ANC Today

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Volume 7, No. 19, 18-24 May 2007

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THIS WEEK:

* Letter from the President: Building a developmental Public Service 
* Peace and Stability: Building a united front against crime 
* Note from the Editor: Apology to 'The Good News'

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Building a developmental Public Service

Two years into our democracy, in 1996, our movement issued an important
Discussion Document entitled "The State and Social Transformation". (The
document can be found on the website: www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/s&st.html.)

It was important then, as it is now, for us to define the role of the democratic
state in the process of the transformation of our country into a non-racial,
non-sexist and prosperous democracy. In this context we had to define the social
role of the new state as compared to the preceding colonial and apartheid state.
Among other things, this would help to facilitate the process of defining what
we would have to do to restructure the state so that it plays its role in the
transformation process.

It was also necessary to consider this question in the light of the view that
had been propagated that a truly democratic system of government requires the
construction of a minimal state that plays a minimal role in the ordering of
human affairs. It has therefore been argued that such human affairs should be
left largely in the hands of the individual and "the market".

At the same time we were then, as we are now, confronted by the reality that the
overwhelming majority of our people expected that the new, democratic state
would come to their aid, particularly to help extricate the millions of poor
people in our country from poverty, and liberate millions from the oppressive
and discriminatory legacy of racism and sexism.

It was therefore clear that our movement, which had led the struggle for the
liberation of our country and had been elected as the governing party, could not
now turn round and say that the democratic state it led would play a minimal
role in helping to free our people from the deeply entrenched legacy of
colonialism and apartheid.

Accordingly, we had to answer the questions - what interventions should the
democratic state make to address this legacy, and how should the state machinery
be structured and staffed properly to discharge its responsibilities in this
regard.

All these remain questions that demand continuous reflection, to ensure that at
all times we correctly address the central issue of the role of the state in the
struggle to build a truly non-racial, non-sexist, egalitarian and prosperous
democracy. In this regard, the Document on "The State and Social Transformation"
said in part:

"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 cause of these people in such a way that
the most basic aspirations of this majority assume 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.

"To the extent that the democratic state is objectively interested in a stable
democracy, so it cannot avoid the responsibility to ensure the establishment of
a social order concerned with the genuine interests of the people as a whole,
regardless of the racial, national, gender and class differentiation. There can
be no stable democracy unless the democratic state attends to the concerns of
the people as a whole and takes responsibility for the evolution of the new
society.

"The democratic state should also address the important issue of the just and
correct resolution of the national question, which question colonialism and
Apartheid elevated to a special position of prominence, both theoretically and
in practice.

"In a similar vein, the democratic state must also seek to forge a democratic
and equitable partnership as well as a working relationship between labour and
capital in the interest of social stability, economic progress, reconstruction
and development. In the context of the South African situation, the tension
between labour and capital demands special attention by the democratic state
because it can easily be confused with or can help to exacerbate problems
associated with the national question."

These considerations have informed the work we have done during the years of our
democracy correctly to position the state as one of the principal national
institutions charged with the responsibility to achieve the fundamental social
transformation of our country. In this regard, we have been very mindful of the
observation contained in the excerpt we have just quoted, that - there can be no
stable democracy unless the democratic state attends to the concerns of the
people as a whole and takes responsibility for the evolution of the new society.

On 14 May, the Public Service Commission (PSC) published its "State of the
Public Service Report 2007: Promoting Growth and Development through an
Effective Public Service". All of us, and not just the government, will have to
study this Report carefully because it will give us some insights into the
effectiveness of the democratic state with regard to discharging its obligation
to "attend to the concerns of the people as a whole and [take] responsibility
for the evolution of the new society".

In his Foreword to the Report, the Chairperson of the PSC, Professor Stan
Sangweni says: "[The Report] highlights areas that need attention in the Public
Service in order to enhance its ability to promote growth and development. Key
among these is the deepening of government's programmes in such a manner that
they impact effectively on the well-being of citizens. For this to happen, the
Public Service must be supported by sound monitoring and evaluation systems,
which will provide timeous information on the effectiveness or otherwise of
programmes. I trust that you find this edition useful in the on-going debates
that prevail about the role of the Public Service in the transformation of our
country."

