ADDRESS BY THE MEC FOR COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS IN KWAZULU-NATAL, HONOURABLE NOMUSA DUBE-NCUBE AT THE CIGFARO WOMEN IN PUBLIC SECTOR SEMINAR

THEME: ‘THE ROLE OF THE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN ENHANCING ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR’

DURBAN: 9 MARCH 2017

Programme Director, Cheryl Reddy;

Mayor of eThekwini Municipality, Her Worship, Cllr Zandile Gumede;

Your Worships the Mayors Present;

Honourable Councillors;

Public Protector of South Africa, Adv. Busisiwe Mkhwebane;

President of CIGFARO, Krish Kumar;

Vice President General, Sidwell Mofokeng;

Chairperson of SCE, Paledi Marota;

The Executive Members of CIGFARO;

Senior Government and Municipal Officials;

Distinguished guests;

Ladies and gentlemen;

It is a great honour and privilege for me to address the Chartered Institute of Government Finance, Audit and Risk Officers (CIGFARO) and particularly the women leaders in the local government finance sector.

CIGFARO has and can further enrich the profession towards promoting sound financial management in the public sector and specifically in the area of municipal finance and governance, both of which are key pillars under the Back to Basics Programme of this government. Continued professional development is vital in any industry to ensure professional growth and to maintain credibility. We are therefore pleased to engage the Institute as a strategic partner.

The theme: “Women in Public Sector leading the ethical revolution towards sustainable service delivery” is extremely apt as we move towards government’s programme of radical social and economic transformation. We must therefore behave like revolutionaries to make an impact on transforming our local government sector to ensure that sustainable service delivery is achieved within the shortest possible time and continues to provide value for money.

The month of March, we are in the middle ofis known in the South African calendar as the Human Rights Month. This is a month in which we pause and reflect on our role as the state and citizens in respecting and protecting the rights of each other, remembering that each one of us is our brother’s keeper.

Programme Director, an event such as this where one is called upon to address some of the leading minds that have emerged out of our post-apartheid transition is not only overwhelming but is intellectually daunting.

Programme Director, we have been asked to address a specific topic today which is: “The role of political leadership in enhancing ethical behaviour in the public service.” We are encouraged that you have chosen such a theme for your gathering because we feel that it is in line with our democratic project which is to build a society in which all of our people have a stake.

What is ethical behaviour – the Business Dictionary defines it as: ‘Acting in ways consistent with what society and individuals typically think are good values. Ethical behaviour tends to be good for business and involves demonstrating respect for key moral principles that include honesty, fairness, equality, dignity, diversity and individual rights.’ It further says: “Ethical behaviour is acting in a manner that is in tandem with what society considers being good morals. Ethical behaviours are important because they guide people’s actions. Examples of ethical behaviour include integrity, fairness, honesty and dignity”.

I notice from this definition that ethical behaviour does not refer to rules but moral conscience and behaviour. Naturally, this would fall within the domain of priesthood or pastoral powers.

So we have to ask a question: Does this mean that political leaders have no role to play in promoting ethical behaviour in the public service? The answer is an absolute No!

This a question that bothered US President Woodrow Wilson in the late 19th century in his charactisation of politics-administration dichotomy. Political leadership plays a profound role in the formulation of policies that promote ethical behaviour. Should political leadership end with the formulation of such policies?

Wilson argued that “Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. Administrative questions are not political questions”.Wilson started a debate which I am sure still continues to this day. The politics-administration dichotomy is an important concept in the field of governance and public service because it deals with the policy-maker’s role as an administrator and the balancing act that is the relationship between politics and administration which I consider pertinent to today’s subject of contemplation.

Iam bringing this discussion forward because naturally people frown when political leadership gets involved in the day to day running of government. However, when governemnt activities are not running smoothly, people blame the political leadership, in some cases calling for their resignation. This places a huge dilema on the political leadership.

In my view, this dilemma should not hamstring the political leadership of South Africa. The statement that says “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white …” should be translated into practical service delivery to all our people. Such a high calling requires a high level of ethical behaviour in the public sector. Political leadership cannot afford to sit back when such virtues are lacking because doing so will be a betrayal of our democratic revolution.

