What if SA Gov was run like GovSA Ltd! – Part 2

Famous American social anthropologist, Margaret Mead once said this about the role of government in society: “never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.” While Mead is more famous for her contribution to the sexual revolution of the 1960’s than she is for her contribution to political theory, her statement sounds a very pertinent warning, which is that on their own, governments have an inherent limitation to act effectively in the interest of the citizens. This limitation in exacerbated by the fact that at the heart of every government and the President Zuma-led government is not different, is politics and the struggle for the control of power. James Madison even warns that, “the essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse” While this may make governments sound like monsters, it simply means that for governments to gain legitimacy and to dispel any mistrust in the eyes of its citizens, governments must be seen to be accountable and responsible. Group CEO Zuma’s policies, which can otherwise be termed value propositions, must clearly outline the value that GovSA Ltd intends to add to the lives of the people at the end of his current four-year term and what measures he intends putting in place to deal with those who abuse the power he as Group CEO has entrusted unto them.

GovSA Ltd’s Value Proposition

All companies must have a value proposition which seeks to define the unique benefits that will be built into the products and services they put on offer. Every compelling value proposition starts with a thorough segmentation, meaning GovSA Ltd would have to do a detailed segmentation of the SA market, looking at both the citizens and the general population. The business intelligence department (Stats SA) ought to serve as a major source of information necessary to achieving this segmentation, providing such critical information as the changing size of our population, gender split of the population, income levels of the population, among many other dimensions .

GovSA Ltd must also have a clear value proposition defining how it intends to package and deliver services to its customers, the citizens and the general population of South Africa. Each division of GovSA Ltd ought to design a specific value proposition based on the overall vision that is yet to be defined by the Group CEO, which vision in turn should be guided by the overall plan as defined by the Strategic Planning division (so far only a green paper on what the role of this division will play has been put to Parliament). Over and above the definition of the service offering, other key elements of the value propositions of the different divisions of GovSA Ltd would include the nature of the after-sales service which GovSA Ltd wishes to offer. Another critical element of the value proposition relates to pricing, i.e. is GovSA Ltd intending to offer its services at a low cost or charge a premium. Additional considerations for the value proposition relate to the distribution of the services themselves, or put differently, the ease with which the customers (citizens and the population in general) can access the services offered by GovSA Ltd. If one were to do a swot-analysis of President Zuma’s government, service delivery and policing would arguably feature at the top of the list of weaknesses, among a list of many other weaknesses. High levels of crime and HIV/AIDS would be high on the list of threats currently facing our country, among the many other threats.

Service Delivery

President Zuma would therefore have to put his Group CEO hat on in an effort to come up with a value proposition regarding both service delivery and policing. Most of the services delivered by government usually have a price tag thus, once the value proposition regarding service delivery has been defined, it must be very clear to the general population that the value they stand to derive from buying these services somehow is equal to or ideally, exceeds the cost involved in purchasing those services. Ultimately service delivery depends on the quality of people’s skills & attitude as well as the infrastructure and technology used to deliver those services. Key to government’s success towards effective service delivery, is that it must put its citizens first therefore the South African government’s philosophy of “Batho Pele – People First” seems to be inspired by government’s desire to put its citizens first. A study titled “Integrating Service Delivery Across Levels of Government: Case Studies of Canada and Other Countries” co-authored by Professors J. Roy and J Langford found that there are “two trends driving a global demand to integrate the delivery of citizen-oriented services across levels of government. First, government agencies are adopting a citizen-centric philosophy in the delivery of their services because they see better outcomes and because technological advances make it easier to do. And second, governments, nonprofits, and the private sector are all increasingly using collaborative networks across organizational and political boundaries to do business because they have found the network model dramatically improves their effectiveness.” Many have applauded the SA Revenue Service (SARS) for the introduction of an electronic, online tax-filing service. The e-filing service serves as one of the best examples of how government is using technology to enhance the delivery of the tax filing service. To be sure, e-filing will also make government more effective in collecting the taxes due from its citizens. Taking other key government services online would leap-frog government’s service delivery efforts and standards. Imagine therefore being able to book for your driver’s license renewal online or being able to track online the progress of a case the police are handling on your behalf. The study quoted above also gives other pointers about critical factors necessary for the success of technology-enabled service delivery. Chief among these are the need for a single service provider across all levels of government, coupled with a single government portal providing a link between the citizens and the relevant government department(s).


Policing

Policing, is one of the services which are largely delivered by government to the population in general free of any direct charges( the police derives it’s funds from taxes), meaning government derives little if any revenue at all for delivering this service. One of the key elements of effective policing, is community policing. Convetional police can never fight crime effectively on their own. In 1994, the Bureau of Justice Assistance in Washington DC published a study on community policing (“Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action”) and this document outlines two complimentary elements necessary for successful community policing strategies, namely “community partnership” and “problem solving”. The document goes on to explain these two elements as follows: “to develop community partnership, police must develop positive relationships with the community, must involve the community in the quest for better crime control and prevention, and must pool their resources with those of the community to address the most urgent concerns of community members. Problem solving is the process through which the specific concerns of communities are identified and through which the most appropriate remedies to abate these problems are found.” The South African government’s value proposition regarding policing must therefore include a strong community participation component. To get back to Margaret Mead’s point, government alone will not solve social problems, the role of the individual within the community therefore is key in spefically solving the crime problem, among many social problems which exist.

If Group CEO Zuma and GovSALtd are to prove successful over the next three and a half years until the next general elections, he would be well advised to make sure that technology is at the heart of his service-delivery plan and that strong partnerships are forged between government departments and the community in general.

(to be continued)