The Report itself says: "The promotion of growth and development has been a high
priority for South Africa from the inception of its democracy. The primary
consideration in this regard is that higher levels of growth should deepen the
country's transformation and safeguard the stability of the political
transition... Development...refers to an improvement in the well-being of people
as a result of a range of targeted social, political and economic processes...

"It can be argued that the South African approach to developmentalism is one
that values growth, sustainable development, equity, democratisation and the
protection of basic human rights. It is therefore not an 'either/or' scenario.
These key elements need to be addressed together... Development therefore
involves material achievements (such as income), improved well-being (such as
health and education) and enjoying other forms of freedom such as participation
in democratic processes of governance and religious association...

"This Report focuses on the contribution of the Public Service towards the
achievement of growth and development objectives in South Africa. Generally, the
Public Service has a major role to play especially in developing markets. This
is so because in such environments, the services it can provide are the only
hope that poor people have to better their lives. In South Africa, the role of
the Public Service becomes even more relevant given that it receives the largest
slice of national revenue and is the largest single employer. This Report seeks
to assess how the South African Public Service has, through the promotion of the
Constitutional values and principles contributed towards growth and development
in the country."

Given all these considerations, it was indeed important that the PSC should make
an assessment of the capacity of the Public Service to discharge its
responsibilities with regard to promoting growth and development, as defined in
the Report. As we have said, it is equally important that we study carefully the
findings of the PSC and act on its recommendations. In this regard, we will cite
only a few of the comments made by the PSC as reflected in the summary it
released to the media.

With regard to the important issue of "the promotion of efficient, economic and
effective use of resources", the PSC says: "There has been an improvement in
financial reporting in the Public Service, but more needs to be done to ensure
that the Public Service is competent in the utilisation and management of
resources... In this regard, it is encouraging to note that under-spending in
provincial departments is mostly on the decrease. However, the same cannot be
said about national departments where under-spending went up from an average of
0.9% in 2004/5 to 1.5% in 2005/6. Although some of these percentages may appear
insignificant, in rand terms the amounts involved are worth watching closely...

"There are already concerns around the highly uneven quarterly spending patterns
of departments - perhaps a signal that funds are not always used efficiently and
effectively. In certain instances, departments tend to spend a large portion of
their budget during the last month of the financial year...The Report concludes
that the Public Service needs to ensure that its performance reporting strikes a
balance between quantitative achievements such as the number of beneficiaries
and the value that the services provided generate for the beneficiaries. This
requires among others sound planning and focused evaluative studies."

With regard to another issue that is critical to the success of our development
agenda, the "development orientation of public administration", the PSC says: "A
development oriented Public Service plays a proactive role in the realisation of
government's objective of creating a better life for all. Efforts such as social
security and social assistance programmes have reached many beneficiaries,
however these need to be augmented by more sustainable efforts of eliminating
the second economy...

"Assessments of progress made in reducing poverty tend to be defused by
different definitions of poverty. The role of a developmental Public Service is
to transcend these definitional differences and provide clarity on what poverty
means in the South African context. This is a key issue on which to frame
discussions because the extent to which there has been progress in poverty
reduction also depends on the definition and the indicators that get used for
such an assessment.

"Notwithstanding these definitional differences, it is acknowledged that there
is still a huge challenge facing the government to reduce income poverty through
productive employment... Ultimately, the key issue is to ensure that departments
demonstrate the requisite capacity to design, plan, implement and monitor these
programmes in such a manner that they achieve their objectives. The Report
concludes that there is growing recognition that social assistance does in fact
achieve some developmental objectives as well.

"A key challenge, however is that reducing poverty through grants is not
sustainable...[The main Report says] efforts to improve the capacity of the
Public Service to effectively plan and implement poverty reduction programmes
should also be strengthened. In this regard, particular attention should be paid
to enhancing collaboration between departments and between spheres of government
to optimise the use of resources available and to promote collective learning."

A fundamental element in the strategic perspective of our movement is that we
must construct a people-driven process of change. We must therefore be keenly
interested to see what the PSC says about the requirement binding on the Public
Service that "People's needs must be responded to and the public must be
encouraged to participate in policy making".

