Good morning bloggers - my apologies for the tardiness, hectic week last week and all good for the wallet! This should have been Thursday's post!
This is really interesting reading. Puts a lot more issues into perspective, well it did for me anyway.
DGs: Who's hot and who's not?
02 November 2007 06:00
The Treasury's Lesetja Kganyago: Among the finest directors general of the democratic era
Who gets the best out of their departments? Who has leadership qualities -- and who lacks them? Who has been fired -- and who should be sacked? Who deserves an A for the second year in a row? The Mail & Guardian editorial team presents the 2007 directors general (DGs) report card. We'd love to hear
your views on our assessments.
A: Take a bow. You are doing an excellent job.
B: Good, but room for improvement.
C: You're OK, but that's all we can say for you.
D: Get your act together.
E: Do yourself and the country a favour -- resign.
F: You're fired.
AgricultureMasiphula Mbongwa
Grade: B- (2006: C)
In the three years Masiphula Mbongwa has been in his post he has made the agriculture portfolio his own. He understands how agriculture operates within South Africa's policy framework. His three-year tenure has bought consistency to his department and he has made agriculture one of the most solid administrative departments in the government. His supporters praise the way he has created new markets for South Africa's farmers and say that he is constantly on the lookout for new opportunities.
Stakeholders are impressed with his willingness to engage with them and learn from previous mistakes. Mbongwa has improved the department's financial management and has reduced vacancies. He believes the department has learned valuable lessons in recent years, for example in the management of drought, the most pressing threat to agriculture in parts of South Africa. He argues that the installation of early warning systems has been a major improvement.
Mbongwa has won the respect of white farmers, but ultimately he will be judged on his contribution to promoting black farming -- and emerging black farmers continue to feel he is doing too little to promote their cause. In particular, his officials are not reaching those most in need of help and expertise. He also admits that the lack of technical skills available to support the department's resettlement programme has been one of his biggest challenges.
Arts and culture
Thembinkosi Wakashe
Grade: Too early to tell
Thembinkosi Wakashe took over on October 1 after the contract of his predecessor, Itumeleng Mosala, was (mercifully) not renewed. One of his first tasks will be to investigate the department's qualified audit and an unexplained difference of R13,4-million between the asset register and its financial statements. Mosala's departure drew a collective sigh of relief from the culture sector. Unlike him, Wakashe is an affable individual with enormous experience in arts and heritage services. Minister Pallo Jordan can now reasonably hope for an era of increased cooperation between the department, its initiatives and arts practitioners.
At 46, Wakashe is young enough to be in touch with burgeoning artists. He studied theatre at Wits University in the 1980s; he did a master's in performance studies at New York University, also becoming the manager of then-exiled pianist Abdullah Ibrahim. Returning to South Africa, he formed part of the team that developed the Arts, Culture and Heritage White Paper. He was later appointed chief director for arts, culture and heritage, responsible for liaison with Unesco, the Southern African Development Community, the European Union and the former Organisation for African Unity.
With luck Wakashe will be able to deal with the demands of the culturally divided, needy and temperamental arts sector. As Jordan said in welcoming him: "We appoint him the leader of this department at a time when it has come into its own and plays a central role in nation-building efforts, to use arts and culture as an instrument for creating jobs and self-reliance among our artists."
Communications
Lyndall Shope-Mafole
Grade: F (2006: E)Things are just going from bad to worse in the Department of Communications. One industry insider even suggested this is the reason for Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin's foray into the communications field, through Infraco, the state-owned infrastructure player. The Communications Department is in such a policy mess that any coherent plan seems like a ray of hope.
Despite some signs of competition this year in South Africa's broadband market, prices are still too high, while the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) remains hamstrung by lack of independence and under-funding, which prevent it from tackling the numerous bottlenecks that hamper effective competition. The country has yet to see progress in the unbundling of the local loop, the regulation of interconnection, facilities leasing and access to the undersea cable at cost-based prices.
