I am delighted to be able to host this impressive gathering of professionals from different sectors of the civil society at Durban Manor today. I will address you in my double capacity as a fellow professional and a public servant. As professionals and public servants

- and many of us gathered here today are directly involved in various public sector initiatives whether in education, healthcare, housing or policing - we are essentially partners in serving various needs of the same constituency. If you allow me, I would like to explore this partnership in greater detail.
 

Being local has implicit meanings: authentic, personal, known, accessible, trustworthy. The same attributes, I believe firmly and passionately, apply to public service in local government. Local government is closer than any other tier of state administration to the hopes, needs and aspirations of the people. It is also closer to practical solutions. Where national government is prone to setting up committees and establishing policy units, local government contemplates and delivers action. And it is action that makes a material difference to an isolated, troubled or hungry community, not words. Municipalities, by virtue of their proximity, can bring hope to the remotest shack.
 

It is for these reasons that I, as a public servant rooted in the local government, subscribe to a strong, independent and properly resourced local government to lead a drive for a better functioning system of public services in every corner of our province. However, the current dynamic between central government, provincial government, local services and citizens, characterised by a confusion of responsibilities and accountabilities, will have to change if we are to deal with the challenges faced by our public service effectively. Schools, clinics and police stations in this province are heaving under the weight of neglect, fragmentation, and mismanagement on the part of the provincial government and shortage of resources.
 

The provincial government's response to the most glaring deficiencies in our public sector has been a plethora of service targets, inspection regimes and national standards. These work best when they are properly focused around clearly defined outcomes. They work least when there are too many of them and when they inhibit the ability of individual public sector institutions and their stakeholders to innovate in meeting local needs. Adding to these constraints are the efforts in the higher tiers of government to balance their budgets.
 

All this reveals a tacit contempt for the capabilities of management and staff in our public sector institutions. It is as if those at the top did not want to get their hands dirty. The provincial government has proved to be more interested in organising prestigious, opulent and once-off events, preferably for an outside audience, than allowing an efficient public sector to run itself as it sees fit to make a difference to individuals, families and communities within its jurisdiction. Our government's allegiance to and understanding of the local community - forgive me for saying this so bluntly - is truly limited to the interventionist and corporatist ideology of the political party that controls it. Given the obvious limitations imposed from above, we can only instil reform from below.
 

Let me be a lot more specific. Consider the multiple failures of our education system. The government, having inherited an education system based on racial discrimination, continues to fail to provide an education that prepares our students for the job market. The country presently lacks highly motivated educators. Under the present system there is a scarcity of resources and where resources are not necessarily lacking, there they are distributed unevenly and erratically. The management of the whole education system is structurally dysfunctional.
 

The present system does not address the shortage of educators in the fields of mathematics, science and technical subjects. Many of our educational institutions have become havens of drug abuse, violence, teenage pregnancies, ill-discipline and immoral behaviour. Under the present system, school governing bodies play little or no meaningful role. All in all, education is in a sorry state.
 

I, for one, am convinced that South Africa needs a diversified education system that properly caters for the vocational, technical and academic needs of the country. In order to achieve this, we must develop and nurture a highly qualified, highly motivated and adequately remunerated profession of educators to achieve quality education, starting at the lowest level with primary education. In this context, we should motivate talented young people to become educators as well as strive to recall qualified and experienced personnel prematurely lost to the profession, providing better incentives. You, our teachers, hold the key to a better functioning and more rewarding education system in KwaZulu Natal and South Africa.
 

Or take the disastrous state of our public healthcare. The most shocking instance of the failure of the health system relates to the extremely poor leadership of the government in respect of the HIV/Aids pandemic in which the prevalence rate has increased from 3% to over 30% since 1994.
 

This challenge has been unfolding against the backdrop of the often appalling state of our clinics and community health centres with their shortages of equipment and medication; the critical shortage of heath professionals at state hospitals generally and rural hospitals in particular; poor working conditions for heath professionals in rural areas, leading to resignation and defeatism; and an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude to communicable diseases, to mention a few.
 

We in the IFP intend to tackle the crisis in the public health system head on. We will employ the expertise of Human Resource practitioners, experts and researchers to formulate a Human Resources Health Plan (HRHP) for the recruitment and retention of skilled health professionals in the public sector. This plan will change the status quo in which some hospitals operate on a ratio of one nurse for every 18 patients to one nurse for four patients in general wards. As a recruitment strategy, the IFP supports the raising of public sector salaries. The IFP will also decentralise powers and health functions to provincial, district and local governments. We will unreservedly support their access to international grants such as the Global Fund to fight the scourge of HIV/Aids, TB and malaria. The IFP is committed to consulting more with the healthcare practitioners on the ground whose work provides them with unique insights into the obstacles their patients are struggling with.
 

Or take the losing battle our dedicated policemen and women are waging against crime. The first responsibility of any government is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. Without it none of the other policy goals have much significance. One could therefore argue with conviction that the creation of a law-abiding country is the most important single policy priority. We need to upgrade the training system for our police personnel, with a special focus on investigative skills and forensics.
 

I believe strongly that policing powers should be decentralised, even to the local level. There should be far more community involvement in crime prevention and in inculcating a culture of respect for authority, and the police should be more accountable to communities.
 

Government must provide adequate resources for effective, efficient and professional policing. Appointments to the police force must be strictly depoliticised. Working conditions must be significantly improved and this includes higher salaries and more generous benefits.
 

The bottom line is that our government has so far failed to provide all South Africans with quality education, health care and security and there remains a vast gap between the public services provided for the poor and the rest. I believe a lot more must be done to address inherited inequities and to ensure the public sector institutions afford everybody who relies on their services the means to fulfil his or her potential. After all, the only way to bridge the gap between rich and poor in our country in the long run is to streamline the public sector while concentrating on the development of small and medium businesses in the private sector. Close partnerships with all stakeholders hold the key to this objective.
 

As we forge a closer partnership between local government and educators, health professionals, police personnel and the civil society at large, I cannot overemphasise the importance of keeping the lines of communication between us open and smooth-running. I encourage every one of you to approach me with any concern or question you may have regarding our shared objectives, which include a functioning public service and happy communities whom it will serve.
 

I thank you.

Contact: Cllr Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi
082 804 7993