12/06/2023
The fight for the plight of civil society is starting in Ernest. The fight for true social justice starts here. SA Civil society will never taste quality service delivery nor social justice until the root cause of their exclusion and marginalization is addressed. It's all talk and empty promises but nothing changes. Even in disaster situations, money is made available for relief but our communities are always left with an egg on the face. . Where is the problem? The root cause of all this injustice lies in the DPSA. That's where civi society was soldout to the highest bidder. Civil society is now only used as canon fodder when there are turf battles and negotiation dead-locks. Our injustice started with the incomplete Public service transformation and reform process. Very few in the current political, Labour and Govt leadership really understands where I am coming with this argument. But let open your eye to this unknown and untold truth. Transformation and reform of the Public service had to address 3 critical areas of operation namely 1. Administrative & industrial reforms 2.Employment reforms 3. Public service reforms. Here are the facts, Administrative, Industrial & Employment reforms were legislated & fully implemented which saw governance decision making powers and authority being devolved to Provinces up to local govt level. This also saw the establishment of a central coordinating bargaining council for Govt, industries & organised labour with equal powers and authority to make policies and take implementation decision together. These powers and authority were also devolved from this central structure down to factory floor. Concomitant implementation structures were created to ensure seamless reform implementation. These reforms also reached parliament which saw the promulgation of new legislation on political funding that benefits all political parties. Then the next logical part of the reform that had to follow was the "Public service reform ", for some sinister reasons, suddenly all stakeholders involved pretended that the achievement of "Administrative, Industrial & Employment" reforms meant "Public service reforms" was & still is wrong. The white paper is very clear on this aspect in particular which is in essence, its primary focus. That's where the "Batho pele" name originated. Reform rollout was actually supposed to start on the Public service side of DPSA which represents its external environment and the internal enviro was to follow later. The opposite happened and we are where we are today. All the people who started that process are gone, including myself, and nobody in the succeding administrations knew what actually transpired. This was precipitated by the ANC's succession culture that does not put emphasis on official hand-over when administration change hands after conferences and elections. Theresulting lack of continuity in Governance, led to this fatal reform omission. The current Public service review process where they talking professionalization, is missing the actual problem that requires attention. They're nowhere near to addressing the plight of civil society. They're just clutching at straws and are going to be sitting with the same civil society injustice at the end of that process. They should be drafting the relevant legislation that will govern the relations between Govt, Business, Labour and Civic society similar to the LRA.