A recent parliamentary review, which looked at the Chapter 9 bodies such as Icasa, reaffirmed the need for the regulator to be more independent of the department. It suggested that Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri's involvement in selecting Icasa councillors and conducting their performance reviews affected its independence.
Stakeholders have been shouting about this for more than a year. Last year the minister appointed two former departmental officials as councillors. Insiders did, however, say that Shope-Mafole has a good relationship with them and strong links with the international communications world. But the toing and froing over the multiple proposed under-sea cables that are attempting to land in South Africa, and her insistence on driving the EASSy cable process through the New Partnership for Africa's Development, are said to have soured relationships between her department and communications officials in other African states. Stakeholders describe the mixed messages emanating from the department as embarrassing. "The DG does not make sense and is creating confusion at best and chaos at worst," said one. "She is wreaking havoc with the undersea cables."
Shope-Mafole refused to grant the Mail & Guardian an interview and did not answer questions sent to her department.
Correctional services
Vernie Petersen
Grade: Too early to tell
Since his appointment in May, Vernie Petersen has worked hard to change the image of this neglected and badly run department. A trained social worker, he has convinced interest groups that he has the correct priorities and has travelled the length and breadth of the country engaging prison management. Although it is not possible yet to measure the real effect of the change of guard at correctional services, Petersen has shown signs in his five months at the helm that he might be what the department needs. His achievements during his short tenure include the establishment of a forum with regional commissioners to address service delivery challenges at operational level, the introduction of an integrated human resource strategy, the establishment of a fraud prevention plan and the design of a system to measure and strengthen the department's performance.
He has emphasised the need for an overhaul of the department's organisational culture to promote professionalism by measuring the performance and enhancing the conditions of employees. To avoid a sixth consecutive qualified audit from the Auditor General, Petersen has appointed a new chief financial officer and director of internal audit. In collaboration with senior managers he has developed a declaration and compliance improvement plan that will be signed by all departmental managers.
After his first scuffle with Parliament's robust correctional services committee, he went back to the drawing board on the Correctional Services Amendment Bill, addressed the committee's concerns and adopted a position that the Bill will be presented to the committee in the form of draft regulations, before adoption by Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour.
Defence
January Masilela
Grade: E (2006: C)
January Masilela must go now. The problems in the defence secretariat have continued for so many years -- he has been in the post since 1999 -- that he should no longer be given the benefit of the doubt. Continuing problems in the secretariat include the failure to present the update of the formal review of defence policy, due two years ago; repeated qualified audits from the Auditor General; and a lack of an effective inventory to keep proper track of defence force resources.
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Other shortcomings are a failure to secure political support for sufficient operating budgets; late filing of annual reports; and indecisive and absent leadership. Masilela suffers the handicap of an indifferent minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, but, according to a senior African National Congress (ANC) MP, this is no excuse: "He should not be redeployed, he should be fired." Len le Roux, defence analyst for the Institute for Security Studies, said that while the civilian defence secretariat was a post-apartheid creation, enough time had passed for the institution to bed down. "But they have not really built that core competency," Le Roux said. This failure, he noted, exacerbates the structural tension between the secretariat and the defence general staff, who tend to try to usurp its functions to get things done.
On Masilela, Le Roux is gently damning: "One doesn't see the secretary as a prominent leader who really serves the department well." Enough said.
Education
Duncan Hindle
Grade: A (2006: A)
Duncan Hindle's second year in the top job has entrenched his well-earned reputation as one of the safest pairs of hands at this level of government. The year posed some acute challenges, the most serious being the public-service strike in June, which involved thousands of teachers and severely disrupted learning. With commendable speed, Hindle and his department formulated a "recovery plan" to make up for lost time. Quite how effective the plan will be will become apparent only when we see this year's pass rates. But, as is usual when policy formulated at national level relies on provincial implementation, problems that hindered the smooth roll-out of the plan cannot really be laid at the door of the national department.
