The Premier engages public servants at the provincial Public Service Training Academy

A collective mindset to execute a collective mandate

Programme Director Dr Yolisa Mbele
Senior General Manager in the Office of the Premier Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa
Director-General of KwaZulu-Natal
All Heads of Departments
All Senior General Managers Present
All General Managers and Managers
Ladies and gentlemen

I preface my talk today by first stressing that this engagement is by no means an exercise at Academics. It is not a lecture in Political Science nor is it a lecture in Public Administration or any other discipline for that matter. If it were to be the case, then one genuine question to ask would be why we could not engage any of the tertiary institutions to deliver this inaugural talk as well as train the public servants.

It follows therefore that I first give a brief overview of why the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Public Service Training Academy came into being when there are so many institutions of Higher Learning in the province. The irony could also be extended to the fact that the very academy is situated close to most of these institutions.

History of public service in the province

Public service in this province, as in many other provinces is characterised by the amalgamation of different administrations and these are: The erstwhile Natal Provincial Administration, KwaZulu-Natal Government and the Mass Democratic Movement. Each of these had its own baggage, culture and attitude with regard to the concept of public service.

What became clear was that these groupings were not prepared to shed their individual beliefs, culture and attitudes even though they all belong to the same KwaZulu-Natal Public Service. The extension of this was that it had become increasingly doubtful that these groupings were sharing the same vision and mandate of a "Better life for all," and worse still, to deliver on this mandate.

It therefore became critical for the government of KwaZulu-Natal that, in order to mitigate the challenges of growth and development, government would need to embark on a mission of public service renewal, a mission that would, in the end result in a public service that is staffed by personnel who have the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes necessary to deliver on their mandate.

Indeed, in the 2004 State of the Province Address, I emphasised that "there is no place for a public servant that is obsequious, absent and insolent. For us to achieve our governance and development goals, we need a corps of dedicated and competent public servants who deliver quality service expeditiously." I thus pronounced that:

"In line with best practice in the public sector management, we will begin with the development of a Provincial Public Service Training Academy." This is where you are sitting today. The first hurdle is over now we need this Academy to effect the change in mindset that is so sorely needed if we are to deal effectively with the challenges facing us, among which are the following:

* backlogs in basic services
* poverty
* protection of vulnerable groups
* human development
* unemployment
* economic performance
* the natural environment
* HIV and AIDS

The citizen, political leadership and public service triumvirate

Let us now turn our attention to the citizen, politics, public service relationship and clarify this relationship. I have deliberately left out other role players and stakeholders because today, our mission is to identify your own position as public servants in this relationship.

The citizen, political leadership/government and public service

In this relationship the political leadership and public servants alike have one mission and that is, to satisfy the needs of the citizen of KwaZulu-Natal. Therefore we need to always remind ourselves that the citizen occupies the top rung.

In this relationship:

The Citizen bargains with neither the political leadership nor the public servant as taxpayer the tax payer has expectations which are not negotiable.

* All that the citizen does is to express his confidence in the government of the day and therefore outlines explicitly his needs. This happens irrespective of whom he may have voted for.
* The citizen thus expects government to do everything to improve his lot.
* He would have been informed and therefore knows (hopefully) about the role and mandate of the public servants
* The citizen also knows that if he does not receive the services, he will express his grievance in one way or the other.

Government and public servants do not have a platform from which they can bargain with the citizen, they may not say to the citizen, whether overtly or tacitly: "I will do this for you if you �."

* Government must however engage the citizens to understand what services they need, whether those services are run-of-the-mill or specific.
* Government cannot and does not distinguish among citizens services are delivered to all and sundry.
* Government therefore enjoys a relationship with and is obligated to the citizen of KwaZulu-Natal irrespective of colour, gender, creed, social standing and political affiliation.
* In a nut shell, government fulfils its obligations to the citizens as the Constitution dictates.

Where is this bargaining located then?

The bargaining, ill-defined as it may seem, occurs between government and the public servant. Government engages the services of the public servant and from this point on bargaining has to take place to inform the contractual (principal-agent) relationship into which the parties enter.

