DELIVERED BY THE TMF PATRON, PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI:
UNISA, TSHWANE. 13 SEPTEMBER 2025.
Programme Director,
Prof Somadoda Fikeni, Chairperson of the Public Service Commission,
Other members of the Commission,
Esteemed Members of the Sangweni family,
Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Principal and Vice Chancellor of UNISA,
Distinguished members of the audience,
Friends, ladies, gentlemen and comrades:
When the esteemed Professor Stan Sangweni passed away in 2021, my wife, Zanele, and I were privileged to have the opportunity to communicate to his dear wife, Mama Angela, our sister and comrade, our sincere condolences at the loss of a true titan and co-architect of democratic South Africa.
In our message to her we said:
We are certain that not many South Africans ever got to know what a sparkling and priceless gem we all had in the humble and self-effacing human being that was Stan Sangweni.
As a people, we have had to contend with a number of strategic challenges during the lifetime of the present generations.
To succeed with regard to all these, always required that we had the necessary corps of cadres who possessed the necessary skills, who were selflessly committed to serve the people, certain of their liberation, who had the stamina to stay on what would necessarily be a demanding course, and who had the courage which rises with danger, which Nkosi Albert Luthuli had spoken about…
Among other things, the then new challenge of governing liberated South Africa required of us as a governing party that we take the necessary steps to build a new public service, inspired by a new morality. This was particularly important given the strategic role Government had to play in the historic effort to eradicate the stubborn legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
Our country was very privileged that it had Stan Sangweni whose professional preparation and work experience made him stand out as the best person to lead that process of creating the new.
That was the reason that Professor Stan Sangweni served for a decade from 1999 to 2009 as the first Chairperson of the Public Service Commission established in terms of the prescripts of the 1996 Constitution.
To give a glimpse of what Stan Sangweni taught the public service during the process of its renewal, let us allow him to speak out once again.
PROFESSOR SANGWENI SPEAKS
Sometime during 2001, he said:
…unethical conduct in the workplace is largely shaped and conditioned by such (unethical) behaviour in society. Corruption, weak leadership, nepotism, maladministration and poor service delivery in the South African public sector are prevalent problems, so are incidents of violent crime, incest, gang activity, urban terrorism, farm murders and taxi feuding in society at large. These are some of the major impediments to our constitutional imperative for a development-oriented public administration…
He continued:
What the public service needs, therefore, is to develop a vision which would make ethical work practices the cornerstone of how things should be done and strengthen the ethical culture of the public service.
Our Constitution visualises the Public Service Commission, which Professor Sangweni led for a decade, as a critical player in the construction of a democratic South Africa.
This feature stands out, for instance, where the Public Service Commission Act which created the Commission, as prescribed by the Constitution, says:
The Commission may inspect departments and other organisational components in the public service, and has access to such official documents or may obtain such information from heads of those departments or organisational components or from other officers in the service of those departments or organisational components as may be necessary for the performance of the functions of the Commission under the Constitution or the Public Service Act.
Accordingly, essentially all State institutions are subject to supervision by the Public Service Commission consistent with its functions as prescribed by the Constitution and the Public Service Act.
It is important to bear in mind that already by 2001, understanding the critical importance of its tasks, the Public Service Commission had issued a ‘Code of Conduct for the Public Service’, and an accompanying ‘Explanatory Manual’ and ‘Practical Guide to Ethical Dilemmas in the Workplace’.
THE TOP TEN VALUES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE IN SOUTH AFRICA
The Explanatory Manual of the Code of Conduct starts with ‘The Top Ten Values and Principles of the Public Service in South Africa’, as these are detailed in our Constitution. The document says:
“The Constitution of South Africa (Chapter 10) requires that the Public Service be…
• governed by the democratic values and principles of the Constitution;
• maintaining and promoting a high standard of professional ethics;
• promoting efficient, economic and effective use of resources;
• orientated towards development;
• delivering services impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias;
• responding to people’s needs and encouraging public participation in policy matters;
• accountable for its actions;
• transparent by providing the public with timely, accessible and accurate information;
• cultivating good human resource management and career development practices to maximize human potential; and,
• broadly representative of the South African people, with employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness, and the need to redress the imbalances of the past.”
