It is well understood that people across South Africa continue to live without basic necessities such as running water and electricity, due to the ongoing failure of infrastructure provision. While many projects lie in the pipeline, they remain dormant as the state fails to execute on promises made. However, with projects approved and budget allocated, it appears that the bottleneck is not necessarily in funding. While government’s pocket is indeed tight, there are other factors at play which are preventing planned projects from going ahead.

A key issue is the lack of skills and technical capacity employed by the state. Government is aware of this issue, and are shining a spotlight on professionalising the public service. However, efforts need to go beyond developing skills, to developing integrity and accountability.

Last year’s Auditor-General’s report from the late Mr. Thembekile Makwetu revealed many issues facing South Africa’s municipalities that go beyond financial mismanagement. Rather, this mismanagement is symptomatic of other underlying problems which I will attempt to unpack. The report did an excellent job of breaking down the problems by province, which you can read for yourself, but here is what I took away: municipal offices are characterised by poor company culture, and unfit leadership.

The report cites an ongoing culture of a lack of accountability as well as a tolerance of transgressions, exacerbated by leadership which fails to influence robust systems of internal control to drive good governance and discipline. “Dysfunctional control environments” is listed as an issue across provinces, with an “unwillingness to comply with legislation, and a general disregard for internal controls and accountability”.

Many of the issues are related to the appointment and management of public servants. In some cases, prolonged vacancies in key positions caused instability in councils. In other cases, those that were appointed did not face adequate performance management measures and faced no consequences for transgressions.

Municipalities are not blind to these problems. Many employ consultants, mostly Management and Financial Consultants that is, with possibly a small number also emanating from the Engineering Consulting industry, to assist in overcoming their internal control issues. Some achieved that goal with an improved audit from 2018 to 2019. The report however highlights that improvements in many cases were driven by the appointment of appropriate consultants. However, other municipalities paid their staff and the consultants for the same service – without any value being realised.

The right talent, managed appropriately by transparent leaders, is the answer to the problems with government spending. The AG’s report showed that municipalities that have both attracted and retained staff with the right skills have benefited from this continuity and managed to maintain good audit outcomes. By contrast, municipalities characterised by unstable administrative leadership were unable to improve their outcomes.

At the core of the matter lies the fact that government offices are just like any other organisation. They require effective corporate governance, comprehensive human resource management practices, a skilled workforce, appropriate leadership and a responsible code of conduct. Having these elements in place puts the organisation in the position to meet client needs. The problem with the public sector is that they have no competition and do not see themselves as being in service to the South African public. Unfortunately too, as the owners of public infrastructure, there are several hurdles that have to be cleared before such custodianship may be relinquished to well-meaning and desperate citizens  private sector organisations and businesses to effect such urgent maintenance and repairs. This is understandable, however, where such public sector entities have been proven to be dysfunctional due to capacity constraints, there should be a greater appetite for embracing the partnership that can be leveraged between the parties to achieve a win-win outcome.  

It does not always have to begin with a “stand-off” and a court ruling on such matters. While efforts are underway to improve the areas of concern raised by the AG’s report, the private sector is putting up its hand to offer assistance. Industry bodies like Consulting Engineers South Africa and many other like-minded industry organisations have members that offer consulting services, much like those credited with improving audit results. We have the technical capacity and professionalism that is unfortunately in short supply in government, and we welcome the opportunity to forge a meaningful partnership in a skills-and knowledge-sharing journey that will assist in leading to a professional, accountable public service that is capable of the oversight required for implementing new build infrastructure and maintenance projects.

As stated in the AG’s Integrated Annual Report 2019/20, “Accountability is at the heart of the level of trust in any government and is an ultimate indicator of the administration’s capacity to manage public resources in a way that benefits the citizens it serves.” The consulting engineering industry is well placed to assist in this regard.