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Public servants are already forced to use public services
By Nelson Kgwete
Axed EFF MP Andile Mngxitama is attempting to revive his political career through a new movement called Land First Black First and is threatening to stage a revolution that would see, amongst other things, public representatives and government officials being compelled to use government facilities, including schools and hospitals.
The call is made ostensibly in pursuance of the ideals espoused by the late Burkinabe Marxist revolutionary, Thomas Sankara, whose attempts to radically transform Burkina Faso could be emulated by post-apartheid South Africa.
Sankara, who came to power in a military coup aged 33, was described in a recent online journal as having led “one of the most ambitious programs of sweeping reforms ever seen in Africa”. Sankara “sought to fundamentally reverse the structural social inequities inherited from the French colonial order.”
Mngxitama championed an election promise made by the EFF in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, as part of the EFF’s undertaking to radically move towards a “people-driven state”, that an EFF government will force “public representatives [to] use public services”.
Before we go further, it is necessary to make the important distinction between public representatives and public servants/state employees. An online dictionary defines a public representative as a “public official voted for by the public to represent their interests”. Examples include members of legislative bodies, including the national parliament, provincial legislatures as well as municipal councils and wards.
Government officials, like me, are non-elected bureaucrats. Our function is to administer state business and implement the policies and decisions made by public representatives. According to Section 197 (1) of the Constitution, public servants “must loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day.”
The idea that public servants must be forced to use public services is based on the understanding that they will get a feel of what the rest of the public has to contend with. This idea must be understood within the context of the current realities pertaining to the structure and form of our public service.
We must also bear in mind our recent past of apartheid racial segregation and that the public service was structured to maintain the system of apartheid and serve the few at the expense of the many.
According to StatsSA’s June 2014 Quarterly Employment Statistics Survey, the public service employs 455,701 in national government, 1,118,748 in provincial departments, 311,361 in local government and 275,851 in “other government institutions” such as libraries, parks, zoos as well as education and training authorities, adding up to a total of 2.161-million public servants.
In 2010, the Public Service Commission found that out of the total number employees in the national and provincial government departments (1 195 778), only 12% of them (10 637) were at a senior management level. This means the vast majority of public servants are at low-paying ranks, although their remuneration and conditions of compares favorably to that of private sector employees.
Therefore, the majority of public servants are already compelled to use public services because their low pay cannot sustain a life of reliance on such luxuries as private education for their children, private security for their home, etc.
Nelson Kgwete
Kgwete is a public servant working for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation and is writing in his personal capacity
