Measures to reform public service offer some hope

Cabinet has just approved a policy framework geared towards professionalising South Africa’s public service. This brings a possible end to a dithering process that was first mooted by Vincent Maphai’s Presidential Review Commission in 2007. 

Maphai’s commission had sought to rectify the unintended consequences of appointments that had been made in the preceding years, since 1994. Four years later, the National Planning Commission revived Maphai’s proposal to professionalise public administration. Nothing happened in the subsequent 10 years. Can the latest initiative really deliver, where others have failed?