Date: 18/04/2007

Source: Department of Public Service and Administration

Title: Ndebele: Africa Pre-Consultation conference on World Congress for Rural Women

Opening address by Minister of Public Service and Administration, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, during the Public Management Conversation, Somerset West

Honourable Minister Skweyiya
Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) Board members
Honourable Members of Parliament
Directors-General
Esteemed academics, local and international
Other senior officials from all three spheres of government
CAPAM staff members
Distinguished co-conversationalists

As I stand here before you in both my capacity as Minister for Public Service and Administration and President of CAPAM, I am struck by how many strands of different initiatives, proverbial paths we have walked, sometime together, sometimes with others and sometimes by ourselves. But somehow many of them actually come together at this event, intersecting with one another. I am excited at what opportunity this event offers us to make key connections between activities and initiatives which hitherto might have seemed disparate and unco-ordinated.

Connections and links that we can make across different experiences and different knowledge bases, and I am struck by the wealth of experience and knowledge that we have collected here under one roof, coming from many parts of the Commonwealth and from a very wide range of institutions and geographical settings here in South Africa.

One very important pathway that has led to today's event began in 1998 when Dr Zola Skweyiya, then Minister for Public Administration, was elected as President of CAPAM.

It is therefore a great honour to have him present this morning to initiate our conversation with a keynote address. His Presidency, culminated in the 2000 Biennial conference, held at this very hotel. I might have been the serving Minister already at that time, but all the preparatory work was undertaken under his leadership.

Since we have an example in our midst how small tentative steps at the start can become confident strides in a particular direction it is fitting that, towards the second part of tomorrow, we will also start paving the road for South African and African preparation towards the October 2008 Biennial conference in Barbados, thus completing a 10 year journey since the election of Dr Skweyiya as the first President of CAPAM that came from African soil. I will reflect on this aspect a little more this evening.

Dr Skweyiya is part of a tradition of South African intellectuals working towards rewriting international public agendas. It is thus fitting that we in honour of these intelligentsia engage, from a developmental perspective, with this past 'decade and a bit.' Perhaps we should conduct our own Ten Year Review of the status of the discipline/theory and the practice of public administration in South Africa specific and Africa somewhat more generally.

In an 'ANC Today' in July last year President Mbeki reminded us of the centrality of public administration in our developmental setting. He specifically reminded us of the importance of the leadership development of the managers, or as he referred to them, the "Mandarins". Allow me to quote what he wrote:

"Our Public Administration consists of more than one-and-a-quarter-million people. In terms of responsibility and skill, its members range from our Directors-General, corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and professionals, to 'span' managers and unskilled workers. The state entity described as our Public Administration is the biggest and most complex multi-task organisation in our country.

In terms of our Constitution, this Public Administration has the responsibility, among other things, to help:

* heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights
* improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person
* build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.

Obviously, an organisation as big, varied and differentiated as our Public Administration, and charged with the task to contribute to the fulfilment of these fundamentally important tasks, requires a skilled, educated and dedicated leadership cadre."

We need to acknowledge that it is those of us who sit in this room this morning and the organisations and constituencies we represent who are solely responsible for creating and maintaining this public administration that is outlined by President Mbeki. We need to reflect on how we are collectively doing in this task, and what we can do better, collectively.

When undertaking such a review, we should remember that collectively as a nation we tend to be highly self-critical. In the process we often forget our strong points. We forget about our achievements both domestically and internationally. Let me quote from 'ANC Today,' Aug 2006:

Perhaps the time has come that, as Chris Thomson said, we, as Africans, take responsibility for how our continent is portrayed. We should therefore respond to Chido Nwangwu's cry from the heart that, "for far too long, a majority of Africans have been indifferent to misrepresentations about who they are. They have remained 'objects' of the ill-informed caricatures of a once glorious heritage disfigured by colonial and post-colonial predators."

As South Africans we have much to offer. We are often regarded as punching above our weight, given the positions of responsibility we tend to assume on the global stage. We are acknowledged for the particular angles we cover in debates and the difficult questions we tend to raise, and raising those in a particular way based on our experience of representing so many of the big and tricky global debates, all within the boundaries of a single nation state and within a relatively short history.

We have developed particular sensitivities in certain matters, taking certain positions that can be deemed to be thoroughly counter-cultured, against the stream of conventional wisdoms at particular times. But this has not prevented us from taking up important roles in the international community.

It is not difficult to single out other examples of where we created forks in the road and ventured onto the newly created roads. Let me highlight just two areas where I think we contributed to reshaping the international agenda in the area of public administration.

We were amongst the early contingent that critiqued New Public Management (NPM), cautioning about the potential negative implications of taking an approach of a minimalist state in a developing country setting and also tendencies within the NPM tradition that ignored the necessary nuance that contextual understanding brings to any discussion regarding good and transferable practice. We pointed all along to the pitfalls of the uncritical transfer of so-called "international best practice" and instead sought to encourage the development of a particular "African" understanding.

We also walked a pioneering road in terms of redefining and reinventing the theory and practice of post-conflict reconstruction, especially on the African continent, building on the foundation of our very own experience in rebuilding a new non-racial, non-sexist society.

But the question lingers:

* Have we gone far enough and deep enough in our impact and influence to move beyond the high conceptual levels of engagement; to show the actual effects on the ground; to make the poor of our county and continent experience the benefits of what we are engaging with on the more abstract levels. For example, from a public administration perspective, have we gone beyond critiquing neo-Weberian theories or New Public Management and actually improved or even developed new theories appropriate for our African context, inspired by the academic-practitioner interface, or prompted through our CAPAM and other such engagements on the international level?

* Have these developments contributed to better administration practices, improvements in governance and have we developed sound Public Administration curricula which can be rolled out to scale, given the needs that we have identified, both domestically and on the continent in general?

* Have we come to a better understanding and sufficiently articulated the role public tertiary institutions could, and ought to play in a developmental context? And how far are we in implementing these changes? Have we adequately utilised our position in professional and quasi-professional organisations both within South Africa, but also as CAPAM, as tributaries to the international debate? To put it differently: have we, as a multi-national community of theory and practice, paved a new road that all our global counterparts are eager to travel with us?

Let me make it clear: I do not believe for one moment that we are still meandering on roads travelled by predecessors 20 or even 50 years ago but the question is whether we are complacent, resting on our laurels and being satisfied with what we have achieved or whether we are eager to ensure excellence in every contribution we make, every small and large task entrusted to us? Whether it is excellence in the academic papers we deliver, academic rigour in our policy development, or honest commitment to a developmental process when "reviewing" or giving feedback to our peers, especially to ensure the quality of the dialogue we engage in.

I am sure that we are call committed to ensuring that as participants we navigate through the continuum that we call Public Administration, and look forward to plotting the road (albeit across the ocean) to Barbados 2008.

Issued by: Department of Public Service and Administration