Millionaire Managers have collapsed performance management in the public service

3 December 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) can today reveal that 77% of the most highly paid millionaire managers in the public service failed to submit their 2018/19 midterm performance reviews on time by the deadline of 31 September 2019. Moreover, nearly half of all millionaire Directors-General (DGs) and Heads of Department (HODs) have, to date, completely ignored the rules by failing altogether to submit performance reviews.

Each of these DGs who brazenly ignored the law and rules of performance management are paid about R2 million per year. We are tired of the way in which they continually insult South Africans by flagrantly ignoring the rules. Today, the DA publishes the names of all the millionaire managers at DG and HOD level who couldn’t be bothered to comply. See the full list here.

By not submitting their midterm performance reviews, these millionaire cadres have made it impossible for the government to even try and monitor their performance. As usual, the only exception to this collapse is the DA-run Western Cape Government, where every single HOD completed their review on time. This is because, unlike the ANC, the DA runs an accountable government and appoints public servants on merit.

In contrast, not one ANC-led government complied. In the national government, 15 millionaire managers simply ignored the rules, followed closely by the collapsed ANC-led provincial governments of Gauteng (11), North West (11), the Eastern Cape (7), Mpumalanga (7), Northern Cape (5), Limpopo (2), KwaZulu-Natal (1), and the Free State (1).

In a demonstration of how just fundamentally performance management is ignored by the ANC, in Gauteng (David Makhura), the Free State (SisiNtombela), and North West (Job Mokgoro), even the offices of the Premier failed to conduct performance reviews.

It is not an accident that the majority of millionaire cadres deployed by the ANC routinely fail to comply with performance management requirements. The truth is that they do everything in their power to avoid any form of accountability for the fact that they earn multimillion Rand salaries while delivering nothing but rapidly accelerating state collapse.

It is high time that the government held millionaire managers accountable by cutting the bloated wage bill that is threatening the fiscal survival of South Africa. It can do so by implementing the DA’s proposal to freeze the wages of all managers and administrators for three years and reducing the number of millionaire managers in the public service by a third. This will save taxpayers R168 billion, which will prevent fiscal collapse and stave off junk status. At the same time, ANC-led governments need to ditch cadre deployment and follow the DA example of building a fit-for-purpose public service.

Issued by Leon Schreiber, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 3 December 2019