A document presented at a government ‘summit’ on ethical leadership identified ‘destructive deployment practices’ as one of the ‘pitfalls’ inhibiting good governance, according to City Press.
The summit was being hosted by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
This comes as the ANC and DA are engaged in political and legal disputes over the ruling party’s deeply controversial cadre deployment policy.
City Press reports that the document presented at the summit, ‘Code for Ethical Leadership in Local Government’, was drafted by nonprofit organisation The Ethics Institute in collaboration with Cogta and the South African Local Government Association.
The document reportedly says that because ‘inappropriate people’ were sometimes appointed, a lot of money was wasted on external consultants who ‘have to do work that staff should actually be able to do themselves’.
‘All these practices are extremely wasteful and deplete resources that should be used for service delivery,’ the document stated.
In a second document last week on the topic of the public service, a Public Service Commission report stated that ‘the role of the ANC’s deployment committee’ was ‘a practice that cannot be ignored’, according to City Press.
This report recommends: ‘The current emphasis on “political deployment” needs to be replaced by a focus on building a professional public service that serves government, but is sufficiently autonomous to insulate it from political patronage.’
[Image: Eddie Mar Delos Angeles from Pixabay]