What the department must do, though, is monitor the provincial situation, and this Hindle has done. The same can be said of another of the year's major challenges -- hitches with some no-fee schools claiming they now have less money than they did when they charged fees. Forty percent of all public schools are now designated "no-fee", relieving five million pupils of the burden of paying for schooling. Some fee-charging schools have found themselves in acute financial straits, arguing that the government has placed them in the wrong quintile or poverty ranking.
Hindle's plain speaking was apparent when he admitted that some schools have been assigned to the wrong quintiles. This was the first official admission of such an error and its directness makes a refreshing change from other post-1994 education regimes. How the department solves these funding problems remains to be seen. Given such a personal style, one can understand why departmental insiders talk of the confidence Hindle inspires in staff. This is not a department riddled with intrigue, cliques and back-stabbing. Because of Hindle's easy personal relations, staff feel supported in their jobs.
Hindle can claim credit for one of the year's undoubted high points -- the latest school register of needs, now called the National Education Information Management System. The backlogs in infrastructure uncovered by this audit are frightening, but it is the most comprehensive and accurate register of what schools have (and lack) South Africa has produced. It was completed and released on schedule too. All eyes will be on how Hindle manages another of the year's developments -- the completion of a plan for a national adult literacy campaign and the securing of R6-billion from the treasury to implement it over five years.
An earlier campaign, launched by Kader Asmal, crashed in flames, largely because of the weakness of the departmental structures that were meant to drive the campaign. Hindle must still decide who will head the campaign, how many staff to recruit and whether it will be fitted into an existing departmental directorate -- issues that will affect the speed and effectiveness of implementation. Watch this space.
Environmental affairs and tourism
Pam Yako
Grade: B+ (2006: B+)
According to the Environment Outlook report, published by the department in July, environmental sustainability is in serious decline -- South Africans consume far more resources than the global average. And the effect on our natural capital is telling: the National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment, released in June, showed that 34% of terrestrial ecosystems, 82% of rivers and 12% of marine bio-zones are threatened.
Does this mean Yako is not doing her job? Development imperatives are placing huge pressures on her department. But it is proud of having streamlined legislation and processes involved in environmental impact assessments (EIA), promising to wipe out a backlog in EIA applications by the end of October. Critics say this is at the expense of rigorous assessment and has resulted in the authorisation of many poorly thought out developments. There are many vacancies in departments that process EIAs -- 41 in KwaZulu-Natal, 23 in Limpopo, 17 in the Northern Cape and 10 in the Eastern Cape -- and the department is spending millions hiring consultants to fill the gap.
The department has come under fire for giving the go-ahead for several highly controversial developments, including a new international airport at La Mercy and nuclear smelters at Pelindaba. It is reconsidering applications to develop the Wild Coast and has barely whimpered against the potential destruction of Mpumalanga's great lakes district by coal mining. However, Yako is a quietly efficient administrator and there is progress in other areas. Her department spent 99,9% of its allocation -- 49% on BEE -- all reports were tabled in line with legal requirements and its audit report was unqualified.
Through the Expanded Public Works Programme it created close to 14 000 temporary jobs this year, while rehabilitating 15 wetlands and more than 2 000ha of land. Important legislation gazetted included a Waste Management Bill, Integrated Coastal Management Bill, National Framework for Sustainable Development, draft norms and standards for managing elephant populations and regulations on threatened or protected species.
The department's response to environmental destruction focused on beefing up the Green Scorpions. A total of 816 are registered and they have arrested close to 900 people, securing 134 court convictions. The Scorpions are enforcing compliance with air quality regulations in several pollution hot spots. Yako has put much energy into ironing out mismanagement of the Marine Living Resources Fund at Marine and Coastal Management.
There are still complaints about the allocation of fisheries licences, however, and there was an uproar when the department said it was considering opening the Tsitsikamma marine protected area for subsistence fishing. In the tourism portfolio, the department maintained its focus on black economic empowerment (BEE) and support for small business. Close to 1 000 small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) were provided with business plans and links.