Professor Sangweni and his colleagues in the Public Service Commission put these Constitutional prescripts in the Explanatory Manual of the Code of Conduct of the Civil Service because they were fully convinced that these were not mere rhetorical aspirations, but imperatives which had to inform the construction on the new post-apartheid civil service.
The late Zola Skweyiya served as Minister of Public Service and Administration from 1994 to 1999. During this period, Professor Sangweni was a Commissioner in the Public Service Commission. Accordingly, they worked together as close comrades as they prepared for the rebirth of the Public Service Commission in 1999, under the new Constitutional order.
It was natural that Professor Sangweni would speak at the funeral service of Minister Zola Skweyiya in 2018. Understandably, he used this occasion to talk about the new civil service to which he and the late Zola Skweyiya were committed.
Once again, we should allow Professor Sangweni to speak out. Here, in part, is what he said:
I would like to propose that the best tribute we can pay to Cde Zola… is a commitment on our part that we will pursue all the wonderful things he did, he left us with, ensuring that they are done…
I looked at the ugly scenes of our people in the North West telling it in very painful terms that service delivery has not impacted on us. But even more painful – the visuals showed the faces of the people, including the faces of young boys, with bullet wounds on their faces, wounds from the guns of the police. That is not a sight our Cde Zola would have liked to see. That is not the sight he would have liked to see after he had given us the flagship of service delivery, Batho Pele.
It has not yet taken place on our ground. It is a legacy that is going to live with us for years and years…Mr President, you raised the question very pointedly – why is it that our civil service is not embracing the Batho Pele policy. That should not be asked of our civil servants. It should be asked of your Ministers, the Executive. Because it is the Ministers who should create the environment in which this policy can be implemented. It’s not a slogan, not a slogan when you say Batho Pele.
It is a statement, a philosophy, a statement of how public service delivery should be…Service delivery must reach the people, service delivery must build our people. It’s not a question of giving things to them, giving tractors, no! We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to give people food parcels, no! Cde Zola wanted our people to be nurtured so that they could raise the means whereby they could buy the food…
And when you say Mr President… we will be visiting, that is what you say, we will be visiting the Departments so that we can talk to the leadership. I ask myself – what leadership will the President find? I know you are targeting the Directors General. Mr President, I am afraid to tell you, those Directors General are not leaders. Not because they are a bunch of people who do not know what they are doing, because they do not have the environment.
These are CEOs of a big establishment, government… The DGs are CEOs but they have not been treated as CEOs. They are messengers. In your previous life as a trade unionist, Mr. President, you remember the terms bass-boy, spanner-boy, that is what our civil servants are, what our DGs are… We should restore their dignity, and the dignity of the institution that was designated in the Constitution…I must applaud you Mr. President for the wonderful step you have taken to look for ways and means of bringing investment in(to) our country…
But I want to say Mr President, the success of that project will not depend only on the Ministers… But that mega-project will ride on the back of your civil service, a civil service led by capable DGs, a civil service led by DGs who are respected, who are given contracts, not five-year contracts. Give your DGs tenure, Mr. President, so that they have time to sit and actually dig themselves into the job and make forecasts of what is going to happen…
Professor Sangweni had spoken earlier in October 2004 to encourage better understanding of the challenging role and place of the Director General. Delivering an Address at a Conference on ‘Strengthening Oversight Ability and Effectiveness of the Legislatures’, he said:
The Weberian model of “politicians decide, officials carry out” belies the complex environment and the many complexities that a Director-General faces. While the Directors-General role has been variously described as the interface, the buffer, the technician and the specialist, what is clear is that this position is “inescapably caught between the partisan political world of the minister and the national, impartial and scientific world of the public servant.”
This is exacerbated by a demanding environment with competing interests and overlapping accountabilities. “The pace of change in the public service…has been so vast and profound that very few people outside the public sector yet realise the depth of these changes”. There is a myriad of stakeholders to whom they must account to. “They must look upward to their political superiors, laterally to their administrative peers and downwards to their departmental subordinate”. This does not even take into account the independent statutory bodies they have to account to such as the Auditor-General and the Public Service Commission…
As new Ministers and new Directors-General are appointed there needs to be clear guidelines and orientation to assist each to understand their respective roles.”
