A New South Africa

THE PUBLIC SERVICE AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

By: Gareth van Onselen

Introduction

As a result of apartheid, South Africa’s workforce was skewed disproportionately in favour of minorities (particular whites). Thus, with a new dispensation, came a systematic drive to redress this disparity and, in 1998, the Employment Equity Act was promulgated in order to force South Africa’s various institutions – both public and private – to become broadly representative of the country’s demographics (and, ostensibly, to enforce “fair” employment practices).

Affirmative action has now been part of South African law for a decade and its consequences have been far-reaching. Much has been made of the fairness of those principles which underpin the legislation but, more recently, there is another development worth examining: as a result of affirmative action, a number of institutions are demographically representative and the question becomes – what now?

The problems

The problems with affirmative action are well documented. First and foremost, it promotes race over merit, so an individual’s prospects are reliant not on their skill or ability but on the colour of their skin. This in and of itself has a number of constitutional implications which have yet to be tested in court. UCT Professor David Benatar puts it like this: “Defenders of racial preference are being less than honest with us. They want a race-based policy, but they cannot provide workable criteria for determining people’s “race”. They are reliant on people’s classifying themselves according to apartheid-style criteria. This is not an acceptable basis for public policy. I would be very interested to see how the courts would respond to a petition from a person, preferably of ambiguous racial appearance, who refuses to classify himself.”

Second, those already employed in disproportionate numbers (again, primarily white South Africans) have been seen as an obstruction to achieving demographic representivity – obviously one cannot simply increase the size of the workforce to obtain the correct proportions – so those that were employed in proportions in excess of the country’s broader demographics were, in effect, culled.

In a number of cases, this was done through offering incentivised retirement packages – sometimes at huge cost to the state. In other cases, the high immigration rate among minorities – who often felt alienated and discriminated against – saw many people leave of their own volition. This, combined with a strict adherence to affirmative action policies, has acted as something of a vicious circle, further discouraging minorities from seeking employment in South Africa.

The consequences

The consequences have been two fold. On the one hand, affirmative action has (drastically) reduced the proportion of minorities employed (perhaps more so in the public sector, than in the private) and, on the other hand, it help fuel and exacerbate a huge skills deficit across the board. Often this manifested in large vacancy rates, which have served to undermine the effectiveness of those institutions affected.

There is a strong argument to be made that the drive to achieve demographic representivity cannot be justified given the huge negative impact it has had on the country’s skills reserve (which has dramatically undermined the country’s growth potential and, in turn, the drive for a bigger workforce and more jobs). Nevertheless, the government has pushed ahead, disregarding criticism and downplaying or dismissing the link between the policy and its consequences.

There is no ‘sunset clause’ in the Employment Equity Act – that is, no explicit date on which its requirements will expire, and the ANC government has not looked like it is about to set one. No doubt this has something to do with the fact that the policy serves to reinforce the ANC drive to centralise power with the party, through cadre deployment (something particularly pertinent with regards to the public sector, where it has relentlessly pursued control over all levers of power). At face value then, despite its many problems, it appears to be a policy with no end.

Closing the gap

But perhaps the end is closer than one might think, at least in practical terms. And as a number of institutions become increasingly representative, the ANC government might soon be forced to consider whether or not to continue pursuing affirmative action, even when South Africa’s workforce is demographically representative.

Obviously that situation will not come about instantaneously, particularly given the different rate at which the private and public sectors have embraced affirmative action. Like any grand scheme, it will happen gradually, with some institutions obtaining the ‘right’ proportions before others.

In practical terms, however, a number of institutions can now claim to be, not just broadly representative, but almost an exact mirror for the country’s demographics. Others have been broadly representative for some time. Consider the public service, by way of illustration.

The public service

(Just to give some indication of scale, the combined public service – national and provincial – employs some 1.4 million people. So it is by no means and insignificant sample.)

The 2008 State of the Public Service Report (SPSR) has recently been published by the Public Service Commission (PSC). The SPSR effectively serves as an annual report for the public service more broadly (as opposed to the department of public service and administration) and, just like an annual report might have, a large section is dedicated to analysing the extent to which the public service has implemented the policy of affirmative action.

Using figures from the SPSR, the list below summerises the public service’s progress over each of the last three years, as compared to the mid-year population estimates released by StatsSA last year:

•Stats-SA Mid-year estimates (2007): African (79.6%); Coloured (8.9%); Asian (2.5%); White (9.1%)
•National Public Service (2005): 75.0%; 10.0%; 3.0%; 12.0%
•National Public Service (2006): 79.0%; 9.0%; 3.0%; 9.0%
•National Public Service (2007): 80.0%; 9.0%; 3.0%; 9.0%
•Provincial Public Service (2005): 67.0%; 11.0%; 3.0%; 19.0%
•Provincial Public Service (2006): 69.0%; 11.0%; 3.0%; 17.0%
•Provincial Public Service (2007): 71.0%; 11.0%; 3.0%; 16.0%

Quite clearly, it is doing very well. Let’s look at its performance nationally and provincially in more detail.

What the numbers say

As of last year, at a national level, there is almost no disparity between the country’s broader demographics and the make-up of those people employed in the civil service.