The "Sho't Left" domestic tourism campaign recorded more than 37-million domestic trips. International arrivals exceeded a record eight million last year and increased a further 10,8% between January and June this year. With an eye on the 2010 World Cup, the department is rolling out accommodation workshops for SMMEs countrywide. A major complaint is that the department takes too long to make decisions. Critics say Yako is not sufficiently visible and plays a "maintenance" role rather than initiating path-breaking programmes. It was a pity, then, that the launch of the "Save Tomorrow, Today" campaign in September was marred by the suspension of JP Louw, chief executive of Indalo Yethu, the flagship environmental awareness-raising project introduced by Yako.
Louw was suspended on unspecified charges; with luck this will not kill the project.
Foreign affairs
Ayanda Ntsaluba
Grade: A (2006: A)
Ayanda Ntsaluba identified seven key areas in his efforts to build the country's foreign policy: consolidation of the African agenda; building South-South cooperation; strengthening North-South cooperation; participation in global governance; strengthening political and economic relations; organisational strengthening; and provision of support services. For the most part, his efforts at achieving these have been impressive. South-South cooperation remains a pillar of the government's approach to foreign policy and, with the successful hosting of the India, Brazil and South Africa (Ibsa) axis under its belt, the department is well positioned to lobby for more concessions on trade tariffs in the North and to influence United Nations decisions on adopting more proactive developing-world policies. But South Africa's strong foreign policy lobby must be seen against the backdrop of President Thabo Mbeki's not-so-silent hand in the department.
North-South cooperation has had mixed results. While relations with Nordic states, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have remained amicable and mutually supportive, political differences with southern European states such as France and Italy have resulted in relations taking a turn for the worse. But what has captured and dented the country's image has been the ambiguity on matters such as voting against the abuse of human rights in Burma and siding with despotic leaders in Zimbabwe and Iran.
Sympathetic observers have pointed out that foreign affairs blunders cannot always be laid at Ntsaluba's door. They claim that South Africa's position on Zimbabwe and its submissions to the Security Council have been Presidency initiatives. South Africa's support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Western Sahara and its proactive role in mediation has, however, put the country in a good light. Inside the department, Ntsaluba is praised as the best foreign affairs DG the country has had. But this praise is accompanied by a large dose of self-criticism.
While human resource development has been a priority, Ntsaluba's annual report states that gender representativeness has some way to go. The number of people with disabilities continues to be low. Cohesion within the department remains a major concern. This is one of the departments that has largely remained intact since 1994, and Ntsaluba is still managing the conflict between the old and the new crops of people. Habits die hard and beliefs are difficult to shake unless alternative avenues are found to house them. But Ntsaluba is said to have good relationships with the political heads of the department and these have allowed for a productive atmosphere to prevail.
Ntsaluba has emerged as a respected and efficient administrator. He would do well to communicate more with the country's citizens and to explain in more detail the nuanced positions the department has adopted on complex issues, such as Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe and the UN. The department again received an unqualified audit report.
Health
Thami Mseleku
Grade: F (2006: F)
Thami Mseleku's ignorance of health matters and his heavy-handed style are a bad combination. But it is the combination of Mseleku and Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who is similar in character and style, that is particularly lethal. The two are widely cited by HIV/Aids activists as the biggest official obstacles in the fight against the disease. Mseleku rules the Health Department with an iron first, particularly the HIV/Aids directorate. The latter is forced to report every move to him, especially any meetings officials might have with civil society organisations. He was instrumental in making the life of former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge a misery.
Madlala-Routledge said he barred senior health officials from communicating with her and made her apply for permission to receive departmental information from the health minister. However, he enjoys little respect from his senior staff because of his lack of health knowledge and more than one-third of the national department's top jobs are vacant. The department received a qualified audit for 2005/06, the third year in a row. The key problem, again, was the failure of the national department to monitor provincial expenditure properly. Mseleku froze the country's HIV/Aids and tuberculosis (TB) communication campaign, Khomanani, while having it assessed.