I have quoted at some length what Professor Sangweni said at the late Zola Skweyiya’s funeral service because, in a sense, it was his farewell message about what should be the standing of the civil service in our society.
And indeed everything I have said so far about the civil service is intimately connected to that outstanding patriot, Professor Stan Sangweni.
Of course, there is a specific reason why the high-powered professional and dedicated agent of progressive change, Professor Sangweni, was chosen to lead the process of the re-building of the civil service under the new conditions prescribed by the 1996 Constitution.
The reason for this was the expectation by the liberation movement of the eminent role which the democratic State would play in terms of the creation of the South Africa visualised in our country’s Constitution.
READY TO GOVERN: ANC POLICY GUIDELINES FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA
The 1992 document of the liberation movement,
‘Ready to Govern: ANC policy guidelines for a democratic South Africa’ says:
In the context of the growth and development strategy, the role of the state should be adjusted to the needs of the national economy in a flexible way. The primary question in this regard is not the legal form that state involvement in economic activity might take at any point, but whether such actions will strengthen the ability of the economy to respond to the massive inequalities in the country, relieve the material hardship of the majority of the people, and stimulate economic growth and competitiveness.
The related 1994 ‘Basic guide to the Reconstruction and Development Programme’ follows up by saying:
To rebuild our economy, we need the government to play a leading role in promoting reconstruction and development.
In November 1996, the ANC, already a governing party, issued a Discussion Document entitled ‘The State and Social Transformation’. This document says:
The most important current defining feature of the South African democratic state is that it champions the aspirations of the majority who have been disadvantaged by the many decades of undemocratic rule. Its primary task is to work for the emancipation of the black majority, the working people, the urban poor, the rural poor, the women, the youth and the disabled.
It is the task of this democratic state to champion the course of these people in such a way that the most basic aspirations of this majority assumes the status of hegemony which informs and guides policy and practice of all the institutions of government and state.
However, there is a need to recognise that the South African democratic state also has the responsibility to attend to the concerns of the rest of the population which is not necessarily part of the majority defined above…
BUILDING A CAPABLE AND DEVELOPMENTAL STATE
Adopted in September 2012, the National Development Plan in its Chapter on ‘Building a capable and developmental state’ says:
This vision requires a capable and developmental state: capable in that it has the capacity to formulate and implement policies that serve the national interest; developmental in that those policies focus on overcoming the root causes of poverty and inequality and building the state’s capacity to fulfil this role….,
A developmental state brings about rapid and sustainable transformation in a country’s economic and/or social conditions through active, intensive and effective intervention in the structural causes of economic or social underdevelopment. Developmental states are active. They do not simply produce regulations and legislation…
The current Government of National Unity, GNU, has set the building of a capable, ethical and developmental State as one of its top three priorities. In this regard, President Ramaphosa said on 18 July 2024:
The third strategic priority of the Government of National Unity is to build a capable, ethical and developmental state.
We will proceed with the work already underway to professionalise the public service, ensuring that we attract into the state people with skills, capabilities and integrity.
We will continue to fight corruption and prevent undue political interference in the administration of the state.
It was in this context that, obviously, there was and continues to be a particular focus on the civil service.
For instance, the Report on Government delivered at the 49th ANC National Conference in December 1994 stated that with regard to the transformation of the public service, the then GNU had been attending in particular to:
“• instituting processes, including restructuring the Public Service Training Institute, aimed at enabling the training and retraining of public sector workers so that (it is effective in) the implementation of the Reconstruction and development Programme; and,
• elaborating guidelines and programmes for the transformation of the civil service as a whole so that it is non-racial, non- sexist, efficient and responsive to the public, as visualised in the Constitution.”
For its part, the 1992 document, ‘Ready to Govern…’ said:
The public service must be based on the principles of representativity, competency, impartiality and accountability. For the first time we envisage a public service that is drawn from and serves the interests of the public as a whole.
The document on ‘The State and Social Transformation’ says:
The objectives of efficiency and high levels of productivity, and the levels of work discipline, managerial responsibility, accountability and responsiveness to the public interest, have to become the hallmark of the performance of the public service.