Africans are ever so slightly overrepresented (80% versus 79.6%) and the percentage of Coloured, Asian and White people employed corresponds exactly with the figures provided by StatsSA (9%, 3% and 9% respectively.)

Over the three years, those figures have stayed more or less exactly the same (the percentage of Africans employed has increased by 5% – from 75% to 80%; Coloureds have dropped by a percent, from 10% to 9%; the number of Asians employed has stayed steady at 3%; the number of whites employed has dropped by 3 percent – from 12% to 9%).

In short, for the last three years, the public service at national level has been broadly representative and last year, it was exactly representative.

At provincial level there is still a slight disparity between South Africa’s broader demographics and the make-up of the public service – but it is by no means significant.

As of last year, Africans were slightly underrepresented (71% versus 80%); Coloureds slightly overrepresented (11% versus 9%); Asians exactly represented (at 3%) and Whites slightly overrepresented (16% versus 9%).

Again, over the last three years, these figures have remained roughly the same (African representation has increased marginally – from 67% to 71%; the percentage of Coloured people employed has stayed steady at 11%, as have the percentage of Asians (3%) and the percentage of white people employed has dropped by 3 percent (from 19% to 16%)).

In short, for the last three years, the public service at provincial level has been broadly representative.

What now?

The ANC government would, no doubt, use the provincial figures to argue that there is still work to be done. That, in my opinion, is not true (if the purpose of affirmative action is to achieve exact proportional representation, that is a mad idea – every year your employment profile would have to be tweaked to adjust to a changing general population). Affirmative action was designed to overcome the legacy of apartheid with regards to employment, to create a broadly representative workforce and, with regards to the public service, it has quite clearly achieved that.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s accept the ANC’s inevitable line of reasoning. Even then, it is quite obvious that within a year or two – if the trends in the SPSR are accurate – even at provincial level the public service will soon mirror almost exactly the country’s broader demographic profile. What then for the public service?

And, if one were also to concede that the problems inherent in affirmative action (outlined above) were acceptable (which I do not) given its more general purpose, this leaves the government with still another conundrum. Because, take away the need for demographic representivity (which would have been achieved), and all you are left with are the problems; problems from which the public service is hardly immune.

Skills and vacancies in the public service

Take skills and vacancies by way of illustration. Much has been made of the failings of PERSAL (the state’s computer system which tracks the number of government posts) but, even if one accepts the adjusted figures, the public service still has a huge problem with vacancies (88 000 or 333 000 vacant posts out of 1.4 million, depending on which figures you use).

And the number of appropriately skilled people in the public service also remains a problem, not just in terms of the development of skills, but also in retaining existing skills. As the SPSR puts it: “an urgent priority is to accelerate the development and retention of priority skills in the public service.”

These two factors, along with numerous others, contribute to the poor level of service South Africans receive from the public service. There is no need for me to go into detail here, I would recommend reading the SPSR for a full breakdown of all its shortcomings, but consider these key indicators:

•The number of alleged cases of corruption reported to the National Anti-Corruption hotline has increased by more than 1 000, from 2 297 in 2005, to 3 355 in 2006.
•Only 36% of those reports referred to national departments for feedback were met with a response.
•Only 17% of departments assessed show an ability to meet with the element of fairness in decision making, as required by the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.
•The average customer satisfaction level with the public service is 67%, with Correctional Services at 58%, Home Affairs at 61% and Housing at 62% (i.e. 4 or 5 out of every 10 people is dissatisfied with the service they receive).
•National departments continue to receive a high number of qualified audit-opinions from the Auditor-General (11 out of 26 departments), as do provincial departments (51). As the SPCR puts it: “What is being done to ensure that the concerns that lead to such qualifications are being addressed? Who is being held accountable for such consistently poor audit outcomes? For how much longer is this trend going to continue and what is its impact on service delivery?”
•Only 16% of national and 13% of provincial HoDs entered into and filed performance assessments with the PSC.
•Only 23% of departments had appointed a deputy information officer: “This has compromised the right of the public to access information and get proper responses.”
•“The management of poor performance remains a problem and there is a lack of capacity to hold managers accountable.”
•The number of grievances reported by national departments increased from 337 in the last half of 2005, to 621 in the first half of 2006.

There are numerous other problems – such as under-spending and financial disclosure – which I have not gone into here. Nevertheless, the SPRS paints a bleak picture.

Indeed, given the extent of the problems it faces, it is remarkable that the one thing the public service seems to have got right, is implementing its affirmative action policy.

Conclusion

The answer to some of these problems seems to be fairly self-evident: those institutions that are now broadly representative (and have been broadly representative for three years) should be exempt from affirmative action.

They have achieved demogragphic representivity – admittedly at great cost to their capacity and ability to deliver basic services – and there is now little point in pursuing the policy as its problems not only far outweigh its objectives but, given that its objective has been achieved, are now undermining those institutions for no good reason.

The DA will be submitting a parliamentary question to the Minister of Labour, highlighting the case of the public service and asking whether an exemption is something he might consider (and, of course, his reasons, should he not).

For over a decade now, affirmative action has done much to re-racialise our country; it has also come at a great cost. Now that its objective is starting to be met, the ANC government needs to adjust the policy appropriately.

AUTHOR: Gareth van Onselen is the DA’s director of special issues. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author. The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the Democratic Alliance.