A new tender was announced only in May after a nine-month break in communication. Despite the fact that TB is the most common opportunistic infection affecting people living with HIV and that at least 60% of TB patients are also HIV-positive, Mseleku is opposed to the integration of HIV and TB treatment. Although the Health Department is the lead department in its implementation, Mseleku effectively disowns the new national strategic plan intended to guide the country's Aids approach to until 2011. He constantly emphasises that the plan is not the department's, but that of a wide group of stakeholders.
At a meeting with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) late last year, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka undertook that government would settle the court case it faces from the TAC and South African Medical Association over the Health Department's failure to act against notorious vitamin peddler Matthias Rath. However, despite being personally approached since then by the TAC with a settlement offer, Mseleku has refused to settle and the case has been set down for later this year. Mseleku played a major role in undermining an agreement reached between the Aids Law Project and the TAC and the correctional services department regarding Westville prisoners' access to antiretroviral drugs.
Playing the person not the ball is one of Mseleku's trademarks. Under his rule the department's "communicators" have had free rein to launch personal attacks on journalists, scientists and others -- something his predecessor, Ayanda Ntsaluba, would not have allowed. One ray of hope is that the Health Department has announced increases of up to 23% for nurses -- but only after the crippling strike in July.
Home affairs
Mavuso Msimang
Grade: AI
n the eight months Msimang has been at home affairs he has done more to clean up the department than any of his eight predecessors since 1994. He has leadership qualities that have become increasingly rare in the government and an ability to rise above politics to get the job done. He came to home affairs with an impressive record: he turned South African National Parks into a commercial success and rooted out corruption and incompetence from the State Information Technology Agency by encouraging whistle-blowing and naming and shaming culprits in an internal publication.
Straightening out home affairs will be Msimang's biggest challenge. The Auditor General has issued at least nine qualified audits to the department in the past 13 years and the department has a 30% vacancy rate in middle and top management. But the 65-year-old has shown already that in tackling incompetence he takes no prisoners. He said earlier this year: "There is no way unsuitable people will be retained. You're not retrenching those people, you're firing them." After just 100 days in the job, he suspended two senior home affairs officials: chief financial officer Pat Nkambule and deputy director general: civic services Joel Chavalala, who once acted as director general.
He is quite open about the abysmal state of the department, describing it as "sick", and has staked his reputation on pulling it straight. His view is that a properly functioning Home Affairs Department is critical to the future success of South Africa. He said after his appointment in May that "a total culture change is a sine qua non for the overhaul of the prevailing situation, which has deteriorated to a point where not fixing it would certainly be a catastrophe". Two weeks after his appointment, Msimang selected a turnaround task team comprising high-level international IT experts and accountants and led by Kevin Wakeford, former chief executive of the South African Chamber of Business. It includes a National Treasury task force led by accountant general Freeman Nomvulo, an IT panel led by De Beers IT strategist Patrick Monyeki and a business re-engineering team from the Chicago-based global management consulting company AT Kearney.
Part of the plan to root out graft is to implement IT systems that track and record every transaction. The task team's work will cost more than R1-billion, but Msimang says: "Against the cost of corruption, this pales into significance."
Housing
Itumeleng Kotsoane
Grade: C- (2006: C)
It has been Itumeleng Kotsoane's second year in the job and the housing department is still in trouble. Kotsoane inherited a weak administration and, two years later, things are not looking much better. Among the problems he faces are R3-billion fraud in various housing projects and the fraudulent acquisition of housing by about 50 000 public servants. The department has been under fire for the forced removal of squatters. Kotsoane has a tough job: to ensure that the department's sustainable human settlements plan, Breaking New Ground (BNG), is implemented.