Organised sections of the public service work-force, who had been part of bringing into being the democratic state, must provide the leadership to the rest of the public service in upholding these norms.
The NDP also pays close attention to the matter of the civil service and says, among others:
To address the twin challenges of poverty and inequality, the state needs to play a transformative and developmental role. This requires well-run and effectively coordinated state institutions with skilled public servants who are committed to the public good and capable of delivering consistently high-quality services, while prioritising the nation’s developmental objectives…
In the Statement the Public Service Commission, PSC, issued when Professor Sangweni passed away in 2021, it said:
He was instrumental in the fundamental redefinition and restructuring of the traditional role of the PSC in 1996. The birth of the new PSC in 1999 led to a new era in the public administration in South Africa…He contributed immensely to the body of work that the PSC had produced during (the period of his Chairpersonship)…
Professor Sangweni ensured that the PSC’s work and influence extends outside the borders of South Africa… He certainly earned respect amongst his peers both in the African continent and in South Africa… He has shaped the PSC into a knowledge-based organization it is known for today… He has served the PSC and South Africa with distinction…
However, despite this correct assessment of Professor Sangweni’s invaluable work, it is true that more recently, important observations have been made about some deficiencies in the civil service sector without which the project to establish a capable and developmental State will fail.
In April last year, 2024, the New South Institute published a document entitled ‘Towards a Merit-based Senior Civil Service: Strategies for Reform in South Africa’. Among other things it says:
The current civil service system in South Africa faces a multitude of challenges that hinder its effectiveness and efficiency…(and significantly affect) the overall quality of public service delivery.
One of the most pressing issues is the absence of a robust meritocratic framework. Furthermore, the process of appointing senior civil servants has become increasingly politicised. Appointments are often based on political loyalty rather than professional qualifications, undermining the autonomy and effectiveness of the civil service.
The high turnover rate of senior officials, driven by changes in the political landscape, contributes to instability within the civil service…
Addressing issues of corruption and maladministration is another significant challenge. The lack of strong and independent oversight mechanisms allows corrupt practices to persist, eroding public trust in the civil service.
Additionally, the absence of clear and structured career pathways discourages skilled professionals from entering and staying within the civil service.
Earlier this year, 2025, the Public Service SETA published a Report entitled ‘Public Service Skills and Competencies Needs in South Africa:
Present and the Future’.
In April the magazine ‘The Conversation’ published an article entitled ‘South Africa’s civil servants are missing skills, especially when it comes to technology – report’ by Professor Mashupye Maserumule and others who had participated in the preparation of the Public Service SETA report I have just mentioned.
The article points to the major conclusions of the SETA Report. It says:
A transformative and developmental role (as visualised in the NDP) is about “consistently delivering high quality services” for the good of society.
To meet these goals, the country requires people in government with the necessary technological skills…
A lesson that has emerged…is that technology skills are not simply a trend but a means to manage public affairs more effectively. Examples of areas they are used in include big data, artificial intelligence and robotics…
The study found that most South African government officials…were not familiar with how the technologies (of the 4th Industrial Revolution) could be used to improve the efficiency of the state. In addition, officials in government departments that interact directly with citizens lacked the technologies and tools essential to take advantage of the new breakthroughs in technology.
We caution in the report that as much as technology skills have helped improve state efficiency, mainly in the global north, they can’t make up for all administrative inadequacies – including thievery from the state, which besets South Africa’s democracy.
Equally important are human cognitive skills and ethical competencies. The report found that these too were a challenge in the public service…
(The civil servants) didn’t know how big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, or the automation of public administration could be used to improve public service. Being aware of these technologies and using them to the maximum advantage of public administration are two distinct things…
The report concludes that the government needs to urgently invest in revamping the way civil servants are trained. In particular, it must invest in continuous professional development. While technological capabilities are key, the report recommends that basic human skills and competencies are equally essential. To achieve this will require the development of a dynamic human resources system.
The South Institute also addressed the long-outstanding matter of the professionalisation of the civil service and said:
The National Framework Towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector, developed by South Africa’s National School of Government in October 2022 (NSG, 2022), sets out a comprehensive plan to improve the overall quality of the public service, including the senior civil service. This ambitious document aims to create a public sector characterised by skilled, ethical and committed professionals who embody the values of the constitution….
