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The ANC government’s commitment towards professionalising the public service and building a capable state continues to ring hollow as the ruling party continues to staff key state institutions with unqualified ANC cadres.

Yesterday, the ANC used its numbers on the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration (PC) to adopt a report recommending the deployment of an unqualified ANC cadre to the position of national commissioner at the Public Service Commission (PSC).

The DA is of the view that the recommended individual, Mr Errol Vincent Magerman, does not possess the relevant qualifications, skills and work experience to occupy this senior position within the PSC. In fact, he is far from being fit and proper, let alone qualified for the position and should not be appointed by the President.

In his CV, Mr Magerman, lists as his highest qualification an advanced certificate in Governance and Public Leadership and outside of this qualification, he has no other relevant qualifications and no appropriate work experience at a senior management level either in the public or private sector. The only work experience that Mr Magerman has is that of being an ANC cadre and working for the ANC in more than 7 different capacities, including as an elections coordinator, councillor and Member of the Gauteng provincial legislature.

The DA further maintains that Mr Magerman was not the best performing candidate in the interviews conducted by the Sub-Committee charged, by the PC, with shortlisting and interviewing suitable candidates for the position.

It is also the DA’s considered and firm view that ANC members sitting on this Sub-Committee purposefully and conveniently overlooked qualifying candidates with the relevant qualifications, skills and work experience (including previous work experience in the PSC and Chapter 9 institutions) in order to appoint Mr Magerman whose CV exposes that he is an ANC cadre through and through.

The PSC is largely a knowledge-based institution and is required in terms of its constitutional mandate to function and operate in an impartial and independent manner. How on earth will the PSC be able to fulfil and advance its constitutional mandate if ANC cadres are recommended for such senior and influential positions within the institution?

With the DPSA having lost its grip on the optimal functioning of our public service, the PSC has become our only hope for addressing the plethora of challenges beleaguering our public service such as the backlog of disciplinary cases; the high number of senior managers without qualifications; and the alarming cost of financial misconduct within the public service.

The time for state-owned entities and other state-run institutions being treated as a dumping ground for ANC cadres who cannot be accommodated at an executive or legislative level must and will come to an end. Cadre deployment has literally brought the country to its knees, including our public service administration and the ruling party is to blame for the sorry state of affairs of our country’s public service.

The DA will not relent in its call and fight to enforce merit-based appointments throughout the public service and put an end to the ANC practice of cadre deployment.

The DA is considering seeking legal advice on this blatant and raw deployment of an ANC cadre by ANC members of the PC to the PSC.

Issued by Dr Mimmy Gondwe MP - DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Public Service and Administration