Performance management in crisis: can South Africa's governance rise to the challenge?

Daily Maverick

19-05-2025

A few days before Mother's Day I came across a meme that encapsulates the spirit of my mom. It said: 'For Mother's Day my mom would like the activism of her youth to not be for nothing.'
I let out a soft chuckle to myself as I shared the meme with my family, knowing the no-nonsense firecracker my mom was in her days as a young political activist, which she continues to be now in her sixties.
She is a woman who does not suffer fools and is uncompromising in her pursuit of what is right and equitable.
I hosted Mother's Day this year and had my parents and brother over for lunch. The conversation turned to the state of politics in our country and globally as we lamented the general sad state of things.
Chief among the problems is the absence of visionary and accountable leadership, which is needed to guide us out of this dark chapter of political regression.
Our conversation became spirited as we turned our attention to the lack of performance management and monitoring and evaluation in our country's governance.
Dr John Bester, a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Administration at North West University, defines performance management as a 'systematic approach for improving service delivery through evidence-based decision-making, continuous organisational learning as well as a focus on accountability for performance to achieve improved results for the public'.
It is hard to believe that we have a Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation to do just this, when scant evidence exists of its work and what it has achieved since its establishment in 2010. Ironically, this department was introduced by our most calamitous president, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma.
According to the department, its vision is to be a catalyst in achieving national development outcomes and impact in society.​
Among its values it lists:
being a learning organisation;
being a dynamic and development-oriented organisation, which continuously strives for excellent performance standards in serving the citizens;
being implementation-focused and results-oriented;
creating an enabling environment for staff to grow and be innovative;
promoting integrity, honesty and ethical conduct among public servants;
being disciplined, professional and committed to the fight against corruption; and
practising the Batho Pele principles.
Although there may be glimpses of this in the work of dedicated civil servants daily battling the odds to try to keep our government functional, evidence of the consistent application of these values is missing as our country limps from crisis to crisis.
Our government departments, parastatals and Chapter 9 institutions could certainly all use a shake-up in fostering a performance culture that will ferret out those not meeting their primary objectives of serving the people of South Africa according to standards of excellence and with integrity.
The question remains, is our minister of monitoring and evaluation bold enough to decisively meet the imperatives of her department? DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.