ISSN: 2068 –5459 ADMINISTRATIO

Abstract: Post-apartheid South African government came up with stringent measures of ensuring the notion of good governance. This notion is to be achieved through a system that is fair and characterized by elements of transparency. The major purpose is to ensure that public resources are utilized to the benefit of the South African citizens, hence the delivery of services to the recipients. These measures exist in line with established state institutions to monitor compliance and efficiency of the government administration. As way of promoting such notion and strengthening good governance through performance of state Departments, the post-Mbeki administration introduced new government Departments as well as the establishment of the new unit in the Presidency called the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). The unit has been in existence for some years now. State Departments and municipalities in the country continue to get qualified audit reports and adverse audit opinions from the Auditor- General of South Africa (AGSA). This is despite the existence of measures (accountability and ethical practices) and institutions of ensuring good governance and transparency in the country. This article investigates the roles of the South African institutions in monitoring good governance and the extent at which these institutions experience functional limitations to fulfill their constitutional mandate. The argument is that there are inconsistencies between the institutions of monitoring and the real complex public administration environment which involves the institutions, politicians, and public officials.

Keywords: complex; good governance; monitoring; public governance; evaluation

Post-apartheid South Africa developed some of the most ambitious systems and institutions aimed at supporting constitutional democracy. Such were meant to ensure that the citizens of the country are beneficiaries of the long struggle for a share in the resources of their country. The assurance of the achievements of such objectives lies in the implementation of transparent systems that will ensure that the country’s resources are utilized in a manner that is transparent and accountable to the citizenry. It is not questionable that such institutions of ensuring good governance and accountability do exist. On the other hand service delivery protests were seen country wide, and alongside the protests, citizens were vocal about high level of corruption and abuse of state resources as well as the state’s failure to deliver services to the citizens associated with incompetency and poor public administration practices. These challenges are faced by the country despite the existence of the institutions of democracy and governance which operates as watchdogs of service delivery goals. This article therefore argues that the complex political environment and the public administration environment in which these institutions operate are not compatible with each other and therefore such limits the mandate of delivering services to the people. This article will therefore attempt to argue a link of public governance from the perspective of monitoring, the role of monitoring institutions in democracy and their weaknesses in that line.

Good governance is characterized by the results that are seen to be satisfactory to the citizenry. However, Sebola & Tsheola (2020, p. iv) argues that it is necessary” to acknowledge that the relationship between public administration and governance is complex in the context of the long standing and unresolved interactions between society and nature”. Dlamini and Migro (2016) argue that Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) have become a significant part of the new management and accountability tools for fast tracking service delivery and ensuring hands-on performance by political leaders, government departments, ministries and extra-ministerial public service office bearers. It is believed that when M&E is completed, data collected should be used to take remedial actions that should be considered compulsory. Abrahams (2019:1) posits that M&E can inform and make sense of a complex contextual environment, and have the potential to obfuscate, to complicate and or to over-simplify complex situations and practices. It is a must that M&E at government level is conducted at all organisational units, projects and programmes (Ijeoma, 2011) to ensure that government projects are implemented as planned and scheduled (Kabonga, 2019). This will help government to have an idea and take a decision on whether policy choices made are delivering to the citizen or not. However, in South Africa, the achievement of policy outcomes with regard to monitoring and decisions derived from that has been a problem. Mwangi, Nyang’wara and Kulet (2015) are of the view that there are various factors that impede the success of M&E in government departments. That emanates from semantic confusions in government literature in that the use of the word “results” is not clear whether it refers to outcomes (services) or impacts (effects). In itself that provides what Nkuna (2012) regard as contextual complexity. In that’s context, systems tend to interpret circumstances in terms of concepts from the point they are standing and such presents challenges for M&E. Currently in South Africa the outcome-based approach to deliver services has been adopted. Yet there is not yet a common understanding on what constitute an outcome. The interpretations of such have therefore created confusion into the minds of civil servants and those involved in service delivery processes. While such confusions are limited to public officials, there are also external confusions emanating from the complex political environment within which public administration operates. Van Vuuren (2014) argues that despite the existence of pieces of legislation, code of conducts and administrative frameworks to promote good governance, the South African government struggles to cope with acceptable delivery mandates to its citizen. This is despite the existence of the Government-Wide Monitoring and Evaluation System (GWM and ES) which was adopted in 2006 that according to Cloete and de Coning (2014) has the potential to improve public policy outcomes in South Africa. While previously that did not show good policy outcomes, the post-Polokwane African National Congress (ANC) administration saw a need to introduce a new Ministry in the Presidency called the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) and continued by Jacob Zuma until he was recalled in 2018 in a karma fashion of the 2007 outcomes. The M&E was probably thought of as a plan by which service delivery outcomes will be fast tracked. That has however increased public mistrust on government administration that later came to be characterized by more violent service delivery protests and “negative” audit outcomes. The challenge in this case does not lie with the government in power per se, but the failure of both political office bearers, public managers and public servants to understand the complex environment within which they operate. This is in line with modern thinking in the field of public administration that there must be a thin line that must be drawn between politics and public administration as a government activity (Peters & Pierre, 2012). However, the efficiency and autonomy given to institutions that are monitoring is often limited and vulnerable to state abuse.