In this regard the PSC says: "The involvement of citizens in the decision-making
process is important to ensure that experiential and grounded perspectives
inform government of what the needs are, and how these can best be addressed.
There are pockets of good practice in the Public Service that promote citizen
engagement, but more still needs to be done to heighten the level and quality of
participatory governance. South Africa is recognised as having a more open
policy-making process than most other countries...However, at the level of
implementation the Public Service has had mixed results in the promotion of
participatory governance. Most of the mechanisms that have gained momentum are
those that are organised by political representatives...

"The PSC believes that public participation needs to be entrenched through the
development and implementation of supporting policy guidelines at departmental
level... Based on the information obtained from a selection of 12 provincial and
two national departments from the Public Service Monitoring and Evaluation
System for the 2005/6 cycle, the PSC found that only 21% of the departments
evaluated have policy and guidelines to deal with public participation. Just
over a quarter (29%) of these departments have systems to solicit public
participation in the policy development process. It was also found that only 29%
of the departments include public comments in their policy formulation process.

"These findings indicate that the Public Service needs to do more to improve the
scope and quality of participation by citizens in its work. The execution of
participatory models requires a particular set of skills from public servants,
such as the ability to negotiate, understand community dynamics and work with,
rather than work for, communities. This would require the reorientation and re-
skilling of public servants to address the challenges posed by working in such a
context."

The PSC "State of the Public Service Report 2007: Promoting Growth and
Development through an Effective Public Service", confirms that we still have to
do a lot of work to do to build the stable and highly motivated Public Service
we need to achieve the deeply transformative objectives of the national
democratic revolution.

It also confirms that we need a strong and accountable democratic state to
achieve the noble goals prescribed by the Constitution of the Republic. The
least we can do in this regard is to study the PSC Report and respond seriously
to its observations and proposals.

The conclusion cannot be avoided that we must do much more to train and create a
Public Service that meets the highest professional standards, that is proud of
the fact that it exists to serve the people, that is patriotic and selfless,
that fully understands the historic significance of the esteemed position it
occupies as one of the principal architects of a non-racial, non-sexist,
prosperous and egalitarian South Africa.

Thabo Mbeki  

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PEACE AND STABILITY

Building a united front against crime

Consistent with the tasks identified in the ANC's January 8th statement this
year, government's justice, crime prevention and security cluster is pushing
ahead with the task of reducing crime, building capacity across the criminal
justice system, and involving the community in the fight against crime.

Presenting the January 8th Statement in Emalahleni earlier this year, President
Thabo Mbeki said: "As we have consistently said, our response to crime must be
based on a clear understanding of the causes of crime and the various forms that
it takes across society. Our response needs to be well-considered, effectively
coordinated and comprehensive... During the course of 2007, we need to make
every possible effort decisively to tackle this challenge, drawing on the
resources and capacity of all sectors of society in a united front against
crime."

In a briefing last week on progress made in this regard, the Justice, Crime
Prevention and Security Cluster said crime prevention continues to be the key
focus of policing. Since the beginning of the year, several operations were
carried out in all provinces, focusing on policing areas where there is a high
incidence of serious and violent crime.

Steps to improve policing included the provision of better resources to various
police stations, the establishment of operational control centres across the
country, the deployment of additional capital equipment, and the improvement of
arrest, investigation and prosecution capabilities.

Partnerships

In line with the emphasis in the January 8th statement on mobilising all sectors
of society behind this effort, the cluster has been working hard to cultivate
relationships, particularly with business and communities.

The business sector's contribution includes the development and upgrading of
closed circuit television, the improvement of cash management standards, its
contribution to information gathering, especially by the South African Banking
Risk Intelligence Centre, alignment of the work of private security with South
African Police Service (SAPS) operations, and fast-tracking the implementation
of anti-hijacking initiatives.

These initiatives are already showing success in the fight against organised
aggravated robberies and serious and violent crime.

Community policing defines a close relationship between the police and the
communities. Communities are involved in deciding, together with the police, the
policing priorities in their area. They choose from their ranks the best
representatives to work alongside the police on a common programme and together
assess progress.

The Community Police Forums (CPF) are being revamped so they can better
coordinate the partnership between communities and the police, and even mediate
conflicts that may arise. There are at currently over 1,000 CPFs around the
country, at various levels of development. Some of them are doing well, while
others continue to experience problems of development and resourcing. The
reorganisation of the CPFs aims to introduce a sense of urgency in their
development, resourcing and work, better to facilitate community policing.

