Getting Back to Basics

Pravin Gordhan led a campaign to improve the Public Service by ‘getting back to basics’.  There is some merit in this thinking, and it could well be applied to Government as a whole.  Here are some suggestions for doing this.

1. Bring a realisation to all levels of Government that the Government is owned by the people, works for the people and is responsible to the people.  This includes everything from the start of the State President’s speech on the state of the nation when he spends many minutes greeting the Speakers, the Members, the guests and, last of all, the people.  This is wrong.  The State President is primarily responsible to the people, and the people should be the audience.  All others are incidental.  When this realisation is firmly implanted in the minds of the politicians and the civil servants, they will understand that arrogance has no place in their actions.  It must be replaced by humility.
2. Make the workings of State accept that what is done can only be done in the interests of the people who are paying for it.  There is place for secrecy in the formulation of policies and laws only in very limited circumstances.  Everything else must be open and above board, with no allowance for closed door meetings, policy formulation by elite groups of Party apparatchiks, no permissions for lobby groups to influence policy formulation without full disclosure and the right of reply by any interested citizen.  There is no place for the preferment of a particular group unless the principles of such preferment and the objectives of it are clearly stated to the public and accepted by them.
3. Gain an understanding that everyone in Parliament is representing all the citizens, not only the voters who support them.  A policy must be beneficial to all the citizens, and must gain the acceptance, at least in principle, of all of them if it is to avoid resistance by those who are disadvantaged.  The readiness of the Whites, for example, to accept measures that will bring others to the same standard will probably surprise the legislators, as will the willingness of the wealthy to assist the poor, if the group that is to be disadvantaged can be brought to believe that it is in the interests of all for the economy to be fully inclusive, and the collective skills, intelligence and experience of all can be concentrated on achieving the accepted objectives.  The current method of blaming the Whites, including Jan van Riebeeck, for all the ills of the country achieves only the alienation of that group, manifested in resistance to the policies and the emigration of skilled persons of all races, depriving the economy of their capabilities.
4. Establish a rule that corruption of all kinds and at every level is not acceptable, and will be revealed and punished.  By its nature, corruption involves at least two parties, and, in many cases, one of the parties is using his or her position of power to offer an advantage to the other party if a payment in one form or another is made.  The only way to prevent that would be to establish a policing and investigative unit under a person of undoubted integrity who does not consider himself beholden to any person for the position, such as the present Public Protector.  That person should be empowered to offer immunity to prosecution to any person who is involved in such corruption if they give evidence resulting in a prosecution, and there must be no holds barred in actions to be taken against those involved in such corruption.  Included in this package could be an increase in the penalties applied against guilty persons who have used their positions in Government to facilitate the corruption, possibly as much as double the penalties otherwise applied.
5. Make the Executive completely accountable to Parliament, with an unlimited question time, an exclusion of prevarication and avoidance of questions, and a requirement that full documentation may be required to support the answers given.  This requirement would include the right of Parliament to give or withhold approval to the appointment of every Minister, Deputy Minister and Director General, or senior executives of State-Owned Entities.  Every responsible Minister must account for reasons for the failure of any entity subject to his or her control to meet its plans, to gain a clean audit report or to issue final accounts timeously.
6. Make the Speaker of the House fully responsible to the House, with the prime purpose not to rely on the Rules, but to give full expression to the principles of democracy and accountability.  This would include banning any preference being given to any member of the Executive or to any Party.
7. Institute a rule that every member of the Executive and every MP must use the facilities provided by the State to the public, including using public hospitals and public transport.  They should, as far as possible, use the same facilities as are used by the public.  Their salaries should be increased by the same proportion as is experienced in their income by the average of all citizens.

Only by breaking down the perception that politicians, MPs and ‘the leaders’ are above ordinary citizens, and that they have responsibility to their sponsors that are greater than those to the citizens, will it be possible to realise the basic principles of true democracy in an economy that is managed in the interests of all citizens.