South Africa’s Minister of Public Service and Administration, Senzo Mchunu (pictured) says he is considering measures to combat an increasingly high turnover of the country’s most senior Public Servants.
Mr Mchunu said he would submit recommendations to the Cabinet soon.
This follows comments from President, Cyril Ramaphosa that Directors General and other heads of Departments should be employed permanently rather than on the present system of five-year contracts.
Mr Ramaphosa said this would stop Ministers hiring and firing Directors General because of disagreements and tensions.
In a written reply to a Parliamentary question, Mr Mchunu said the turnover rate for Directors General and other heads of Departments in the last quarter of 2020 was 5.7 per cent.
“Turnover does have an impact on the delivery of services, even if a head of Department is immediately replaced by an acting official,” Mr Mchunu said.
“The Departmental impact is that there is a required transition period in which the acting official needs to be briefed on the deliverables of a Department to manage the responsibilities,” he said.
The Minister also revealed that the vacancy rate in the rest of the Public service was nine per cent at national level and 12 per cent in the Provinces.
This has resulted from the Treasury freeze in positions, except for critical posts, in an effort to cut the Public Service wage bill by R300 billion ($A27 billion) over the next three years.
Pretoria, 13 April 2021