It advocates a public sector with the right skills, professional ethics and commitment to serving the public, which is crucial to building a competent senior civil service capable of effective public administration.
However, while the framework sets out a visionary approach, it faces challenges in practical implementation…A key issue is the lack of specific enforcement mechanisms.
The Public Service Commission also addressed this concern in the April/June 2023 edition of its publication, The Pulse of the Public Service, saying:
(The success of the Professionalisation Framework) will depend on the manner in which a comprehensive action plan for its implementation is developed; the substantive content thereof; and whether the requisite commitment and cooperation is obtained from all key stakeholders.
Earlier, in October 22, Sarah Meny-Gibert of the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), had expressed the same concern, saying:
But the crux, as always, is whether government will act on these noble intentions, (of building a meritocratic and professional public sector that serves the government of the day in a loyal manner but has sufficient institutional autonomy to build and retain skills and be protected against political patronage), and whether it will do so in a way that does indeed insulate appointment processes from patronage and instability
Others will say whether this concern was justified or not.
The instances we have cited show that by and large the civil service we have today is nowhere near the institution which Professor Sangweni and his colleagues sought to build.
The Public Service Commission, PEC, referred to this reality in the July/September 2019 edition of The Pulse, which said:
Through the evaluation of the performance of departments against the Constitutional Values and Principles, (CPVs), the PSC has found that most departments struggle to build a complement of leading experts in their functional areas who can plan and implement key policy and administrative changes that will drive development.
Departments have the skills for routine operations but there are major gaps in efficiency, effectiveness and development outcomes…. The skills must be accompanied by solution-orientation that tallies with the needs of citizens…
From the analysis of HR Plans in the Public Service, it is clear that the real problem lies with critical and specialist skills and the depth of those skills (and not so much the skills needed for the routine operations of departments).
Perhaps to cap its honest and critical assessment, in the October/December 2020 edition of The Pulse, the PSC reports that:
In his keynote address, the Minister for Public Service and Administration (MPSA), Mr Senzo Mchunu, emphasized the lack of ethical leadership as one of the disheartening issues for concern. He further flagged the significance of the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) goal which envisages a corruption-free South Africa, including a government that is accountable to its people.
As we speak about Professor Stan Sangweni today, we should perhaps admit that he was ahead of his time, and commit ourselves to help rescue the magnificent edifice he worked with passionate intensity to construct.
Volume 25 of The Pulse, the periodical of the Public Service Commission was published on April/June 2023, two years after Professor Stan Sangweni sadly passed away.
Among other things it says:
…the public sector is a shadow of what it once was, with the country, yet again, finding itself on the precipice of deep societal divisions, general malfeasance and without a moral compass to place it on a path in which the aspirations of the Constitution and the creation of a truly capable, ethical and developmental state are realised.
The reality is that the public service in South Africa is reflective of a lack of cohesiveness, inefficiency and ineptitude suggesting an incapability to implement a developmental state agenda.
In summation, South Africa’s public sector does not exhibit the astuteness, agility, capacity or single mindedness that is driven by a strong nationalism to do its best for the country.
Although South Africa prides itself as a constitutional democracy, its public service is not a cohesive bureaucracy that is imbued with a common understanding of a development state, development orientation and transformative constitutionalism which places human rights and capability freedom at the centre of the developmental agenda.
This is perhaps the central Achilles heel in the public service.
When our Public Service Commission made these dismal but accurate observations, it was twelve years after the NDP had called for the building of a capable and developmental state, and a year before our country’s Government of National Unity resolved that the building of such a capable, ethical, and developmental State was one of its three top priorities.
As I have said elsewhere, a month after these PSC remarks, in July 2023, Dr John Endres, CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, addressed the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. in the USA about South Africa.
Remarkably, his prediction about the South African State was the exact opposite of the capable and developmental State proposed by the NDP.
