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Prosperity: The global hallmark is excellence in public service

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Herman Mashaba is the leader of ActionSA. Mashaba is the former executive mayor of Johannesburg and founder of the People’s Dialogue.

What is the golden thread that runs through the story of every successful country and city in the world? What does our neighbour Botswana have in common with tiny Rwanda in central Africa, and, further afield, to the city-state of Singapore and far-flung New Zealand? These random states separated by geography, history, religion, and societal values, all have exemplary public services.

I don’t know of any state or city that has pivoted from poverty to broad-based prosperity without an excellent civil service. In every case, the civil service is regarded as an impartial and professional service, which is on par with the private sector. These professional civil servants ensure that their cities are run with the utmost efficiency.

Last week it was reported that the City of Johannesburg has spent R1 billion on unauthorised, irregular, and wasteful expenditure in the past financial year, due to what can only be ascribed to sloppy accounting. I am not going to point fingers or paint a picture of the ‘opportunity cost’ of these lost resources. I am focused on how we will rectify the situation if we are elected to serve.

A patronage-based institution, coupled with poor oversight, fosters a public service culture that does not encourage strong performance. No wonder we have a demoralised and unmotivated civil service – imagine being one of the many hard-working civil servants who sees someone appointed above them based not on credentials but on affiliation. That’s why in the public service, we must only employ people who can do the job, not friends and family.

Johannesburg, and South Africa, needs a revolution in the public service based on a vision of ‘Service with Pride’. We want city officials to be proud of being in service. Part of my vision is based on plain old fashioned common-sense and proven solutions. The other part looks towards the future ‘Internet of Everything.’

One of the most basic needs of every person is to ‘fit in’, according to the neuroscientist Matthew Liebermann: our brains are wired to connect. This got me thinking the other day when a colleague was talking about an almost invisible thirst in the people of Johannesburg to feel a sense of inclusion or belonging. How, I wondered, do we capture this mood in our vision of public service?

Humans yearn for predictability. This is true equally of the public officials who serve us. Nothing whittles away self-confidence like job insecurity or feeling like a square peg in a round hole, does it? That’s why we will undertake a swift audit of all officials’ skills to allocate expertise and institutional knowledge where it is needed most; and to identify the capacity gaps that need to be filled. There will be no purges or scorched earth tactics.

First, the basics. Here I am a bit old fashioned. Good manners and swiftly answered telephones will become the new norm. It’s not rocket science and doesn’t cost anything, but it will set the tone of my administration. A citizen, say, still living in a shack in Zandspruit will feel they ‘fit in’ – and belong – if their concerns are heard with respect and acted upon. The official listening will have a personal stake in the life of the person they are speaking to. We’ll plan to monitor this. We’ll be creating an easy-to-use app for citizens to do the same when they’ve finished talking to an official. If elected, we will award a prize to a local university or entrepreneur who designs the best app.

Second, we want to bring out the best in our public servants. That’s why we’ll train and develop our officials with regular evaluation and performance monitoring. As a rising tide lifts all boats, exceptional performance will be recognised and rewarded, just like it is in the private sector.

Yes, I also understand that new trends in the world are to do away with performance management systems. They are seen by many as too cumbersome for managers, and they create extra layers of administration. Dynamic teams, trusting employees to do their work without breathing down their necks, allowing them to innovate, and take responsibility is, of course, the future we must strive for.

We – the political servants – will practise what we preach. The Mayoral Committee will operate an Executive Projects Dashboard system like Helen Zille implemented in the Western Cape in 2009. Based on international best practise, this project management system gives the Government executive instant access to information on the progress of every major project. In Cape Town, the system had helped triple of the rate of infrastructure investment through capital projects. Replicated in Johannesburg, the Mayor and the executive will be able to swiftly account to citizens on progress being made.

And we want to go a bit further. There is a saying, attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca, that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I see an unparalleled opportunity to transform the public service across South Africa through the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), which at its connects devices over the internet, letting them talk to us, applications, and each other.

One of the case studies my team is looking at is Bristol and Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom. The IoT is being linked to the development of smart cities and involves machine-to-machine communication. Thought leaders believe that this marriage of the physical and virtual (internet) worlds could enable local government to deliver more efficient services and simultaneously increase responsiveness to citizens.

How could it work in Johannesburg?

South Africa is experiencing a drought, and we have high levels of water wastage. Think of water mains packed with clusters of smart sensors that can alert the city engineers to leaks or blockages. To alleviate load-shedding, lampposts could detect light levels and save energy by turning themselves off. Sensors could also detect if residents are trying to make illegal electrical connections that endanger people or, perhaps, help the JPMD find stolen goods. Why can we not develop a smart app that allows citizens to report service delivery glitches – overflowing drains, dangerous paving, electrical outages, and so on – or to score how quickly they are resolved?

Finally, the IoT has a role to play in uprooting corruption in the public service, by shining a light into the darkest places by spotting anomalies and shifts in patterns. We will declare corruption public enemy number one. Only six percent of acts of corruption in the metro are prosecuted at the present time. Utilising digital technology, the Mayor’s office will fast-track the gathering of evidence of wrongdoing, so that it can be handed over to the criminal justice system.

Together – the voters, political servants and public officials – we will lay the foundations of the smartest and most efficient city government in Africa. DM

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