The principles of public governance are clearly spelled out as selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness; honesty and leadership (International Federation of Accountants, 2001; Ndou, 2016; Silima, 2016). In the South African context, that culminates from the process and structures that will ensure that public governance live up to the constitutional provision. Such in is inculcated in Chapter 3 (Co-operative Government) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. Mathebula (1999) however found that human elements always have a bearing on the extent to which statutory public governance structures go about carrying their mandate. All these principles are by implication defined in terms of the responsibilities accorded to each public official. Moreover, it is expected that any public official holding a public office shall identify his professional duties in line with the constitutional principles enshrined as such together with the provisions of section 195 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. Ahmad (2008, p. 18) however argues that the political and social realities of the “South” are by far more complex than assumed by the international development diagnosis and prescriptions. There are critical emerging issues in the public administration discourse that makes the implementation of any plan by the public officials or other relevant authorities impossible or rather complicated to execute. Often such issues compromise the agreed governance principles. Even if public institutions of monitoring do exists in modern democracy, their effectiveness in such role is often questionable when looking at the real public administration environment as against the ideal one based on principles of fairness and justice. Harpur (2011, p. 1) indicates that there are three essential elements of effective regulation which includes; firstly, the law to develop standards; secondly, there must be sufficient monitoring of compliance to detect non-compliance and thirdly, there must be some form of motivation to avoid non-compliance. It is widely accepted that in most African countries, regulations are passed, and standards adopted but little compliance from the public service which is detrimental to service delivery achievements. The Department of Public Service and Administration (online) indicates that in South Africa, the Department of Public Service and Administration established a Compliance Monitoring System that would inculcate the culture of accountability and responsibility by the public service. While coming up with compliance monitoring systems are a good innovation by government, the challenge remains how effective are those monitoring system for compliance. The question often to be answered in this instance is to what extent are public institutions for monitoring carrying an authority to punish the public servants for failing to comply? As it is always said, impunity for wrongdoing across all sectors of society in South Africa remains a daunting challenge. This of course provides what this article calls the complex public administration environment.

Public administration in South Africa is based on democratic values and principles that assure the citizenship of the country a fair administrative process beneficial to all deserving members of the public. Yet the state and nature of public administration is determined by various factors that has a bearing beyond the state of policy making (Hassen, 2015). Such principles and values are by implication a foundation by which public administration must operate its functional tasks. Any operation that differs from such functions is but to be viewed as a contradiction of values underpinning a democratic process. Only the ideal public administration environment is likely to operate absolutely as a principled administrative process devoid of unfair practices and functions. The practical public administration environment has always shown that there are complex issues emanating from its practices which do not guarantee that absolute constitutional principled values can be conformed to by either the public officials or politicians. Institutions of monitoring governance are established as required by the democratic processes followed in particular countries simply because it is global requirement for ensuring democracy and acceptance in the global village. Mabidilala (2010, p. 9) argues that the South African government system (local) faces challenges that are both multi-facet and multi-dimensional. Peters and Pierre (2012) refer this as multiplicity of actors within the environment of public administration. This therefore calls for an approach that is holistic in addressing such challenges. Global Monitoring Report (2015/16) however reported that problems that are multi-dimensional and complex require specific subsystems that would tackle them appropriately. Most of the problems in this regard emanate from poor governance that ultimately leads to corruption which robbed people of their rights to access proper service delivery. Fukuyama (2015) argues that the success in eradicating corruption depends on the impartial democratic institutions, open elections and access to information. The realities in public administration environment have shown that the impartiality of democratic institutions have been considered to be a relative concept that can only be understood in context. Thus far, the impartiality of such institutions received applause from the ruling elite of the time and not before or after that era because the institutions will be serving their ruling mandate. As Epstein (2008, p. 498) put it that; it is not possible to shield administrative agencies in highly sensitive areas from various forms of factional and political influence that have little or nothing to do with technical expertise. Of relevance to this article, a focus would be on institutions of monitoring for good governance in South Africa which include Auditor-General, Public Protector, Public Service Commission, National Prosecuting Authority and the South African Police Service Commercial Branch. However, all these institutions are to operate in an environment that is enabling and impartial. However, their functions are said to be effective and efficient when investigating or dealing on cases of people that are not politically influential. They are therefore operating based on various limitations that intimidate their efficiency in tasks expected. This is so because most of these institutions have been in the past accused of being agents of “dirty” political and power squabbles (van Vuuren, 2014).