Here is what he said:
…a state could be receding in terms of its capabilities, even while its aspirations remain ambitious. This is the third age that South Africa is now transitioning into, although not many have realised it yet. We call this kind of a state the ‘emasculated state’… Its declining capabilities mean it is unable to implement its plans…
As the state becomes less and less capable, it is being increasingly bypassed by private actors. This process has been underway for a considerable time already. Those who can afford it rely on private healthcare and schooling, of a quality far higher than that provided by the state. In the absence of reliable electricity from the state-owned utility, those who can afford it install solar power on their rooftops…
In urban areas, residents’ associations are fixing potholes, while in rural areas, farmers do the same. Civil society organisations like Solidarity are building technical schools and universities. Trash recyclers control traffic intersections when the lights are out. Large corporations provide security along freight rail corridors, while mining companies build clinics and provide housing and water near mines…
This is where South Africa’s greatest opportunity for the future is to be found: in its innovative and resilient private sector and civil society, which are solving problems in the growing absence of the state, and doing so successfully.
In years to come, South Africa may well become a case study of how private initiative succeeds where states fail. And in future, South Africa could end up with an enabling, compact state – or a ‘lean state’ which cooperates with non-state actors instead of trying to stifle their efforts – with valuable lessons even for the developed world.
It would seem to me that we must at least try to understand how this dichotomy came to be, such that a national consensus could emerge about the need for a capable, developmental State, with the necessary highly effective civil service, and end up, if Dr Endres is right, with a lean State with a small civil service tied down by routine administrative tasks.
In this context I would like to quote prescient words spoken by then President Nelson Mandela in 1994. Here is part of what he said in the Political Report he delivered at the 49th ANC National Conference in December of that year.
While we have achieved support across the board for the RDP, we have to contend with rear-guard resistance from the parties of apartheid and white privilege, from influential elements within the civil service and the security establishment.
In addition, the networks which ran Low Intensity Conflict continue to exist. These include agents infiltrated into the ANC and the rest of the democratic movement, universities, the media and other institutions.
Within government, the litany of corruption, self-enrichment, and a lop-sided skills base within departments is only now coming to the open, exposing the decay of an NP edifice that presented itself as efficient, as well as the rampant pillaging of public funds in the last days of apartheid rule.
President Mandela was more than correct when he said that “the networks which ran Low Intensity Conflict continue to exist.”
Not only did they continue to exist, now the counter-revolution, they also continued to act within the changed circumstances of the existence of a democratic South Africa, but without changing their strategic objective.
Their strategic objective remained the defeat of the ANC and its programme, which the ANC described as the National Democratic Revolution.
To achieve these objectives, the counter-revolution has engaged in a multi-faceted strategy which included targeting the State machinery, including the State-owned enterprises, the State departments, including those of the criminal justice system, the economy and international relations.
A recent issue of the economic journal, ‘Daily Investor’ published an article on the South African economy with the sub-heading:
“South Africa’s economy is imploding, with key industries falling one by one like a set of dominoes after 15 years of mismanagement and poor government policy.”
This reference to ’15 years’ reflects exactly the latter period since 1994 when the counter-revolutionary interventions had the greatest impact. It applies not only to the economy, but also other aspects of the South African reality.
I am certain that in good time detailed information will be available showing what the counter-revolution has done, following the example set by the Judicial Commission on SARS, chaired by Justice Robert Nugent.
To give just one indication of how elements of the counter-revolution work, let me cite one interesting episode in one of the Reports of the Justice Zondo’s Commission of inquiry into State Capture.
This was when the Commission interviewed the now late Jabu Mabuza concerning his period in the leadership of Eskom, as reported in the Report on ‘The Capture of Eskom’. The Report says:
The late Mr. Jabu Mabuza, who was Chairman of the 2018 Eskom Board, concluded his evidence with the observation that there had previously been within Eskom a culture of corrupt practices, mismanagement and malfeasance that had been inculcated within Eskom by certain individuals over a period of time…This was clearly a pervasive culture and was sanctioned from within the Board, the executive and senior management.
It is unfortunate that the Commission did not probe deeply into this phenomenon of “a culture of corrupt practices, mismanagement and malfeasance that had been inculcated within Eskom by certain individuals over a period of time”.
What Jabu Mabuza helped us greatly to understand the practices to which democratic South Africa would be exposed.
