The ‘Mythology’ of Professionalising Local Government Amid the Politics-Administration Discourse

The Auditor General for South Africa has persistently made pleas to implement reforms in local government as the repeated transgressions have triggered numerous service delivery deficiencies that expose local communities to endless poverty and inequalities. Professionalising service delivery has been deemed a suitable alternative to mitigate institutional ills and reconfigure the local government service delivery landscape in South Africa. The South African government has taken a remarkable initiative to professionalise the public service by adopting different policy plans, inter alia, the National Framework Towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector released in October 2022 by the National Planning Commission (NPC) adopted within Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidential regime. To understand some of the dilemmas associated with professionalising the public service amidst the political administration interface in the local sphere, the researchers employed a conceptual analysis that is intended to establish the legitimacy of the professionalisation of the public service chant in South Africa. The narrative emanating from literature sources is the fear across the academic discourse and among scholars that while professionalising the public service is key to reforming and redirecting public administration, existing institutional problems may derail the government's plans to successfully achieve quality service delivery. The researchers argue that while the aforementioned policy plans are good theoretically, in practice they encounter various implementation challenges due to local government bureaucracy associated with limited skills and political will. Among other reasons apart from the political leadership and political will, is the notion of the politics-administration dichotomy, which thrives and is so pertinent to the administration of the state as well as the local government administration. The notion of politics-administration triggers unfortunate public service ethical dilemmas such as political meddling etc. These difficulties have the potential, in practice, to render efforts to professionalise the public service impossible. While the paper is theoretical, it carefully scrutinises existing literature and contributes to the existing body of knowledge professionalising the public service in South Africa as one of the topics and most pertinent debate in enhancing public service delivery.