The Public Service Commission is constitutionally responsible for monitoring and evaluating the transformation process in the country. Mudzamba and Sibanda (2012) argue that the Public Service Commission in South Africa is playing a leading role in building an ethical public service committed to good governance principles. In terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996; the Commission must:

However, constitutionally the functions of this Commission are simple and clear, there are justifiable complexities that limit the function of the Commission as constitutionally mandated. Most of the Commission’s functions are by nature advisory with recommendations that are not assumed to be compulsory to those expected to implement them. Hence Sebola (2012, p. 410) postulates that monitoring institutions such as Public Service Commission faces functional limitations associated with bureaucratic problems, political interventions and interferences which prohibit accountability. On the other hand, there have been problems associated with failure to implement recommended solutions from the Commission by the public service. Such attitude by the public service result into the ineffective functioning of the Commission.

The Auditor-General has a unique role in monitoring for good governance in public financial terms. Pillay (2004, p. 595) mentioned that this agency can follow up on “red flag” issues picked up during the routine auditing. The role of the Auditor-General is constitutionally set as to ascertain, investigate and audit all financial statements of all government department at national, provincial and local level and any statutory body or any other institution which is financed wholly or partly by public funds. However, the role of this institution is significant, but it is said to be ex post de facto because the Auditor-General always intervened after the damage has been done to public resources. That is not the only limitation of this institution. The other limitation is that it provides recommendations only which are not enforced by the institution itself as only Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) can after a thorough scrutiny recommend harsh steps to be taken against the offender. The internal structures within institutions that supposedly must deal with audit recommendations are complex to an extent that they are characterised by shifting blames and always have a way of giving excuses during accountable stage run-ups (Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). Those responsible have a way of diverting attention of dealing with real issues and create the environment that become chaotic for ideal public administration process to take place for good governance. The Municipal Audit Outcome of 2010/2012 released during 2012 reflect the extent to which lack of commitment to those supposedly had to act on audit recommendations dominate the state of poor governance in South African municipalities. Brynard (2007) has put it clear that if there is an aspect in the practice of public administration that will remain difficult to assess is commitment of the concerned individuals.

Constitutionally the Public Protector’s office was established by an Act of Parliament in South Africa to investigate complaints against government agencies and officials. The office receives and investigates complaints from members of the public against agencies and officials and has the power to investigate and recommend corrective measures (Mafunisa & Sebola, 2014). To a particular extent, the complainants’ anonymity is ensured. The functions of the Public Protector in terms section 182 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa are to investigate any conduct in state affairs, or in the public administration in any sphere of government, that is alleged or suspected to be improper or to result in impropriety or prejudice; report on that misconduct; and take appropriate remedial conduct.