The National Development Plan (NDP) amongst others envisions: “A South Africa in which an empowered citizenry have the confidence and knowledge to hold public and private officials to account and in which leaders hold themselves to high ethical standards and act with integrity… This South Africa has a resilient anti-corruption system in which anti-corruption agencies have the resources, credibility and powers to investigate corruption and their investigations are acted upon”.

Our supreme law, the Constitution, requires of the Public Service to be value driven as provided in the Sections 1, 9, the Bill of Rights and the public administration values in Section 195. This means that public servants should be driven by the constitutional values and principles and an understanding of their duty to serve their fellow citizens. These include a high standard of professional ethics, effectiveness and efficiency, a responsive public service, accountability, and a development-oriented public service.

From these two key documents I have just quoted, it is clear that our government has put in place a range of key policy instruments and frameworks necessary to promote and support a high standard of professional ethics. For the South African state, this is critical because the public service does not exist for its own ends but is there to ensure that the citizens are provided with quality service in a decent manner. Itcan, therefore, be deducted from this assertion that the reputation and success of our public sector institutions largely depends on the conduct of us public office bearers and public servants alike.

In 1955 the South African anti-apartheid formations led by the African National Congress converged in Kliptown, Soweto, where they drafted the Freedom Charter. The Charter articulated the values of our democracy when it proclaimed that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people”; and that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people enjoy equal rights and opportunities. This is the essence of the Freedom Charter which has informed South Africa’s Constitution as transformative and speaks of recognising “the injustices of our past”. The Constitution emphasises the importance of good governance and administration based on democratic principles, including the rule of law.

What has the South African State done to enhance ethics in the public service?

Our government’s commitment to transforming and inculcating values of service and public interest in the public service is well documented. These values are enshrined in the public service principles of “Batho Pele” which means putting people first by being open, transparent and honest. This is what Plato referred to when he said: “do no service for a present”. As government, we have worked tirelessly in ensuring that the values of public good and public interest are at the centre of our public administration ethics and that they form part of the redress and socio-economic development and the well-being of all the people. This is important because before 1994 the South African public service was only accountable to and only served the minority in our land. The public service which kept the apartheid machine alive and served only a select few would suddenly have to serve the vast majority of our people who, for centuries, had been, at best, given substandard services and, at worst, were totally ignored by successive racist regimes. The denial of public services to the majority of our people was a physical manifestation of inequality. This lack of delivery of basic services was a constant reminder of the inequality in our land. The pathetic state of the beaches designated for black people and first-world standard of beaches for our white compatriots was also a stark reminder of our inequality.

Therefore when we speak of a free country, we can only do that when we have dealt with these everyday reminders of our inequality. When there is equality in terms of how we deliver services, irrespective of colour; geographical location or political persuasion, then we can claim to be free. This task, of transforming the assertion of freedom into a lived reality for all of our people, rests on the shoulders of our public servants who must at all times be accountable to the communities they serve.

As alluded to earlier on, from a policy perspective, we have introduced a series of initiatives and policy instruments to promote ethical conduct in the public service with the aim of building a public service which upholds the highest moral values, integrity and ethics.

Part of the practical things we have done to create a public administration that strives to promote and live out the values of professionalism, transparency, efficiency, accountability and responsiveness has been our hard stance on fighting corruption and developing institutions and mechanisms to fight it.

One of the key ethical dilemmas that tend to compromise the integrity of public officials is that often at times they operate in an environment where there is a constant requirement to balance between personal interests and the interest of serving the public.

In our province of KwaZulu-Natal, I am sure many of you would have come across a huge billboard somewhere with a message “I do right – even when nobody is watching”.

This is a message of our provincial executive which we seek to embed in the minds of public officials and promote good governance and ethics in our public institutions. As public leaders, we have to set the correct tone and direct the entire state machinery to act in a manner that is consistent with public interest and in so doing ensure that the public has confidence in government. Our view is that we cannot just sit and assume that people will be ethical that is why we have campaigns and institutions whose tasks is to safeguard integrity and continuously promote ethics.

