth talkers. They flatter the fragile egos of insecure leaders and rise to the upper echelons, clogging major arteries of the government.
We need a professional bureaucratic public service, largely protected from direct party political interference. Furthermore, the rule of law and rational decision making must be integral to the public service.
After 1994, eager to get rid of the apartheid state, we neutered the erstwhile Public Service Commission at the heart of that state, and many of the pre-1994 systems of recruitment and promotion. Instead of transforming these features, we destroyed them. Since no other effective systems across the government were put in place, we now have both fragmentation and a great latitude of discretion for individuals to do whatever they want — in short, a recipe for failure.
THE WAY FORWARD
There is no quick-fix solution to our difficulties. It will take painstaking and dogged determination, day after day, to rebuild our institutions into a professional and rules-based public service. To even begin to do this, there first has to be consensus by all political parties to address the interface between politics and civil service through:
- An acknowledgement that the public service must be protected from party political machinations, including intra-party feuding; and
- A commitment to stop destabilising the public service, accepting that a professional public administration owes its allegiance to the constitution and not to politicians.
A credible body that has the backing of all political parties should then be set up to make effective changes in the design of the public service.
The practical set of initiatives suggested here are the opposite of the grand plans our leaders are so fond of. This “management by announcement” is a considerable part of the problem. What is required instead is thorough root-cause analysis, appropriate designing for solutions, meticulous planning and efficient implementation in a combined approach — both from the top and the bottom.
• This article is based on a three-part series by Pillay and fellow ex-SA Revenue Service employees Pikie and Kesavan in the Daily Maverick (part three to be published shortly)
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