In exchange for the public servant's show of responsibility, competency, loyalty, internal locus of control, good governance as well as Batho Pele focus, government rewards the public servant through recognition, remuneration, perks, career development, etc. It therefore follows that, if the public servant does not fulfil his side of the bargain, blame is apportioned and other forms of remedy are sought.

In ideal circumstances, the public servant then strives to meet his side of the bargain. However, ladies and gentlemen, for as long as there exists this relationship between the political leader as the principal and the public servant as the agent, there will always be issues emanating from this relationship.

One of these is adverse selection:

The principal does not know the true nature of the agent and what baggage he is bringing into the system. There exists therefore a potential for pre-contractual opportunism, which the principal is unable to identify and deal with at the point of initial contact, or at least in the short term.

The second issue is moral hazard:

In this instance, the principal is not always able to observe or oversee the effort and or dysfunction in the relationship. Therefore a potential for post-contractual opportunism looms very large.

For example, a potentially capable new employee may, after being appointed, start showing unsavoury features in his make up, for which government did not bargain, which would have been impossible to identify at the point of entry into government, for example, signs of moral fickleness like absenteeism and corruption. Whatever is the case; both the principal and the agent are obliged to manage the moral hazard, potential or real, such that the citizen does not suffer in any way. This is the gist of our engagement today.

Addressing issues related to moral hazard

In addressing the issues related to moral hazard, I need to first seek an answer to the following question:

Are you as public servants occupying your correct and permanent position in the triumvirate or do you sometimes shift your positions? If you do, then existence of the Moral Hazard cannot be doubted. I ask that each one of you does a self-search.

Look at yourself in your inner mirror and ask yourself:

* Does my team and I belong to the league whose name is obsequiousness, absenteeism, indolence that the Premier has always spoken about?
* Was President Mbeki referring to me and my team in his 2004 State of the Nation Address when he caricatured typical public servants as "pen pushers, guardians of rubber stamps, thieves intent on self enrichment who come to work as late as possible, work as little as possible and knock off as early as possible"

What ever your findings are about your team and yourself it is time to change bad habits and also time to reinforce and escalate your good habits to a point where you become the benchmark/role model of your province. If you see yourself or your team fitting the pattern of a moral hazard, then you cannot be a true public servant because and indeed, by no measure can you be "living" your mandate. I wish to remind you that the mandate I keep on referring to is:

* Selfless service to the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal, the ultimate result of which is a "better life for all."

Therefore, what Government, on behalf of the citizens expects from you is: A cadre of public servants whose collective mindset corresponds with the broad mandate of a better life for all. This means that each individual public servant has to embark on a cleansing exercise, he needs to shed his old, negative mindset and engage a forward gear to achieve a positive mindset, so that he is counted among those whose collective mindset is imbued with the principles of good governance.

These include: Accountability, Discipline, Transparency, Social Responsibility, Equity and Independence from undue influence and above all, Responsiveness to the needs of the citizens. This mindset assures successful execution of the collective mandate alluded to above.

Now to the 'how to'

1. Firstly, each one of you must shed the unconstitutional baggage and live his life as a public servant according to the Constitutional Principles of Effective Public Service, and these are:

Principle 1: Promoting and maintaining a high standard of professional ethics
* Deal effectively with corruption. The statistical results in the
latest Public Service Commission Report indicate that, in 2006, the response received from KwaZulu-Natal was only 11 % with regard to what has been done to deal with the cases of fraud, the details of which were submitted to the departments. The question is �why are you reluctant to deal with alleged fraud in your departments?

* You also need to keep your own "fishbowl" clean and not murky you must be morally and ethically incorruptible. People see you through the clean water in the fishbowl and cannot see you if the water is murky. Then you cannot blame the tax payers when they start to develop immense interest in your comings and goings, and, I might say, this would be the bed that you would have made yourself and you would therefore be expected to sleep in it. Always keep the probity agenda in focus.

Principle 2: Promoting economical, effective and efficient use of resources
Principle 3: Adopting a development-oriented approach to public administration, dealing effectively with glaring inequalities which lead to social discontent and persistent poverty.
Principle 4: Providing services impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias.
Principle 5: Responding to people's needs and encouraging participation of the people in decisions being made.
Principle 6: Promoting an accountable public administration.
Principle 7: Transparency and providing timely, accessible and accurate information.
Principle 8: Cultivating good human resource management and career development practices in order to maximise human potential.
Principle 9: Promoting a public administration that is broadly representative of the South African people, basing employment on ability, objectivity and fairness. This includes redress of the imbalances of the past.

