Since the May elections, speculation has been rife about the composition of what will be the second power-sharing government in South Africa’s democratic history. But we need to be mindful of the enormity of the issues that the seventh administration will inherit in the coming weeks, beyond speculating about which party will be “in” and “out”, what positions their members will get in parliament and the cabinet, and what we should even call this power-sharing arrangement: a government of national unity (GNU), a simple majority governing coalition, or a confidence and supply-backed minority government.
One of the key areas the new government will have to address is a topic that is usually not at the forefront of public interest. It is not even regarded as a policy “issue” as such, like education, health, unemployment, criminal justice or land. Politicians don’t ordinarily campaign on it and rarely do they win elections on it, because of its complexity. But it is absolutely core to the ability of parties to implement their agendas in government. I am referring to the public service.
The last time South Africa’s public service took instructions from a power-sharing government was in 1994, when like the GNU that presided over it, the public service was itself undergoing a comprehensive internal transition. Thirty years later, the prospect of another GNU will meet a very different public service, one that has been extensively transformed and unified, but one that also exhibits chronic weaknesses that have constrained the capacity of the state to deliver. Will a power-sharing government force parties of different stripes to accelerate efforts to improve the capacity and integrity of the public service, or will the enormity of the task push parties to kick the can down the road in favour of short-term “wins” on issues that resonate with their voters?
In my view, a power-sharing arrangement could slow, if not stall, efforts to reform the public service in two key areas: professionalising the public service and creating a leaner and more responsive public service machinery.
The competence and ethical integrity of public servants has been a long-standing concern, especially at the senior-most levels. The ANC has been criticised for being the chief architect of an underperforming public service by politically interfering in its internal processes. Ironically, it is also the ANC under the administration of president Cyril Ramaphosa which has presided over the most ambitious push to professionalise the public service since the 1990s. The publication of a national framework towards the professionalisation of the public sector in 2022, coupled with recent amendments to public service legislation to increase the operational autonomy of senior public servants, are welcome if delayed efforts which could garner greater public confidence in the capability and integrity of the public service.
However, a thorny issue that threatens to overshadow and possibly stall efforts to implement the framework is the legal standoff between the ANC and the DA over “cadre deployment”. Reforming the recruitment and appointment of senior public servants is perhaps the most important among many proposals to professionalise the public service.
If coalition partners cannot forge an agreement on how to restrict and check party political involvement in the recruitment and selection of public servants, we will not be able to unlock the benefits of the sensible post-employment training and professional development proposals contained in the framework, and nor will we be able to reduce the perverse effect that a politicised public service has on excessive, wasteful and corrupt contracting out of services, and the disincentivising effect it has on building in-house capacity in the public service.
A thorny issue that threatens to overshadow and possibly stall efforts to implement the framework is the legal standoff between the ANC and the DA over 'cadre deployment'
Another issue that could fail to get any traction is addressing the perceived bloated size of the public service machinery. In simple terms, the machinery includes the number and organisation of cabinet ministries, which correspondingly affects the number and internal configuration of government departments.
Though Ramaphosa’s ANC administration has been reducing the total number of cabinet departments from an all-time high under Jacob Zuma, it stopped short of more aggressively slimming down and pursuing creative co-ordination arrangements for cabinet departments. Will a power-sharing government prove any more successful at reducing the size of the cabinet and initiating a wider discussion about “rightsizing” the internal structures of departments, which also has repercussions for the staffing composition and sustainability of the public service “wage bill”? It is unlikely that the incremental pace at which the ANC has managed this issue can be reconciled with, for example, the DA’s more aggressive advocacy of a 15-member cabinet or the EFF’s equally bold proposal to halve the size of the cabinet.
Moreover, it is also more likely that pursuing a broad and inclusive multiparty GNU will prevent any substantial reduction in the number of cabinet departments, to retain a large enough pool to allocate to coalition partners.
Power-sharing governments rarely take public service reform seriously because the timespan for reaping the benefits of reforming a complex institutional and personnel system like the public service far exceeds the temporary nature of these agreements. Interestingly, the first GNU was an exception because a party-political transition was inextricably linked to a wholesale public service transition, in which parties had a direct stake in promoting and protecting their interests in a public service experiencing unprecedented flux. That scenario no longer applies.
Unless all coalition partners can think beyond their short-term interests and make a concerted effort to find common ground to achieve the longer-term benefits of a more professional and efficient public service machinery, knowing that this will outlast the coalition, the seventh administration is unlikely to achieve any substantive gains in this area.
• Naidoo is an associate professor in public policy and administration at the University of Cape Town.
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