Mandelafying the public service in South Africa: Towards a new theory

• Date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1982
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Tafadzwa Clementine Maramura,Happy Mathew Tirivangasi,Costa Hofisi,Ogochukwu Iruoma Nzewi

ACADEMIC PAPER

Mandelafying the public service in South Africa: Towards

a new theory

Tafadzwa Clementine Maramura

1

|Ogochukwu Iruoma Nzewi

1

|

Happy Mathew Tirivangasi

2

|Costa Hofisi

3

1

Department of Public Administration, Faculty

of Management and Commerce, University of

Forthare (UFH), Bisho, Republic of South

Africa

2

Institute of Development Policy, University of

Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium

3

School of Basic Sciences, Department of

Public Management and Governance, North

West University, Vaal Triangle, Republic of

South Africa

Correspondence

Happy Mathew Tirivangasi, Institute of

Development Policy, University of Antwerp,

Lange Sint Annastraat 7 2000 Antwerpen,

Belgium.

Email: mathewtirivangasi@gmail.com

A surfeit of service delivery disapprovals in South Africa is a clear reflection of the

failure of the Public Service of South from the local, provincial, and national govern-

ment to effectively and efficiently deliver service to its citizenry. The rise in a dissat-

isfied citizenry stems from a precise social realization, which envisions the failure of

the state to deliver services to the public in an impartial, responsible, translucent,

and befitting manner. This has resulted in widespread service delivery protests, which

has become the most famous form of response to poor service delivery by frustrated

citizens. This article argues for the mandelafication of the South African public service

against the background of a cocktail of factors ranging from corruption, lack of trans-

parency and accountability, incompetence, and lack of commitment to work ethics

personified by Mandela. The article further argues for the upholding of the dominant

constructs in which this mandelafication is grounded in such as proper ethics, human-

itarianism, transparency, accountability, empathy, and selflessness, which character-

ized Nelson Mandela.

“It is too‐familiar a story: Wayward politicians violating

the public trust and finding themselves behind bars. We

are sometimes confronted with untrustworthy public

servants whose behavior has recently had me reflecting

on a man whose service and leadership were partially

forged in prison, long before he held elective office

Nelson Mandela, the ultimate public servant,”(Mbembe,

2008:8)

1|INTRODUCTION

A plethora of service delivery protests in South Africa to a greater

extent reflects the failure of the Government of South Africa across

the national, provincial, and local sphere to deliver service effectively

and efficiently deliver service to its citizenry (Tirivangasi &

Mugambiwa, 2016). Such a plethora maybe attributed to moral bank-

ruptcy and a lack of professionalism in the case of some public

servants. The post‐1994 administration embarked on public sector

transformation with the basic outputs being to transform service

delivery by redressing imbalances of the pre‐1994 era (White Paper

on the Transformation of the Public Service of, 1997). The Constitu-

tion of South Africa (1996) and the Batho Pele principles are part of

the reforms that were crafted to transform the public service. Despite

the implementation of the reforms, over 800 demonstrations tran-

spired between the year 2013 and early 2015 and 30% of these dem-

onstrations were filled with violence (National Planning Commission,

2015; Rankoana, Mugambiwa, & Malatji, 2016). Siddle and Koelble

(2012:1) affirm that, “South Africans are reminded almost daily of

incompetence, corruption, and the collapse of service delivery.”The

success and efficacy in the public sector is a key indicator of the real-

ization of any developing nation (World Bank, 2008:11). To date, no

research has established the connection and causal link amid

Mandela's ethos and the public service in South Africa other than

the 67 min done by most citizens on Mandela Day. Hence, the main

contribution of this article is the theorization of Nelson Mandela.

The thematic area of interest unravels every principle that Mandela

was renowned for by directly linking it to the public sector challenges

and postulating how that can transform the South African public

sector.

Received: 15 April 2019 Accepted: 9 May 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1982

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e1982.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1982

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of9