ALUTA CONTINUA!!!!BETTER FEWER BUT BETTER AGAINST CORRUPTION

The elections are over and the realities following them are not new. They only become bigger.
The expected victory of the ANC and the entrance of newcomers in Parliament as well as the improved performance of the DA are known.
What is also known is that there is an undertaking on the part of the ruling party to accelerate service delivery, to implement the New Development Plan, “build a professional public service that serves government, but is sufficiently autonomous to be insulated from political patronage” and that there must be “clearer separation between the political principal and administrative head”.
ACCERUS has produced and presented nationally and internationally empirical research on the negative effects and impact of the political/administrative conundrum and the political will to de-politicise the civil service as a sine qua non of the development of a ‘capable state’ need to be seen as non-negotiable.
A careful reading of the recent reports of the Auditor General SA and the Public Commission make clear a number of realities:
• Skills and expertise in the public service should be non-negotiable.
• High standards are sacrificed in preference of political affiliation and commitment.
• Key legislation, rules, regulations, strategies, and procedures are ignored.
The reports of the above mentioned highly regarded institutions have highlighted (not for the first time) the continued political interference in operational issues, the adverse effects of relentless staff re-cycling, restructuring and staff turnover and the abuse or ignorance of fundamental organisational , functional and structural requirements and imperatives that ought (or should) be the cornerstones of the struggle against corruption.
The NDP’s proposal that the role of the Public Service Commission [PSC] in championing norms and standards, and monitoring recruitment processes is of crucial importance as is the role of the Auditor General and other Section 9 institutions.
However, in our humble opinion the most important role in the fight corruption rests on the shoulders of three categories of people:
• The political leadership of the country starting from the President , the Premiers, individual Ministers and all elected members of layers of government.
• The administrative leadership at all layers of government.
• All the civil servants irrespective of their positions at all layers of government.
Their duties and responsibilities are to make South Africa a better place to live in , to provide democratic and accountable government for the citizens of our country, to ensure the provision of sustainable services to the communities to promote social and economic development within a safe and healthy environment; and to do all these things through the encouragement of the involvement of communities and community organisations in all matters that affect their daily lives and their future.
The ANC’s continued dominance since 1994 has gone through periods of changes evident in the fluctuation of stability in the public service. This is not unique in our country, but a world phenomenon, including in our partners in BRICS.
However, if there is a commitment of the new administration to value and cement a nonpartisan civil service, the first decisive step against corruption will be taken.
This, because the nature of corruption as research in the last 30 years has shown is multi-dimensional , it is sociological, legal, financial , psychological, technological , but above all it is political , a threat to both private and public sector institutions and indeed to the economies and people of every country in the world.
It involves greed, innovation, opportunities, loose systems and functions, organisational deficiencies or perfection, friendships, opportunism, chances, cash or electronic transfers, cartels and oligopolies and price fixing.
Behind most, if not all of the above, lies the existence and perhaps supremacy of power relations, in the provincial, national or local government offices or the multi-million rand luxurious boardrooms.
The first page stories of the weekly, daily or Sunday newspapers hunting for the headlines and the ‘big stories’ are never interested on the ‘10% commission’ of the ‘below R500 000’tenders .
These are no ‘big news’.
However, for every citizen who loves South Africa even one rand lost to fraud, theft and corruption is too much.
The real success of the newly installed government against corruption will not be to have 10 more local municipalities having a clean audit in 2014. The real achievement will be to commit itself to the realisation of the indisputable fact that no institutional building, human resource capacity building as valuable as they are, or the best trained motivated public service will be able to withstand the destructive effects of corruption for the country and all her people.