Earlier I quoted what President Mandela said thirty-one years ago, in 1994, that:
Within government, the litany of corruption, self-enrichment, and a lop-sided skills base within departments is only now coming to the open, exposing the decay of an NP edifice that presented itself as efficient, as well as the rampant pillaging of public funds in the last days of apartheid rule.
What Jabu Mabuza told the Zondo Commission about entrenched corruption in Eskom was sufficient warning that what Nelson Mandela reported in 1994 as a legacy of the apartheid order would be replicated under the democratic order.
This is exactly what has happened.
On 15 September 2021, Afrobarometer published a report entitled “South Africans see corruption as worsening during President Ramaphosa’s tenure”. (Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 476). The summary read:
New Afrobarometer survey findings from 2021 mirror the headlines: Not only do South Africans believe that corruption is getting worse, but they also see large portions of elected officials and civil servants as involved in corrupt activities. Society says the government is handling the anti-corruption fight badly, while channels to report corruption are increasingly seen as unsafe.
This correctly reflects the reality that, indeed, significant sections among the civil service are indeed involved in corrupt practices.
Then Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mr. Senzo Mchunu, ‘emphasised the lack of ethical leadership as one of the disheartening issues for concern.’
I am sad to say that if we conducted serious lifestyle audits today among the civil service in all three spheres of Government, as we should, we would find extensive involvement in corrupt activities, both big and small.
A Discussion Document issued by the Public Service Commission in 2014 on “Building a Capable, Career-Oriented and Professional Public Service to Underpin a Capable and Developmental State in South Africa”, says:
…even the best policies will fail in the absence of capable state institutions. And to succeed, capable state institutions have to be led by a purposeful and nationalistic political and administrative leadership that is committed to pursuing a developmentalist agenda.
In the absence of a purposeful political leadership, it is near impossible to build a capable administrative leadership and effective bureaucracy able to systematically develop and implement policy tools to realise the developmental objectives set by political leaders.
This therefore means that, in thinking of a developmental state, politics and political institutions matter.
Correctly, in its Chapter on ‘Building a capable and developmental state’, the National Development Plan (NDP) says:
To address the twin challenges of poverty and inequality, the state needs to play a transformative and developmental role.
Given the hard reality in our country of levels of poverty and inequality which speak to miserable lives for millions of our people, and conscious of the vital importance of the developmental State to help defeat these scourges, it is inevitable that, like Professor Sangweni, we must dream and work for the “capable administrative leadership and effective bureaucracy able to systematically develop and implement policy tools to realise the developmental objectives set by political leaders” which the Public Service Commission wrote about.
However, as I come towards the end of this Lecture, I must state this frankly that our reality is that sections of our public service have been corrupted and represent the exact opposite of what Professor Sangweni and his colleagues at the PSC worked hard and in a principled way to achieve.
Speaking again frankly, I must say that it is difficult to believe that the political conditions exist for us to bring into existence the capable, ethical and developmental State which the NDP and the PSC, and indeed the President of the Republic have spoken about.
Much will have to be done to avoid the dismal reality of the ‘emasculated state’ which Dr John Endres spoke about.
Indeed, this will be one of the major tasks of the forthcoming National Dialogue, realistically to show the way forward towards the creation of the capable and ethical developmental State.
To achieve this, we will have to draw on the inspiring example set by Professor Sangweni as he worked hard and in a principled manner to build a public service that was truly fit for the purpose of the fundamental transformation of our country.
It will also certainly be the case that we should also draw on the courage which Professor Sangweni and his dear wife, Mama Angela, showed when they joined other veterans of our struggle to sign the 2017 document, “For the sake of our future”, which said:
We all have an obligation to ensure that our movement continues its commitment to serve the people of South Africa, consistent with the objectives of the ANC as represented by the leaders under whom many of us (veterans and stalwarts of the ANC) served, such as Inkosi Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela…
(The leadership must) ensure that all members of the ANC are part of a movement that is a servant of the people and not an instrument for self-enrichment and corrupt practices… “As veterans and stalwarts of the revolutionary movement we are obliged to oppose the counter-revolution which is being promoted by some of the key leaders of our movement, in the name of the ANC and our government.
We restate our commitment to save the ANC from the clutches of those who are bent on destroying our movement and discrediting it in the face of the people of South Africa and the world.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
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