2. The second area I wish to discuss is Competency. A competent cadre of public servants is critical to service delivery.

* This is why you need to adopt a knowledge agenda, for superior performance, invest in a learning organisation. Turn government into a learning organisation: an organisation that continually adapts and learns in order to respond to changes in the environment and to grow.

In citing Peter Senge: this would be "an organisation where people continually expand their capacity to create results that they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole thing together."

* Harness the excitement of discovering new ways of doing things, new perspectives, new points of reference and new insights.
* Use networking to ensure impact.

To emphasise this point, you need to create an environment where learning opportunities abound and where inquiry and dialogue is encouraged, so that people can share openly. You need to escalate knowledge to wisdom. This Academy has been developed to address precisely this area.

3. Thirdly, you must create and sustain effective teams:

* Teams that are characterized by their ability to identify for themselves clear shared goals with clear roles and responsibilities for each member.
* Teams whose members are imbued with a sense of belonging.
* Teams that are able to live within a climate of mutual trust, respect and co-operation.
* Teams that are able to communicate honestly and openly.
* Teams that are able to manage conflict constructively.
* Teams with sound problem-solving and decision-making systems.
* Teams that are able to produce the desired results.

Effective Leadership is crucial in developing effective teams.

4. Fourthly, you must practise loyalty, responsibility and everything to do with good governance
5. Fifthly, you must prevent and deal effectively with citizen apathy. Have you ever considered that seeming complacency on the part of citizens, both as individuals or as groups, does not always mean satisfaction with services rendered? It can also be that the citizens have given up on you and have thus become despondent.

You can only pick up the stark difference between satisfaction and apathy by engaging them be available, accessible and acceptable to the target population, and the quality of contact/delivery is critical.

6. The sixth point is about assessing delivery of services not only from the supply perspective but also from the demand perspective be able to say: "For the funds allocated to my component I have delivered what the citizens wanted and needed and not what I thought they needed."
* proper citizen focused budgeting is key.
7. Collaborate across traditional boundaries an emphatic "no" to turfs.
8. Keep on measuring your performance against economy, efficiency, effectiveness and quality and use the results to improve your services. Do not be complacent with what you have been able to achieve. Ratchet up all the time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I wish to stress that:

A democracy that cannot deliver on the basic needs of the people is short-lived and soon grounded. KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government will certainly not play any part in the grounding of a democracy for which people fought and died. Therefore, you as public servants must never forget that the life of this democracy is, for the most part, in your hands. Each time you embark on a task or project, you need to remind yourself that the ultimate outcome expected is citizen satisfaction. You are reminded that the people of KwaZulu-Natal as a developmental province can only reach prosperity if we foster development through a service-oriented culture that places citizens' needs at the forefront of the endeavours of KwaZulu-Natal Government.

Ladies and gentlemen, developing a collective positive, citizen-oriented culture and mindset is a marathon walk and I might also stress a journey that you are obliged to take. This journey does not stop during your lifetime; it goes on until the end of time. Your task is therefore to set the trend. You must sort out the baggage that you will be carrying with you as you trudge along, so that you retain what is good, augmenting it with the best practices that you will come across along the way, and drop all the bad habits that stand in the way of effective public service.

I am certain that, if you do this, you will leave behind a rich legacy that those who will be coming after you can emulate and sustain. The Provincial Public Service Training Academy is here for you. Therefore use this Academy to constantly sharpen, renew and always strive to escalate to a higher level, the knowledge and skills that you will be collecting, until you reach the level of wisdom, a level which is coveted by all right-thinking human beings.

I know and greatly appreciate that some Heads of Departments are fired up and committed to sharing what they know. This spirit must not be dampened in any way we need to attack the "Moral Hazard" head on.

Beyond this, the challenge that confronts you is:

* How to make good your side of the bargain by "adopting, living and sustaining your collective mandate." I know you can and will do it.

Masisukume Sakhe.

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
31 August 2007