VIJAY NAIDOO: Good Business Basics – Who’s really calling the shots?

I had a very interesting interaction with a senior ex Ray Nkonyeni Municipality official last week. It went along these lines. So, the gentleman was very unhappy about the fact that I seemed to always portray the municipality in a bad light. My response to him was give me a good news or positive story and I would gladly write about it.

No, he responded, the issues you raise are real and valid, but writing about them for public consumption was the wrong way to address them.
He suggested that I use my ‘influence’ to request a meeting with the political leadership and address my concerns to them. “Speaking to officials is a waste of time,” he said to me. “They will only change things if directly instructed to by the politicians.”
I was frankly astounded: here is a senior ex-municipal official telling me that they need political direction to carry out their operational day-to-day duties.

It hit home for me that the ‘Chinese Wall’ that once existed between ‘officials’ and ‘political principals’ is all but demolished. The spectre of cadre deployment has reached every level of the municipal management hierarchy, with every incumbent of senior management posts beholden to some senior political ‘operator’ for his or her position.
In a nutshell, this is what I was hearing, that change that would improve service delivery would only happen realistically if the officials responsible got marching orders from political principals.

Let me be clear, I have no issue with political strategy and direction being set by the political party in power, but once set and conveyed to the management team, one would expect that the execution be carried out by adequately capacitated officials who must be held to account for non-delivery. The professionalisation of the civil service in the country is now a pressing need.
The ruling party was correct to be circumspect about incumbent civil servants from the ‘old order’ being willing to embrace and execute programmes in line with their inclusive social agenda. But now the need for a professional, competent and independent civil service spanning all spheres of government is essential to extract us from the current quagmire of incompetence, corruption and non-delivery.

Vijay Naidoo is the CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

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