The efficiency of this office is often only considered when successful appropriate measures were taken on recommendations made by the Public Protector. The South African government has never been consistent on recommendations made by the Public Protector until recently in the case involving the President of the Republic of South Africa (Mr. Jacob Zuma), who have lost favour with the majority through the State Capture Report investigated by Adv Thuli Madonsela. Although the case had merit Advocate Thuli Madonsela was not spurred criticism of promoting white monopoly capital by pursuing Jacob Zuma. Although the evidence existed that the President was responsible for maladministration, lack of proper oversight, corruption and collapse of state entities and the dwindling economy (Madonsela, 2019), it became clear that Adv Madonsela risked to be unfit for a public office. Lack of that consistency can be attributed to the “agentic” shift compounded by the complexities within governance in that some of the cases by the Public Protector receive much publicity than others (Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). Such shift is a sign of succumbing to complexities with the practice of public administration that is characterised by turbulence. The government has been to a certain extent failed to ensure its objectivity and chose standpoint of biased characters. That has happened in most circumstances where influential political office bearers were involved. Failure to act as such has often compromised the integrity of the office. More often Public Protectors who pursued the independency of their office by investigating highly influential political office bearers were either suspended or commissioned for their worth to hold public offices. In a situation where the investigation involves a public office bearer, the parliament will normally make more noise over the matter and attend to it biasedly and quickly to it so that they could be seen to be acting in public interests. This is even though most public office bearers who act dishonestly did that on verbal instructions of their political office bearers.

Organizationally, the National Prosecuting Authority office is composed of the National Director as Head of Prosecuting Authority appointed by the President, as Head of the national executive and Directors of Public Prosecutions and Prosecutors as determined by an Act of parliament. The Prosecuting Authority has the power in terms of the relevant legislation to institute criminal proceedings on behalf of the state, and carry out any necessary functions incidental to instituting criminal proceedings. The independency of this office as granted by legislation is that it must implement national legislation without fear, favour or prejudice. It is however that in South Africa the political nature of this office taints its credibility when coming to its expected independent character. The nature of the appointment of the Director of Public Prosecution by the President of the country makes the existence of the office to be vulnerable to political biasness. When the office investigates influential politicians who are not linked to the ruling President at personal level, it is highly likely that supporters of the investigated politician will lobby for support and accuse the office for pursuing political conspiracies against the member, while on the other hand if the investigation involve a presidential loyalists, the Director of Public Prosecution run the risk of being mistrusted by the ruling President. This office is likely to investigate and prosecute successfully only those individuals in the country that are not politically influential and whose impact into the countries financial loss is not considerable as major. Therefore, like all other state institutions in South Africa for monitoring good governance, this office experience functional limitations. In South Africa, currently the self-handing over by President Jacob Zuma to serve his 15 months jail for contempt of court had varied reactions with those viewing law enforcement as biased and those perceiving the law to be supreme. Both Judges and Prosecutors involved in such cases are by others to be fulfilling the law while others view them as political pawns of certain groupings.

This unit operates in terms of the mandate provided through the Special Investigating Unit and Tribunals Act, (74 of 1996). The Unit deals on matters referred to them by the President of the Republic of South Africa and that include serious maladministration in the public sector institutions; improper conduct by elected officials; unlawful expenditure of public funds; unapproved transactions and unlawful conduct which causes serious harm to public interest.

Parliamentary Monitoring Group (2010, pp. 1-3) reported that this Unit made a breakthrough on housing related cases between the periods 2006-2009, in which instance government and municipal employees benefited themselves with low-cost housing than targeted beneficiaries. However, this office sound effective in following up on making sure that no South African citizen benefit from the proceeds of crime, but little is known of where the perpetrators end. That is where the Unit as a system by itself remain questionable if it has not at times succumbed to the complex environment of public administration it is operating within (Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). It is only known of how they are investigating and arresting the perpetrators of crime, but little is known of their successful conviction rates. The appointment of its Head by the President of the country also makes its impartiality to be doubted by those pursued for investigation. Like the South African Police Service, the Unit may secure successful arrests, but their functional limitation may emanate from the justice system of the country.

Khalo (ndp: 10) stated that this committee has a responsibility to oversee the effective, efficient, and economical and transparent management of government departments. Their most significant duty is to evaluate the Auditor-General’s reports and often to push for perpetrators to be brought to book, in which their sanction may include recommending salary deductions, demotions and dismissals. However, the Committee is believed to be effective in ensuring accountability by public departments, accountability by departments were done on visual media in which Accounting Officers were interrogated, but little was heard of sanctions implemented against those identified. The effective functioning of this Committee cannot be confirmed since in most cases functional limitations were experienced even by Accounting Officers who failed to act on perpetrators because some corruptive activities in government department included almost the entire departments and their units. That implies that an Accounting Officer acting against the whole department would find himself working alone or having to recruit new personnel. In all fairness that become a reasonable functional limitation faced by both the institutions of governance and Accounting Officers of Public departments. Recently in South Africa activities of SCOPA are no longer vocal like they used to be in the last years.

