Our public service has come of age

By Dr. Hage Geingob

After 20 years of independence, it is only appropriate that we reflect on what we have so far achieved in building public institutions, which one of those institutions need improvement particularly to make them responsive to the challenges of the next 20 years, when Vision 2030 is expected to be realized.

A topic of this nature does not allow me to don exclusively a politician’s hat or an academic’s hat. Forgive me if I change hats in between various ideas. On the positive side, switching hats would allow for blending realism with theory.

All functioning societies, regardless of their size have three universalities as follows:

1. First, societies develop institutions to make rules. In different places they might be called parliaments, Congress (in the United States), or Ohale (a gathering place under the tree in the Oshivambo speaking culture of Namibia).

2. The second universality is that societies create institutions to carry out the adjudication function. This function might be performed by a supreme court, a high court, an elders’ council, or a privy council.

3. The third universality is that in every society there is an executive branch that executes the decisions of the ‘court’, and implements laws of the ‘parliaments’.

This executive branch may consist of kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, chiefs or Gaob (in the Damara/Nama language of Namibia), or Omukaniilwa (King in the Oshindonga language of Namibia) or Oba (in Nigeria). These chief executives are assisted by some form of civil service structure for the execution of state functions.

In today’s state, there are three primary state organs: the legislature, the courts, and the executive. In Namibia, an integral part of this structure is a vibrant democracy, based on regular, free and fair elections, rule of law, and guarantees of human rights. We can be proud that Namibia has had regular presidential, National Assembly, and local government elections that are free and fair. However, for an electoral democracy to function properly, we need certain essential prerequisites. These include processes, systems, and institutions.

Processes include an electoral system, an electoral commission, and the relevant legislation. Our electoral commission includes members of the opposition parties, the commission sets all the rules. Inclusion of the ruling and opposition parties in the commission ensures transparency of the elections. The commission is constituted in a way that is fair to all the parties. Everyone is involved in the running of the elections. At the end of elections, there could be challenges, as it happening now in the courts. We have the mechanisms of resolving any contentious issues.

Initially the Electoral Commission resorted under the umbrella of the Office of the Prime Minister, but was removed from that Office and now is Interdependent.

All the systems continue to work even while challenges are going on. The government is still working, the civil service is still working. The President is in office, so is the Prime Minister and other ministers. Systems ensure that the work of the state continues.

Institutions are courts for remedy and redress. Namibian parties and government can be proud of their history of adhering to the outcome of the courts’ decisions. Everyone accepts the decision.

For elections, various parties put forward their manifestos for the voters to consider.
However, that doesn’t mean that the majority party’s manifesto automatically becomes a government document. The government that is formed does not represent only the members of the ruling party.

It belongs to all Namibians, even if they voted for some other party. Thus, manifesto is a party document. However, in view of the fact that the government comprises members of the ruling party, it goes without saying that the Cabinet would adopt policies originally articulated in the manifesto in government documents. Such has been the case with Vision 2030 documents, the budget document, NDP1, 2, and 3.

I feel strongly that a modern government has to be a democratic government subscribing to the ideas of good governance. It is inclusive, representing all the stake holders. Inclusivity, transparency, and accountability create trust. Whenever any government excludes any region, any group, any class, it sows the seeds of conflict.

Our inherited civil service was a living proof of this exclusivity. We had an irrational situation in the civil service – we had eleven governments, one for whites and one each for the various ‘Bantustans.’ We had to create one government out of eleven. Further, we were enjoined by the Republic’s Constitution that no one will be dismissed from the civil service unless through redundancies. Therefore all those eleven governments had to be retained. Although SWAPO could have declared redundancies, we felt that it would go against our policy of inclusivity.

As we formed a single civil service out of personnel from 11 authorities, and we did not declare anyone redundant, our civil service became quite bloated.

It became even more bloated as we had to bring in new employees many of whom had devoted their life to the liberation of the country. Addition of new offices and ministries, such as, the Office of the President, the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs further added to the size of the civil service.

We had to start the process of downsizing the civil service, to shrink it. Then came the strike by the ex-fighters. Consequently, instead of downsizing, we increased the civil service by 10000. We viewed it as our peace project!

Our approach was therefore modified from downsizing to right-sizing the civil service!

I would like to make a small distinction between the public service and the civil service.

Public Service includes political office bearers and civil servants, but civil service does not include political office bearers.

One challenge that faced the government was a delink between the policy makers and the policy implementers. It was not difficult to see some of the obvious reasons for this delink. Senior members of the party were appointed to ministerial positions, but there were many more, some of them even more senior than the ministers, who could not be accommodated in the Cabinet. Instead, they were given senior positions in the civil service.

They were politicians and civil servants. It was only human for some of them to find the situation resentful.

Further, policy was made by the cabinet, and civil servants were required to implement it.

This arrangement where the civil servants were not a party to the articulation of the policy but were asked to carry out the policy was not the most efficient way to operate. Botswana has brought in civil servants into the policy making mechanisms. The process, I am informed, has worked well. Perhaps we should re-examine our system.

