Published Articles

Latest Articles : 2007


Nigeria and South Africa have established themselves as strong continental players in the African region and wield a lot of power and influence. Both countries have played and continue to play important roles in international forums but have similarly sought to self improve their governance processes through initiatives that focus on enhancing public service efficacy. It can be argued that this is of primary importance because the improvement of public service delivery will significantly cont ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:21:16

Corruption erodes respect for the law and deters honest people from entering the public service. To overcome this scenario, the anti-corruption measures for ethical and good governance were discussed during the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm. In an era of globalisation, bribery is considered as a tool of developing networks and contacts for better opportunities. Corruption therefore is severely affecting the organisations and ordinary peoples' lives. This article is a reflection of form and ex ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:16:40

Human capital remains an institution's vitality and strength and public institutions should co-ordinate human action for public interest and institutional effectiveness. It is important for managers to not only take cognisance of human resource challenges, but to also address them in order to apply human resources as a competitive advantage. When departments perform well, it is primarily due to the human capital's inspiration, enthusiasm, skills and reliability, combined with good lea ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:13:56

The changes been brought about by public sector reforms influenced inter alia financial arrangements to ensure efficient and effective service delivery and consequently good governance practices. One are specifically earmarked is the introduction and the application of new accounting practices. Government departments on the national and provincial sphere in South Africa provide various services through the utilization of resources at their disposal. Currently government expenditure are alloca ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:11:11

To address the many and varied problems that still face African economies it is now generally accepted that they need greater access to international markets to grow in a sustainable way through trade rather than the current dependence in many cases on aid. This increased access would allow them the opportunity to develop strong and sustainable private sector enterprises that could compete effectively in world markets. It is also expected that such increased market activity would enable them ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:08:24

E-Government has become a buzz word in public service delivery as it is viewed as an alternate service delivery strategy in a post-democratic South Africa. The President has stressed the need for creativity in bridging the gap between the services provided, and the community whom we are called to serve. In a world of interconnectedness, citizens are now able to regularly interface with public institutions, in an attempt to bring services closer to the people. The spirit of e-government is an ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:05:21

Theoretically and technically, governance is explained and practiced by different organisations and people. In Public Administration as a multidisciplinary field of study, public finance is regarded as the life and blood of public administration. The most critical point is to strive to achieve departmental or organisational objectives through effective governance. An effective governance process could be measured through efficient and effective systems, institutions, structures and rules and ...

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2021-Jun-14 15:02:12

The environments of public organisations have become characterised by complexity, speed and fragmentation. Although economic efficiency still serves as an important guiding principle, its twin brother, hierarchy, is no longer an organisational principle. In its place, public organisations now emphasise co-operative relationships in the context of politically-driven structures. The relevance of co-operation has acquired a new significance in changing contexts that place more emphasis on relati ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:53:18

The term governance encompasses all aspects of the way a country is governed, including its economic policies and regulatory framework. It appears from the international entities that hold the global financial muscle - including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the United States of America and the European Union (EU) - that the African continent's developmental agenda should be based on accountable governance. The IMF was urged in 1996 by its Board of Governors to pr ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:50:28

The South African health care market must respond to changing demands that occur due to globalisation, rising customer expectations and growing fiscal demands if it wants to meet future needs of service delivery. Added to these challenges, government has to increase public trust and install confidence towards a health care system that must change to become more productive and effective. Health care reforms are about improving performance. The main drivers for creating change in performance ar ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:47:27

Internationally, governance has emerged as a focal point in the discipline and practice of public administration and its nature, extent and characteristics have changed the environment within which public administration functions. Public administration as an integrating paradigm has to achieve, maintain, enhance and sustain the collective promotion of the spiritual and material welfare of society. In South Africa (SA), addressing the need to bring about more effective and efficient public ser ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:44:23

The article reports the outcome of a study that analysed the relationship between human resource development (HRD) practices and service delivery in the City of Cape Town. This study ascertains the extent to which present HRD impact on service delivery obligations and the extent to which inadequacy of capacity contributed to lack of or poor service delivery. An audit of the current HRD practices and process was conducted and compared against the perceptions of employees in relation to their e ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:41:03

For about two decades of democratic dispensation, South Africa has developed and adopted a series of policies. These policies serve as the broad strategy through which government strives to address divergent societal problems and at the same time enhance the wellbeing of all South Africans. However, it has been realised that most of these policies do not yield the intended and desired outputs and outcomes. Currently South Africa is faced with the challenge of implementing public policies in a ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:28:14

