National Assembly Cape Town: 20 June 2007  

Madam Speaker, honourable members,  

At the top of governments' agenda is the need to centralise and consolidate power into a single state bureaucratic machine. While the bill elucidates a number of important and positive issues such as compliance reporting, and consolidating the stability of the public service, its overarching objective is laying the groundwork for a single public service. It is here that the IFP finds the devil in the detail. The IFP supports federalism, devolution and the decentralisation of power. Decentralisation is an integral part of pluralist democracy and development.  

The three tiers of government should respect the constitutional status of the other spheres and not encroach on the institutional, geographical and functional integrity of the other.  Let us not forget that we are bound by the whole constitution, chapter 7 elucidates the status of municipalities- these amendments would begin to make huge inroads into the independence of local government institutions. The IFP is of the opinion that the independence and integrity of the three spheres should be upheld at all costs, it being a fundamental and entrenched principle of our constitution. 

This legislation demonstrates that government is pressing ahead to gain a centrally controlled developmental state. Therefore, the creation of a single public service will achieve national regulation of all spheres of government within a single framework. Not surprisingly, the single public service would create a monolithic bureaucracy which would cripple local government's ability to deliver basic services. Despite the flexibility of the bill, especially in terms of outside remuneration and leave of absence, we have to guard against unintended consequences.  

In order to advance accountability, transparency, we need to decentralise control - we cannot curtail the autonomy of the municipalities by transferring decision-making power to central government. In short with the creation of a single public service, this will discount the voters and their ability to hold the elected representatives to account - very much like the crossing of the floor legislation.   

The IFP supports the prescripts of good governance. The establishment of government components and specialised service delivery units will fracture service delivery, and it will almost dislocate them from the principle department. Also, we need to ask the question, does the department have the necessary monitoring and evaluation tools? The IFP believes that the constitutional integrity of the three spheres pf government should be maintained and the Minister cannot and should not unilaterally determine conditions of service, in short we cannot create a monstrosity.