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The emergence of the coronavirus in 2019 and a subsequent need to manage its spread deterred global governments from their plans and day-to-day activities and also compelled people to austerely rely on the government for protection and immunisation. Regrettably, it was when South Africa experienced a brusque resuscitation of corruption within the state institutions, particularly the Department of Health. This paper aimed to postulate Ubuntu, the moral African philosophy, as a possible antidote to unethical practices and corruption associated with public procurement in South Africa. The contextual setting within which these issues are considered is the Limpopo Department of Health (LDoH). Findings highlighted some patterns of opportunism, self-approbation, poor consequence management and moral deprivation. All these aspects provide a good basis for corruption to thrive. The paper recommended the moral philosophy of Ubuntu as one of the moral compasses lacking in the public health sector. As part of the conclusion, the author argued that the opportunism displayed by bureaucrats in the Limpopo Department of Health during COVID time and before that is a strong indication of a bad organisational culture that is inherently out of touch with good governance and humanity. The author's scepticism is that the impairment of humanity might require a little more than normal regulatory frameworks.

Globally, there is welter of evidence demonstrating that cooperative government is likely achievable where the same political party in charge of the national government is also a power holder at sub-governments level. This has been the experience of the South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) which has been in charge of the national government and the majority of provinces for 30 years, except in few instances where opposition parties are in control. Since the ANC lost Western Cape (WC) province to the Democratic Alliance in 2004, cooperative government has been a difficult practice due in part to party ideological differences. The contradictions often play out at executive levels but the silence of legislation, in as far as ensuring that cooperative government is achievable for common goal, necessitates attention. This non-empirical article refers to numerous cases of intergovernmental tensions, with the intention being to debate the discursive issues under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (hereafter referred to as 1996 Constitution). Following comprehensive reflection, the article concluded that the extent to which national government is showing inherent inertia to work with WC and other areas where the DA is governing has been perpetuated by the lacuna in the current legal framework, but most of the conflicts have much to do with party ideology and politics of the ‘left’ where parties just oppose executive decisions and programmes not on substance but because they are official opposition.   As a result, the continuation of these actions stands to bedevil the national and provincial executive relations in a decentralised South Africa.    

The question of women’s development and empowerment is not new in the world. As such, there has been an increasing awareness of the matter, especially that development has had a differential impact on power relations in society, usually to the disadvantage of women. For countless times, the world has had many pro–women empowerment measures and proclamations made by various governments and continental and domestic agencies, but women continue to be overlooked in crucial spheres of life such as politics, law, education, and training, as well as working environments. This paper used a desktop review method to first, identify the underlying factors behind power differentials between men and women in leadership and society at large, and second, examine how such factors compound gender inequality in South African polity. The discussion shows that South Africa’s and the African continent’s experience with women's empowerment and recognition in the political landscape still exhibits gender disproportions with which the compounding factors cannot be differentiated. These include, inter alia, the inconsistent application of a political will to keep women in leadership spaces and the existence of patriarchal systems embedded in many African cultural practises. The paper concluded by strongly arguing that any development that is based on patriarchy is anti–development and must be rejected. Any efforts made to elevate women in to positions of power would mean an end to the old question of gender inequality, but this requires serious, deliberate policy interventions and implementation.

BackgroundThis article attempts to make a reasoned case for re-thinking and repositioning public administration education curriculum in South Africa considering the emerging ‘consultocratic’ regime in the public service. It appears that public managers are determined to outsource private knowledge and expertise with little efforts made to build their own internal capacity.AimTo establish ways in which the higher education sector can help in preparing future public servants in South Africa.SettingThe article is an extract of the study that was conducted in 13 Limpopo-based municipalities, including provincial Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and South African local government association.MethodsQualitative methods were used to obtain perspectives from officials and practitioners involved in local government in order to establish reasons why public institutions over-consult.ResultsThe main finding of this study shows that public institutions, municipalities in this case, over consult because of limited inhouse talent and skills shortage. Participants agreed that while municipalities take blame for ineffective recruitment strategies, higher education sector can play a bigger role in building future skilled graduates. A lack of critical thinking skills was said to be the main problem. With the backup from critical thinking theory, the study proved the need for revised Public Administration (PA) curricula.ConclusionThe repositioning of PA education is encouraged considering that the public sector governance approach is said to be inspired by the market – oriented ideology, the New Public Management, which favours outsourcing against the central role of government.ContributionInclusion of critical thinking as module in the PA discourse is recommended. Public sector is also urged to ease legislative red tapes to encourage innovation in the public service. This will guarantee skilled and readily available recruitment pool from which public sector can source talent from, but most significantly, a cultivation of tactical, critical, and strategic thinkers will positively challenge the prevailing consultocratic regime.

