DA secures major concession in the fight to fix the broken discipline management system in the public service
16 November 2022
Note to Editors: Find attached a soundbite from Dr Mimmy Gondwe MP, DA Deputy Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration
After months of pressure by the Democratic Alliance (DA) over the broken discipline management system in the public service where we, among other things, exposed instances of how some public servants have been on suspension for 4 years with full pay, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has subsequently written to the DA, informing us that it will be convening a whole of society roundtable, in 2023, the primary purpose of which will be to solicit inputs from various stakeholders on the strategies to improve and strengthen discipline management in the public service.
In the letter, dated 13 December 2022, the PSC also informs the DA that it has been having ongoing engagements with the Department of Public Service and Administration aimed at addressing the discipline management crisis in the public service.
The concession by the PSC comes after the DA revealed in November this year that there are currently 305 public servants on suspension with full pay and costing the tax payer R130 million. Following this revelation by the DA, we immediately wrote to the PSC and requested it to intervene in this glaring discipline management crisis in the public service.
The DA looks forward to offering actionable and concrete solutions to the discipline management crisis, in the public service, during this crucial whole of society roundtable. A key reform area would be to ensure that disciplinary cases are concluded within the prescribed time frames to avoid a waste of taxpayers’ money.
In October this year, Cabinet approved the National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector ‘to ensure a responsive and professionalised public administration in the service of the people’. The lofty ambitions, set out in the Framework, will be difficult to achieve if our country’s public service remains bogged down by a perpetual backlog of disciplinary cases that distract from the actual business of delivering services to the public.
It is the DA’s sincere hope that the roundtable will not be another talk shop but will result in the solicited inputs informing the discipline management strategy of the DPSA.
Issued by Mimmy Gondwe, Deputy Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration, 16 November 2022