The complexity of public administration environment has a long history of existence and with no signs that its stability will be achieved in the long run. Of course, from those who propagate for complexity from theoretical discourse perspective contend that this cannot be wished away where systems are involved (Stacey, 1996; Cilliers, 1998, 2000; Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). Some of the complexities of the public administration environment may also be linked to the practice’s ability to be linked to a specific discipline that will solve its complicated functional activities that takes shape beyond rational engagement. Public administration environment is a practice that requires a multi-disciplinary approach and one area of study in which it is viewed more as an administrative study cannot be a solution to its complex problems. In that its effectiveness need to be realised at a local space being where service delivery is taking place. On the other hand, recipients of public services being complex on their own right as human social systems (Stacey, 1996; Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). There are basically three major causes of the complex public administration environment which includes however not limited to politico-administrative complex, politico –legal complex and the ever-changing environmental complex.

The ideal public administration environment implies a separation between public administration and politics (Peters & Pierre, 2012). To this extent, this assumption has never proved to be practical in the normal practice of public administration activities. The dominant view that still prevails today from those subscribing to the writings of Woodrow Wilson (1883) and Max Webber (1924) hold that there should be a distinction between the two (Carboni, 2010, p. 367). Several authors in Public Administration have later argued from a theoretical perspective that the distinction is not possible (Jacobsen, 2006, p. 305; Mafunisa, 2004, p. 99; Tahmasebi & Musavi, 2011, pp. 131-135). Thornhill (2006, p. 796) argues that the critics of the dichotomy model failed after realizing that lack of distinction between the two lead to a high rate of government scandals and corruption. Yet it is the notion of corporative governance approach that castigate interface than hard dichotomy (Svara, 1985). Shaw (2010: 1) accepts that despite lack of clear, sufficient, and persuasive explanations of how politics often get s into the way of democratic government’s administrative decision making and institutional operations, but there is too much political intrusion which threatens the twenty-first century democratic governance. Thus far it is difficult to exclude the South African government institutional arrangements from such unacceptable democratic practice. The South African government is also struggling to separate the role of politicians from public officials. That often limits the independency of public officials to provide a fair public administration free from political intrusion.

Public administration as a practice implies legal compliance. It is believed to be an activity that should take place within the confines of the law. In South Africa, constitutionally, public administration is based on democratic values and principles which may not be compromised when coming to fair administration and service provision (Sebola, 2009, p. 1105). Public administrators are therefore implementers of the law as made by the legislators. As Shaw (2010, p. 4) notes the public officials are highly affected by both formal and informal rules of democratic government practices which expose them to varying constraints in the execution of their duties. To a certain extent public officials consciously implement unlawful political instruction due to the volatile political environment they found themselves in. It is in that notion that such public officials are caught up with the accountability responsibility complexity (Nkuna & Sebola, 2012). Systematically is due to the basis on how such public officials have come to office. As such a fact that most political heads operate their functions above the law subject public administration activity into a just political activity that can be bent to all directions as to when and how the politicians like it. More often than not siting politicians do not face legal prosecution when still in power. They are only legally liable after losing popularity.

Lorenz von Stein as one of the founders of Public Administration advocated that there was a need in the discipline for an interaction between theory and practice (Thornhill, 2006, p. 794). While the discipline itself is complex because of its multifaceted approach which often fails to cover all the critical knowledge required to be known by recipients, there is also a notable disjointed link between its theory and practice. Often the recipients of knowledge in this discipline are not made aware of the complex politico-administrative environment they will find themselves in, which ultimately render their knowledge acquired to be baseless and irrelevant. The discipline may teach them legal compliance in administrative environment while on arrival to real environment practitioners are exposed to verbal authoritative instruction that contradicts the values of public administration known to them in academic terms. From the organisational perspective point of view that is referred to as reality shock (Schein, 1996). Sebola (2018, p. 58) argues that “the learned content do not seem to apply clearly to the public administration environment, since the discipline and the practice are talking in different tongues”. The practice of public administration is not always in linear rationality like that of other modern sciences in that what is taking place in reality is always within the dimension of complexity. In that the theory as it exists do not always fit in the reductionist notion of a recipe kind of implementation.