The BNG approach sets out to meet the state's constitutional housing obligations, in the context of a 2,4-million unit backlog which is growing by 40 000 households a year. The housing allocation remains at 1% of the national budget and has not exceeded 1,4% in 10 years. In the Western Cape, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and her DG are delivering just 10 000 houses a year.Kotsoane is clever, but perhaps more of a politician than an administrator. The housing department is said to lack cohesion and suffers from low morale. There are tales of back-stabbing and a staff exodus. Staff describe him as sensitive and a good listener and he is seen as a charismatic man with leadership qualities. But his relationship with stakeholders on the outside leaves much to be desired. Civil society and housing NGOs complain that he is inaccessible; a large housing company in Johannesburg said it had been unable to secure a meeting with him for 13 months.
This year Kotsoane made headway with redesigning the social housing policy and aligning it with BNG. Those involved in the housing field give him much credit for this. One of his former colleagues remarked that the Housing Department has the right ideas and policies, but that it falls short when it comes to implementation. They talk about the eradication of slums by 2014, but they're not clear on how to do this. When it comes to policy direction and interpretation, Kotsoane and his team are weak.
Intelligence
Manala Manzini
Grade: C+ (2006: C)The sacking of Billy Masetlha catapulted National Intelligence Agency Director General Manala Manzini from total to relative obscurity. Spooks tend to hide their light under a bushel of secrecy, making it hard to assess their performance. In Manzini's case it is especially difficult to judge his impact, as he is part of a wider intelligence cluster that includes South African Secret Service boss Hilton Dennis and exiting national intelligence coordinating committee (Nicoc) chairperson Barry Gilder.
New NIA operations director Pete Richer has taken his mandate into the realm of policy reform, not just day-to-day management. But, above all, Manzini's is a department that has enjoyed the attention of a hands-on minister in Ronnie Kasrils, who has been a crucial presence at Manzini's shoulder. All in all, the department appears to have stabilised. In his budget speech this year Kasrils said security vetting turnaround times had improved significantly and that funds had been freed up for operational expansion and capital investment.
The department is completing long-overdue draft legislation to replace apartheid-era secrecy laws that are unconstitutional. Kasrils said the quality and quantity of intelligence received by the government via Nicoc, which receives input from police and military intelligence, had improved. However, other sources said Barry Gilder, who has taken early retirement, faced an uphill battle in managing turf wars and delivering a coherent product. A case in point was the "Browse Mole" report debacle, which raised concerns about Angolan and Libyan backing for Jacob Zuma. It was a Scorpions initiative, but appears to have been leaked to the media by someone in the NIA and was rather disingenuously condemned as disinformation by Manzini. There have been other problems.
The parliamentary intelligence oversight committee has questioned the propriety of Manzini accepting a raft of discounted Absa shares from businessman Tokyo Sexwale. NIA spokesperson Lorna Daniels said Manzini declared this benefit and Kasrils raised no concerns about it, though he has issued no public explanation for this stance. In addition, the annual reports for the department seem to be years behind.
Finally, questions must be raised about Manzini's suitability for office, given allegations about an affair with a subordinate and a subsequent altercation with his wife. If true, the allegations represent (at the very least) a security risk for someone in Manzini's position.
Justice
Menzi Simelane
Grade: D- (2006: C-)
Earlier this month the Democratic Alliance (DA) asked Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Brigitte Mabandla in Parliament whether she would sack Menzi Simelane after the department received its second consecutive qualified audit report from the Auditor General. Unsurprisingly, Mabandla said no.
In her written answer she referred to the reasons for qualified opinion: third-party funds, including the failure to account for bail, maintenance money, fines and payments to court and an incomplete register of assets. Simelane's political boss tried, unconvincingly, to downplay these issues, saying the problems are "historical" and asset management should be seen in the context of the more than 581 sub-offices that handle the department's assets. A closer look at the Auditor General's report, however, suggests these issues are not as trivial as Mabandla claims they are.
Simelane's department completely omitted from the financial statements the liability and bank balances relating to third-party funds. The statements were found to be "materially misstated". Other misstatements included the failure to disclose claims against the state amounting to R2-billion. An amount of R202-million for assets less than R5 000 was omitted from the financials.
