From Cadre Deployment to Professionalizing Public Service in South Africa: A Reflective Approach to Service Delivery Improvement

Abstract

While there is nothing idiosyncratic about deploying professionally knowledgeable and astute cadres guided by high ethical morality to drive levers of executive authority in public sector institutions, deployment of political cadres in South African government’s positions has left much to be desired. The approach in which cadre deployment has been practiced in the South African public service sector has undermined the state’s capacity to improve quality of service delivery and requires serious re-examination. The focus of the article is on conceptualization of the notion of professionalism, its attributes and how it can be embedded within the South African public service sector. The debates centre around contextualizing public service administration that can be fit-for-purpose to drive transformational agenda and critique a theory of cadre deployment within the South African context. It is a qualitative inquiry, sourced through desktop reviews of documents and previous studies that have examined issues relating to the professionalization of the public service in South Africa. Thematic analysis is employed to analyse qualitative data from numerous documentary sources gathered in South Africa and internationally. The findings revealed that cadre deployment practice is incongruent with ANC’s election promises of reconstruction and development, and building better life for all South Africans as it steals resources meant for service delivery improvement. Cadre deployment practice further denies qualified graduates of opportunities to be employed in public sector institutions that need to be professionalised as it is skewed in favour of unqualified political appointees. Cadre deployment should be jettisoned by professionalising South African public service where employment selection is guided by meritocracy and performance efficacy but take cognisance of the need to fast-track professional development of formerly disadvantaged black South Africans.