The creation of nine provincial governments in 1994 held great promise as a key reform towards meeting the ideals of democracy and inclusiveness, in addition to representing an attempt to make government more efficient and effective. Nine provinces superseded an apartheid-based system of governing that defined the Republic of South Africa as four provinces containing self-governing territories and independent homelands for Africans. In cognisance of emerging arguments that propose that the So ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:22:45

The South African public service is a reflection of the society from which it is drawn and it in turn serves. The moral decay that is evident in the society is often displayed by public servants and politicians. Sexual harassment in the public service epitomises the moral decay of the South African society. Sexual harassment cases of prominent public officials and politicians have appeared in the media. The appearance of cases involving prominent officials and politicians in the media suggest ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:17:26

The role of public opinion in the governance of a state depends on the extent to which it is taken into account in the processes of policy making and implementation. According to Section 16(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 every one has the right to freedom of expression. Therefore, people have the freedom to express their views, whether or not such views agree with government's policies, as long as they do not act unconstitutionally by contravening the limitat ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:07:46

Ethics play a key role in the choices and decisions of public service managers and assists to set the climate, develops the vision, and shapes the behaviour of those who are involved in public departments. Ethical behaviour displayed by public managers serve as models for the behaviour of public officials and the general public. The Government's legislative directives enhance service delivery as well as the competence of public service managers. Numerous policies, strategies and programme ...

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2021-Jun-14 14:00:20

We are living in an age of transformation heading towards the knowledge society. Traditional productive factors seem to provide less and less added value, whereas knowledge is perceived to be the main production factor of the future. The increasing importance of knowledge is supported from the economic point of view by the high growth rates of knowledge focused organizations, for example, consulting institutions, software houses and training and research institutions. What was learnt during t ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:54:06

The end of the twentieth century witnessed significant changes in governmental administration with increasing reliance inter alia on the application of market mechanisms, and the carrying out of privatization and deregulation initiatives. The significance of these changes was accelerated by the social transformations which took place during this time. Countries moved from undemocratic to participative/democratic states and from planned to free market economies. South Africa is no exception. T ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:48:26

One of the key obstacles in the fight against corruption is the fact that, without legal protection, individuals are often too intimidated to speak out or blow the whistle. The Protected Disclosures Act 2000 (Act 26 of 2000) provides protection against occupational detriment to those who disclose information of unlawful or corrupt conduct. This law is therefore an important weapon in the anti-corruption struggle to encourage honest employees to report wrongdoing. The presumed benefits of whis ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:42:59

Governance is the exercise of authority, direction and control of an organisation to ensure its goals are achieved. It refers to who is in charge of what; who sets the direction and the parameters within which the direction is to be pursued; who makes decisions; who sets performance indicators, monitoring of progress and evaluates results; and, who is accountable to whom for what. Governance includes the structures, responsibilities and processes of the organisation to direct and manage its f ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:38:32

There is a moral and ethical crisis in South Africa. It has reached such proportions that social pressure and pressure from government to stamp out corruption and fraud necessitated government institutions, business partners and tertiary instructions to have a re-look at where they stand regarding ethics, ethical leadership and ethical behaviour. One of the important outcomes of good governance among a variety of other outcomes is the effective ethical behaviour of political office-bearers an ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:34:14

Capacity building in the South African public sector has recently been under increased scrutiny. The main problem seems to be that capacity building initiatives are not necessarily addressing the real organisational needs of public sector institutions. Whether or not this is true, it is of great importance for public sector academics and practitioners to ensure that what is needed by the public is provided by capacity building services providers. The latest economic initiative of central gove ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:28:47

Public probity and accountability, that is, the processes of reporting to higher authorities and investigating the correctness of transactions are hallmarks for democratic governance and efficient service delivery. An enhanced, accountable system is however, and invariably, a function of human resource capacity, the extent to which responsible personnel are trained and empowered to perform financial tasks optimally. Providing a better life for all is a cardinal political policy of the ruling ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:23:13

SAAPAM is an academic, independent, professional and non-profit association established in 1999 and registered with the Department of Social Development (Registration number 039-162NPO). At the time, the founders of the Association placed their faith in the future potential of the academics and practitioners of Public Administration and Management and the South African Public Service, sharing a common belief and vision of a high performing and leading edge, people-valued government in the pro ...

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2021-Jun-14 13:18:18