The Auditor General could not find an asset register that confirmed the department's calculations. Mabandla also failed to mention another interesting comment by the Auditor General: senior officials in his department, including Simelane himself, had failed to declare their business and private interests to the Public Service Commission. Another possibly more disturbing feature of Simelane's performance is the indication that he was involved in decisions with strong political undertones.
The first of these was the manoeuvring to see that Britain's request for legal assistance in its arms deal investigation did not land on the Scorpions' desk, but was sent to the South African Police Service. The request gathered dust on his desk for months before a decision was made. Second, it is rumoured that Simelane was actively involved in "building a case" against National Prosecuting Authority boss Vusi Pikoli, controversially suspended by President Thabo Mbeki. Insiders say Simelane "cannot stand" Pikoli and wants him out. Simelane is blessed with senior staff who are trying their best to hold the department together. He should be giving far stronger support in cleaning up South Africa's struggling justice system.
Labour
Vanguard Mkhosana
Grade: C (2006: E)
After last year's shocking rating (E), Vanguard Mkhosana has tried to pull up his socks (not sure if he wears red, like his homeboy Gwede Mantashe) and refocus his department on some key deliverables, instead of being all over the place. Amid the myriad demands placed on the department, he has sought to encourage greater focus by adopting a project-based management approach. However, it would appear that insufficient follow-through is occurring in the department, which is in a constant state of restructuring in one form or another. It is rather unfortunate that Mkhosana's innovations have yet to be fully implemented as he does seem to have a vision of where to take the department.
Some in his department would argue that perhaps he does not have the sufficient resources to effect real and sustainable change. As one departmental official indicated: "There is no stability in the people staying to see things through." The department has faced a high staff turnover for some time. A further concern is that, in seeking to drive change, Mkhosana might, at times, be too hands-on, which could slow down processes and prevent a quick turnaround. He does have a tendency, some would argue, to ponder issues extensively, which does not make for quick decision-making. In many ways Mkhosana's vision for the department is correct. He, like his minister who is opposed to what he calls "headquarter's syndrome", believes in a lean and mean head office with implementation and delivery happening at provincial level. Hence, he has sought to empower the provinces for effective delivery.
In pursuit of this he has elevated the status of provincial directors. Aside from attempting to restructure the department, he has sought to beef up the labour inspectorate, which has been under-resourced for many years. As part of his drive towards decentralisation, Mkhosana has decentralised the operations of the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund to labour centres, which will help address the backlog in insurance benefit payments. According to the department's latest annual report, 88% of the applications for unemployment benefits were settled within six weeks, compared with an 85% settlement rate last year. The department has settled the backlog in compensation claims dating back to December 2004. This year alone it paid R2,6-billion to about 328 000 beneficiaries. Much to the constant embarrassment of his minister, Mkhosana's department has been forced to take a tough stand to ensure an improvement in the performance of the sector education and training authorities (Setas). The department is contemplating reducing Setas from 23 to five to align them with South Africa's industrial strategy. This might be a step in the right direction if some underlying systemic issues are addressed as well. If it is viable to reduce the number, Mkhosana faces a mammoth task in convincing stakeholders -- particularly the 19 Seta bosses who stand to lose their jobs -- about the need for large-scale restructuring. This is not the first time the department has sought to reduce the number of Setas.
Mkhosana has sought to take a tougher stance to ensure compliance with employment equity legislation. He has launched the DG review, which looks at what companies are doing in practice rather than merely measuring whether they are complying -- hence a shift from procedural to substantive compliance.Changes have been made to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). The department showed good judgement in releasing its chief director for labour relations, Nerine Kahn, to head the CCMA. In the past year the institution has made great strides in improving service delivery and sorting out a number of institutional problems. The same cannot be said for the labour-market reform process, initially being driven by the Presidency. Following extensive discussions this process was brought back into the department. It is questionable to what extent progress has been made in this regard in the period under review. While Mkhosana's improved performance in some areas is to be commended, his failure to tighten financial controls is a cause for concern. For the third consecutive year since Mkhosana took over the department received a qualified audit.