Communities are encouraged to identify among themselves trustworthy and loyal
members to be trained in basic policing as police reservists. The reservists,
working together under the leadership of professional police commanders, will do
patrols on a regular basis, mount roadblocks and participate in cordon and
search operations. There are currently over 44,000 reservists around the
country. They include some members of the commando units that have been phased
out.

Crime combating forums in the rail environment have been formed in the Western
Cape, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng to deal with crimes that happen in the commuter
train system. This follows the establishment in the three provinces of over a
Railway Police, totalling over a thousand personnel.

Criminal justice system

There are still areas in the criminal justice system where coordination needs to
be improved. The cluster is spending resources to improve capacity across the
system and ensure better investigations, prosecutions and rehabilitation of
offenders.

The use of technology and other modern tools continues to underpin the work of
the police. Capital investment decisions were taken further to enhance policing
command and control capabilities. The intention is to fight, in the short to
medium term, organised violent crime. The deployment of the requisite means and
forces will extend over the next three years.

The SAPS "flood and flush" operations in priority areas resulted in 5,461
arrests in January and February for crimes like murder, attempted murder and
aggravated robbery. The focus on outstanding warrants of arrest and the search
for suspects identified from clues at crime scenes has resulted in the arrest of
298 suspects linked to over 300 cases.

The cluster is still paying particular attention to the case backlog in the
courts. Twelve additional backlog sites have been established as an addition to
the original five courts that were dealing with the matter.

The Department of Justice initiated a project last year to trace defaulters in
the maintenance of children arising from court orders. The project is called
Operation Isondlo and has seen many defaulters appearing in court and paying
maintenance. There are new applications that have been received countrywide in
the wake of the successful Isondlo Awareness Campaign. The number of children
receiving maintenance has increased.

Overcrowding continues to be one of the big problems that the Department of
Correctional Services has to deal with. The cluster has adopted a different way
of dealing with overcrowding that relates to the numbers of people who could
either be admitted to bail or released on their own cognisance and warned to
appear at an appropriate time. The police are being encouraged to use their
discretion to release suspects who pay bail in less serious or minor cases.
Further police discretion relates to categories of minor crime where the police
can release suspects on warning.

The admission of guilt and plea bargaining are the other instruments
increasingly being used to keep the offender population at correctional
facilities at manageable levels, among other things to facilitate the
rehabilitation programme.

There are sentenced detainees who have been given fines of R1,000 or less who
continue to remain in the detention facilities because they are unable to pay
those fines. The matter is being dealt with by a task team from the departments
of Justice and Constitutional Development and Correctional Services. The
intention is to identify those detainees and facilitate their release on the
basis of correctional supervision or community service. This relates only to
less serious and non-violent crimes.

Other interventions include the increased use by courts of alternative
sentencing. Over 3,000 offenders have been sentenced to correctional
supervision, while 357 already sentenced offenders have had their sentences
converted to correctional supervision. The Correctional Supervision and Parole
Boards placed 6,085 offenders on parole. Those decisions were taken in full
cognisance of the need to ensure public safety, hence the limitation of non-
custodial sentences to only those offenders who do not pose a danger to society.

The impact of this ongoing work by the justice, crime prevention and security
cluster can only be increased by the mobilisation and involvement of all sectors
of society in a concerted and sustained campaign to significantly reduce levels
of crime.

MORE INFORMATION:

Government Cluster Briefings, May 2007 
http://www.info.gov.za/events/2007/briefingsmay07.htm

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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Apology to 'The Good News'

In Vol 7 No 15 of ANC TODAY we published a Letter from the President entitled
"Freedom Day calls for agents of change". Among other things, the Letter
commented on the advances our country has made since the victory of the
Democratic Revolution in 1994. Much of the factual information and the
quotations contained in the Letter were drawn from the website maintained by
"South Africa: The Good News". We sincerely apologise that we did not
acknowledge this fact. We take this opportunity to thank the "Good News" team
for the sterling work it is doing to tell the true story of what our country and
people are doing and have been doing during the years of freedom, which has led
many in Africa and the rest of the world to view our country as a home of hope
for all humanity. We are pleased to recommend that all those truly interested to
learn about the immense progress our people, black and white, are making towards
'the birth of a nation', should regularly visit the website:
www.sagoodnews.co.za.

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