The discussion points of an international conference that the Public Service Commission is hosting at present in Pretoria, points to government not being in touch with the real issues which is paralysing the public service, Dr. Pieter Mulder, leader of the Freedom Front Plus says.
The theme of the conference is: “Building a capable, career and professional Public Service to underpin a Developmental State in South Africa”. Brazil, Malaysia, China and Zimbabwe are attending the conference.
Dr. Mulder says it is incomprehensible that South Africa are seeking solutions to its problems from a country such as Zimbabwe while it is well-known that an over-sized public service, exorbitant state wages and the effect of transformation are the real problems which have to be addressed.
“Government has in this month in a written reply to a parliamentary question of the FF Plus acknowledged that affirmative action (AA) targets have now been reached and that the public service is in actual fact over-transformed with regards to South Africa’s racial demographics.
This means that black people’s target of 80%, or 8 in every ten public servants have already been reached. White people, who make up 9,2% of the population of the country and brown people at 8,9% of the population are now under-represented. At home affairs black representation is approximately 92%.
“This is a very important acknowledgment and the process of transformation must be stopped immediately. Should government continue with it, minorities such as white and brown people will soon be pushed out of the public service completely,” Dr. Mulder said.
According to Dr. Mulder, the public service commission could have placed one of its own recent findings on the agenda, i.e. that cadre deployment and incompetence in the name of AA and transformation are some of the main reasons for poor service delivery.
“The commission had earlier this month, according to a report in Beeld (7 November), acknowledged that many departments are suffering as a result of maladministration, a shortage of skilled people and corruption and that they are on the brink of collapsing.
“The Auditor-General (AG) has also commented on this issue and said that the appointment of ignorant people is drastically impeding service delivery.
“It is not just about black and white, but about merit and the appointment of competent people in the interest of everybody in South Africa,” Dr. Mulder said.
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