“Urgent and thorough reform” of the public service is “essential” if South Africa is to move onto a path of higher economic growth.
This goal “will not be simple, but it is achievable”.
This is the thrust of a new study by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), In Service of the Public: Reforming South Africa’s Public Administration, which is to be launched at an online webinar tomorrow.
In a statement, the IRR says that “(m)uch of the South African state is in a profound crisis. While this is now common cause, action on addressing it has been slow, halting and desultory.”
The IRR’s study “discusses the roots of the crisis in the failure of the post-1994 state to introduce a meritocratic and professional public service. On the contrary, considerations of demographic representivity and the underhanded intrusion of politics into state institutions have sharply detracted from creating a public service able to support the very considerable developmental agenda it has been assigned. Indeed, the state has now become one of the key barriers to a pro-growth future.”
Authors Terence Corrigan and Sara Gon will elaborate on the state of the public service in tomorrow’s webinar, and more importantly, what can be done to deal with the crisis.
Join the webinar at 11am on Tuesday 6 May by clicking on this link: https://streamyard.com/watch/vRStK3jAQT8N