For three decades, South Africa’s Government has undermined the capacity of the State by staffing the public service through political deployments, regardless of any lack of qualifications, integrity or competence. This has enriched politically connected elites, and collapsed the State’s ability to provide essential government services that would assist in resolving our nation's most pressing challenges.

In 2024, there is urgent need for the electorate to remove a failed government and to hand the reins to a leadership with the skills, political will and integrity to build a professional public service that delivers to all. The Multi-Party Charter for South Africa is that leadership.

Yesterday, the eleven parties in the Multi-Party Charter unveiled a Charter Government’s plan to end cadre deployment and professionalise the public service, enhancing skills and accountability, and improving public service efficiency and value for money.

This plan was unveiled outside the Thembisa Municipal Customer Care Centre in the city of Ekurhuleni, which was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt or restored. It is a prime example of Government’s failure to provide a public service that actually delivers.

Without a capable State, the delivery of effective and efficient services to all South Africans becomes impossible. The first priority of a Charter Government will be the establishment of a capable State, as this will determine the success of all other government initiatives.

A Charter Government’s approach, as discussed in greater detail today by the Charter Leaders, includes the following –

• Outlawing cadre deployment and political interference in the public service. The MPC will uphold the core principle of separation between party and state.
• Ensuring that all appointments are based on qualifications and experience. This will ensure that the public service is staffed by individuals who are fit for purpose and can efficiently deliver public services to all South Africans.
• Ensuring public appointments are made by an independent, apolitical public service commission that follows modernised recruitment and performance management practices to ensure that civil servants are held to a high standard of professionalism and are subject to continuous professional development programmes.
• Establishing a rigorous selection process within recruitment policies, particularly for executive positions. This process will be highly competitive and involve multiple stages, including written examinations, interviews and psychometric assessments. This will ensure that only the most qualified individuals are selected for the public service and supported by skills audits.
• Offering dedicated public service training courses by experts for all current and prospective public servants.
• Implementing a skills audit of all senior-level public service appointments.
• Introducing performance-related pay for public servants.
• Increasing the efficiency of public expenditure by ending bailouts of non-strategic state-owned entities and prioritising returns on investment of public funds.
• Ensuring that public procurement mechanisms focus on value-for-money procurement. This will entail achieving a balance between cost and performance.
• Ensuring that a wide range of digital platforms are available to access public services from, thereby ensuring that the state is easily accessible to its citizens.

These commitments have been agreed to by all the signatory parties to the Multi-Party Charter, having consulted with a broad range of experts and capitalizing on the governance experience within the Charter.

We invite the electorate to consider the powerful impact you can make towards efficient service delivery, by installing a Multi-Party Charter Government in the coming election. While the individual parties within the Charter are campaigning on their own merit, with distinct policies, brands and offerings, voters can confidently cast their vote knowing what each party will provide within a Charter Government.

This level of unity and vision is unprecedented in South African politics, and is exactly what our country needs.

Joint Media Statement by the DA, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA, ACDP, ISANCO, UIM, SNP, UCDP, Ekhethu and UNP