Our government’s approach in enhancing ethics and combating bad conduct in our public service has included the development of the Public Service Anti-corruption Strategy and various pieces of legislations such as:

• The Protected Disclosures Act, 2000 (Act No 26 of 2000),

• The Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (Act No 2 of 2000),

• The Financial Intelligence Centre Act, 2001 (Act No 38 of 2001),

• The Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000 (Act No 3 of 2000), and

• The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, 2004 (Act No 12 of 2004).

One of the key avenues that have eroded ethics and compromised the integrity of civil servants in recent times has been the tender and procurement systems. The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act makes provision for a Register of Tender Defaulters within the Office of the National Treasury, as well as the compulsory reporting of corruption and certain common law offences to the South African Police Service by persons who are in positions of authority.

We have established watchdog institutions to complement basic police work, with institutions such as the Public Protector, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Special Investigating Unit, the Public Service Commission, the Financial Intelligence Centre and the Auditor-General playing this role. These institutions have reached a high level of maturity and this has provided the country with a strong machinery to promote good governance ethics and integrity in our public service. Other interventions have included the establishment of an Asset Register for Accounting Officers and a mandatory financial disclosure of assets and interests for all Senior Managers, the requirements for public sector institutions to regularly conduct risk assessments and develop fraud prevention plans.

Possibly the most visible anti-corruption effort was the creation of the Anti-Corruption Hotline. Of course, despite all these efforts, there is still a strong feeling among members of society that government is still not doing enough as regularly the media and public hear allegations implicating public servants and leaders on corruption and other acts of wrong doing. In other instances, members of the public find themselves in situations where they have to bribe/pay for government services they are entitled to such as what we have been reading recently at one Home Affairs Office and Driver Testing Centre. Of course, this may just be the tip of the ice berg but on a positive side is that arrests are happening on a daily basis.

In KwaZulu-Natal, we have a Citizens’ Charter, which informs people about what is expected of public officials and how they should be serviced and what to do if provided with substandard service. I have to admit that as leaders we have not been as prolific as we should be in monitoring and ensuring strong oversight. I normally make one observation where in the Charter it was made compulsory for all public servants to wear name badges so that communities will know who serviced them inappropriately if they have to complain. I have recently noticed that very few public servants still put their name badges on.

I submit that we have to be stronger on:

Consequence Management;

Accountability and oversight;

We must also continue with campaigns to educate and create awarenessabout the rights of our people to services provided by government.

Dilemmas still compromising ethics in the Public service

As government, we still have to improve in some of the grey areas that are a threat to the ethics and integrity of public officials. These include some of the grey zones that are not adequately regulated, such as instances where public officials are recruited by the private sector to take up lucrative jobs in companies that have business interests in government. This may result in these officials using their government connections to benefit themselves or their business interests. The main challenge here is that there are no restrictions. At some point, there was a talk of a cooling off period.

In conclusion, it is important to mention that where ethical behaviour is actively promoted and unethical conduct severely punished, benefits flow to the community and the economic wellbeing of the country. Some of our institutions have made recoveries worth billions of rand from individuals and institutions public and private who enriched themselves through unethical means.

I can mention here recoveries and prevention of future losses on social grants, government housing subsidy fraud recoveries, medical aid fraud, SIU cases etc. When these recoveries are made it is benefit to the economy and the citizens.

Programme Director, in conclusion in 1762 one of France’s most influencing thinkers Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Of course, Rousseau was lamenting the social and moral ills that had been produced by the development of society at that time.

He argued that humans were essentially free and were born free in the state of nature, but the progress of civilisation had made them subservient to others. It is, therefore, our contention that institutions such as CIGFARO always have to exist within the ambits of their society’s development. They too have a social contract with society to ensure that societies reach their highest level of innovation and development. We have no doubt that this is a challenge that you will ensure that this institution rise up to in order to build an accountable developmental state that benefits all its citizens.

I thank you!

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