Aganang Local Municipality (ALM) was disestablished, and its municipal area was amalgamated into Blouberg Local Municipality, Molemole Local Municipality and Polokwane Local Municipality on 03 August 2016. The municipality was disestablished with a view to optimise the financial viability of municipalities in the Capricorn District Municipality. This development brought about challenges in a variety of areas as the move meant merging of the disestablished municipality to the other three municipalities. This article explored the underlying human resources management problems that emanated from the disestablishment of ALM. The guiding question for this article was what are some of the salient human resource management challenges that emanated from ALM's disestablishment? In addition, what lessons can be drawn for future municipal disestablishment exercises? The setting for this study was the Polokwane Municipality, South Africa. A qualitative approach, with interviews being the major data-collecting instrument, was applied. A key finding of this study is that there is a general dissatisfaction among staff from Aganang Municipality who were moved to Polokwane Municipality (PM) because of disparities in remuneration between them and their counterparts working for PM. A major recommendation proffered in this article is that all human-resource-related issues need to be ironed out with staff members of the disestablished municipality before they are moved to other municipalities. This assists in minimising labour disputes in the merging process.

Like in other South African district municipalities, the practice of Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) in Mopani District Municipality (MDM) is problematic. Lack of cooperation between municipalities is blameable for poor communication within district IGR structures in MDM. The main aim of this article is to ascertain the nature of IGR in MDM. To realise this aim, the following questions were asked: what is the nature of IGR in MDM? In addition, what are the main factors contributing to poor communications between municipalities MDM? In examining these questions, a qualitative research methodology was employed whereby triangulation of key informant interviews and documentary search was applied in collecting data. Towards the end, possible solutions for improved IGR in MDM are recommended.

Do Public Administration and Management (PAM) academic programmes as offered in many of South African Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges capture the very mission of these institutions, which is to curb scarcity of skills in various employment sectors? This is the guiding question of the study. It is asked in the context of a myriad of literature in Public Administration, with some indicating that public administration as a practice is not a profession and that to this far there is no clarity as to the utilisation of graduates possessing this kind of academic qualification within employment sectors. The study is qualitative in nature, and a critical scholarship review was used as the main data collection method. The study found that PAM as currently offered through the TVET’s National Accredited Training Education Diploma is not highly in demand in the market. The study therefore recommends that Public Administration and Management programmes offered in TVET colleges be discontinued as traditional universities and universities of technology are doing sufficient training in this area.

Service delivery that is driven by cooperative governance between municipalities in the district-local space is generally commendable, but it is often bedevilled by serious collective action problems. Also, it is true that in the absence of participation by local municipalities in the district policy-making processes, cooperative governance will be lacking and the functionality of Intergovernmental Relations Forums will be compromised. This paper used the Mopani District Municipality (MDM) as its contextual setting, and the aim was to investigate the appropriateness and the capacity of the District Intergovernmental Forum (DIF) as a platform to deal with multi-governance issues within the two-tier district system. Qualitative methods were applied, and interviews were conducted with relevant members of the DIF within the MDM. As the paper found, the DIF in the MDM exists in name only. The extent to which it cannot deal with policy and other multi-governance issues is compounded by numerous factors, including a poorly defined mandate of the forum and lack of coerciveness in legislation. A major recommendation is that the DIF’s legislative role and functions need to be redefined in order to distinguish between relevant district governance matters that need to be dealt with by district councils, which in turn should prevent unnecessary deliberations, duplication of agenda issues and waste of time. Also, coercion must be featured in legislation to regulate the participation of relevant stakeholders in the DIF.

This conceptual paper attempts to demonstrate its strength by first accepting that the (p)ublic (a)dministration's loci-foci is within the jurisdiction of the executive branch amongst the two remaining branches of government, namely, the Legislature and the Judiciary. In the executive, the administration of the state is observed. Secondly, this paper argues that while p. a. may be with the executive arm, there is however its place beyond just the said administration of the executive arm. This paper employs the use of public-private partnerships that emanated from the New Public Management Paradigm as well as monitoring and evaluation theory and practice in the public sector to argue its assertion that public administration is being practiced beyond the executive branch. The development programs and projects initiated by the government and handed to the service providers need to be monitored and evaluated to ensure value for money and meet public expectations. As a result, the expectation of quality service from the service provider should be the norm of the day. It is therefore, through the cooperative trajectory between the government and the private sector, that this paper proposes that public administration can be associated with the executive branch but not necessarily limited to the said branch of government. This paper employed desktop research and the existing relevant literature to support its argument and contribution to the discipline of public administration.

Recent trends on local government points to a growing public discontent concerning the performance and the capability of municipalities as the service delivery agents and contact points between citizens and government. Greater-Taung Municipality, which is contextual setting in the current study, is one municipality in the North West province that has a demonstrable record of service delivery failures. Despite record service provision falures, Greater-Taung Municipality has previously returned grants allocations, reasons to which remain unknown. To find out, this study employed qualitative methods to investigate the impediments to effective service provision, with the purpose being to suggest workable and practical solutions to improve service provision. Data collection was chieved through key informants purposively selected from the municipality and documentary analysis. Although the study confirmed some of the findings from literature, especially on skills shortages and political inference in administrative work, other key findings pointed to the constant misalignments between service delivery plans and budget allocations. This problem is affecting organisational performance and service provision. Meanwhile political interference ought to be discouraged, a strong performance management system is needed as this will give effect to service provision and improved accountability culture in the municipality. More recommendations are provided towards the end of the article.