Nevertheless, we have sought to make the government responsive to the citizens’ needs. In order to emphasize courteous and timely service delivery, we adopted a Public Service Charter. Within this overall Public Service Charter, a number of other charters, focused on specific service delivery were adopted.

Training of the civil servants was also initiated to improve the effectiveness of the service.

I want to make a clear distinction between effectiveness and efficiency; and, outcome and output. We can do any work efficiently, but it might not be effective. Output doesn’t ensure the desired outcome. Regrettably, these concepts were not understood or appreciated twelve years ago – they were somewhat forward looking. Similarly, many objected to having an anti-corruption commission. In fact, it was vehemently opposed.

Today most civil servants are time bound, not function bound. Lower level civil servants are time bound. They work from 8-5. They are not concerned about effectiveness or outcome. Regrettably, that has been the case with some senior civil servants as well particularly when they are expected to be function bound.

I recall a personal experience that would serve a perfect example of the distinction between outcome and output. I had asked a senior civil servant to inform a minister that I would like him to attend a meeting with me the next day at 10am. The civil servant efficiently sent out an email to the minister. However, he did not confirm if the minister got the email. The next day, the minister did not come to the meeting because he did not come to the office until 11 am. If the civil servant had followed up on the e mail, we would have had a much better outcome – output 100%, outcome 0; efficiency 100%, effectiveness 0.

We also need a newer mindset in this information age. In today’s knowledge society, the primary distinction between success and failure is how good you are at securing, harnessing and using knowledge. We largely have a fixed mindset. For us, the word “permanent” in permanent secretary is a guarantee of a life time job.

Some even boast that ministers come and go, but permanent secretaries would always be there. This mindset needs to change. We need to emphasize service, performance, effectiveness, and outcome oriented thinking. I have been advocating the need of performance based appointments for a fixed period.

Fair play is an essential ingredient of good government. Yet, we find perceptions of wrong doing and of corruption.

In order to address the grievances of the citizens against government representatives, we established the office of the ombudsman. We also established an anti-corruption Commission. Perceptions of corruption impact us negatively.

However, I would submit that we have petty corruption, but not systemic corruption. I ask you to tell me if we have systemic corruption in Namibia. Is there anyone who had to bribe someone in the government to get a passport or a national registration card, or any other service? This is not to deny that a poor civil servant who is offered a bribe might be tempted.

But I do not thing that in Namibia you can only get things done if you bribed someone. I cannot imagine that a person will bribe every member of the Tender Board to secure a tender.

Tell me, how would it work? I again submit that we do not have systemic corruption but let us keep those red lights flickering, so that we will always be vigilant.

All sectors of society working together is another aspect that is vital for national development.

In countries like Singapore and Malaysia, and elsewhere, the business people and the politicians are from the same historical and cultural background. They went to the same universities – some became businessmen and women and some civil servants. Not so in Namibia. In Namibia businessmen and women are largely white and politicians black. Busieness people’s perception is often at variance with the fact. We have tried to hold hands but every so often we come across bigotry.

Recall the German who told Karonda, the Secretary General of the NNUNW – telling him that it was the Germans who had built the country.

Attributing such wild claims to a race – well that is Namibia for us after 20 years.

Accountability requires continuous surveillance by the media and the civil society. These, fourth estate institutions are the mirror of the society. The state must provide room for them to function properly. Namibia has a good record of providing this space.

How relevant the media and other civil society institutions remain over time depends on their conduct.

What the readers want is not speculation but accuracy, not rumours but facts. Ronning correctly argues that the new type of sensationalist newspapers “are highly critical of government, both the new and the old, which personalise political issues, run campaigns against officials and politicians, expose scandals of economic, political and private character ... which often shows poor journalistic judgement and oversteps unwritten, but internationally accepted ethical rules.”

The media’s obsession with sensationalism weakens the interpretation of journalism as the great leveller, a righter of wrongs, a humbler of the mighty, a watchdog against the abuse of power, an agent to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,’ which is very much in question today. “One venue of critique sees journalism as having shifted from watchdog to mad dog, mindlessly attacking authority (especially governments), avoiding ‘serious’ news about public affairs in favour of scandals, celebrities and ‘infotainment.’”

However, we can claim that civil society in Namibia is vibrant but many challenges remain. Women are not integrated in the political and economic life of the country. Unemployment is high. But it is certainly not as bad as that in many other parts of Africa. Recently ETV pointed out that unemployment in South Africa is 50%. South Africa is also the most unequal places in the world, replacing Brazil. In Namibia, too, there is great inequity with high gini coefficient.

That is what happens in racially stratified societies. Yet, this is the challenge that we, that is, the business and the government must meet together.

The biggest challenge, however, was the transformation of the civil service which was controlled by whites.

Key to our problems of unemployment is – Education and Training, Skills development or Multi-skilling.

We have still lots of problems. But Namibia is still the place I want to call my home.