The monitoring for good governance in public administration is likely to be relatively observed than absolute. While institutions of monitoring do exist in terms of international norms for public governance, such institutions often merely exist for compliance and recognition as required by the international community. Mabidilala (2010) listed challenges facing monitoring and evaluation which are and not limited to systematic factors, legislative factors, political factors, accountability systems, capacity skills and intergovernmental fiscal regime. A combination of all these factors is in all probability responsible for lack of coherent relationship between the practical public administration and the political environment. Sabatier and Mazmanian (Ndp: 538) note that it is acknowledged that when governments want a successful implementation of their programmes there are complexities and variety of factors that may either assure or prohibit successful implementation of such. In most instances there are more factors that inhibit implementation than those that assures it. The politicians are by virtue of their appointments expected to develop policies and at the same time ensures that those policies are adhered to as they are monitored by agencies that are said to be “independent” so as to ensure a fair public administration. International Federation of Accountants (2013) noted that principles of good governance which promote monitoring are to a greater extent user friendly to private sector than public which faces a complex range of political, economic and social constraints that subject them to different external constraints and influences. Therefore, an expectation of a fair monitoring for good governance in public administration without a biased political interventions and interferences is but a wishful dream. It is a conundrum that the notion of New Public Management (NPM) found itself in given the extent of the welfare related objectives of government. The systems of public administration are therefore often monitored for political purposes than for administrative efficiency.

Svara (ndp: 7) made an important note of the New Public Administration model which asserts the ethical obligation of administrators to promote the values of equity and participation in which public officials have a right to oppose and protect the interest of the politically powerless against the elected officials. But often in the real public administration environment of developing countries that becomes an unachievable objective. To a certain extent it has been noted that some politicians in such government command good accent and authority on public affairs matters than appointed public officials. Therefore, their functions of policy advice, operational delivery or corporate service delivery is likely to be hampered (Schreurs & Van den Abeele, ndp: 4). In that instance there is a likelihood of public officials having their skills and competency undermined to a level of taking unquestionable instructions from political heads. Good governance therefore simply becomes a talk of administrative science than a reality. There is a mixture of issues that fails a fair public administration to occur as envisaged. It mostly emanates from governments (politicians) need to take control of both the administrative and political processes without sharing such powers with other stakeholders. A centralist control approach in which appointments of heads of institutions of monitoring are politically considered than competency based does in all probability negatively affects all areas of service delivery. Notwithstanding that combination of competencies required for a given portfolio in administration are creating another complex dilemma (Nkuna, 2012). The degree to which such competences are packaged to give effect to a deliverable area remain a critical aspect in the sense that those responsible of recruiting for public service had to ensure suitability in relation to challenges that cooperative governance provide.

Manyak and Katono (2010) note that in developing countries there are problems about institutional control measures in which instance elected officials are instigators of poor governance through partisan appointments, meddling in strictly professional matters, victimizing suspects who strictly do not follow party line and protecting political loyalists and peers. This being the case poses functional limitations to institutions of monitoring for good governance. Madue (2014) mentioned that oversight institutions in South Africa such as the Auditor-General, Public Protector and Public Service Commission can be effective only if their recommendations can be implemented by government. This was echoed by Brynard (2007) when he raises issues with the multiplicity of actors within the public administration environment that hamper policy implementation. This implies that it is acknowledged at both practical and academic level that institutions of monitoring for good governance have functional limitations that prohibit the prevalence of the practice of a fair public administration.

This article argued that the practice of a fair public administration is impossible due to its complexities that cannot fit in to the current state of engaging the discourse beyond rationality. The complexities of such situation emanate from the incompatibility between the real public administration and the political environment. The South African government has put in place institutions meant to ensure that there is proper government accountability and effective service delivery mechanisms in place. The existence of such institutions is said to be making a little impact on its mandated duties.

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1 University of South Africa, South Africa, Address: Preller St, Muckleneuk, Pretoria, 0002, South Africa, Corresponding author: mokoko.sebola@ipaginstitute.co.za.

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