Building Democratic Development State

MEC Mbali Hlophe

When I started my term as the MEC for Sport, Arts, Culture, and Recreation, it was the beginning of the journey of helping our nation to build a capable state and enhance the agenda of social radical economic transformation. However, the government is a structural bureaucratic structure that operates within the paradigm of legislation, people’s will and executive authority. The inception of my term showed determination and willingness to undertake the journey of transforming the sporting fraternity in Gauteng, helping the creative industries to address issues of copyrights and performance rights and boosting the service delivery of libraries in our communities.

Furthermore, I am also committed to building social cohesion and nation-building.

The Department of Sport, Arts, Culture, and Recreation is the capable department with its workforces to delivering social cohesion and addressing social ills of our society, including deconstructing the legacy of colonial and apartheid systems.

In 2019, Premier David Makhura outlined the objectives of the six administration which serve as the guiding mechanism for our Department to achieving our objective and the National Development Plan (NDP) objectives. The Premier asserted that the following are objectives of the six administrations; · Economy, Jobs, and Infrastructure · Education, Skills Revolution and Health · Integrated Human Settlements and Land Release · Safety, Social Cohesion and Food Security · Building a Capable, Ethical and Developmental State Moreover, to achieve the objectives, set by the Premier and to avoid the unprecedented policy and strategy contradiction between provincial objectives and our department objective, the department (SACR) had to restructure from its current form and structure. To ensure policy coherence and objectives of the sixadministration restructuring of the department (SACR) is fundamental. I, therefore on 2019 July, tasked the team which includes various units of the department, amongst the team, includes the Human Resource, some Chief Directors and IGR unit.

In my address with the department staff, I have assured that the restructuring of the department does not mean to displace people from the department or severely frustrate the staff. The restructuring meant to boost our capabilities to improve our service delivery.

Of course, it does not need a rocket scientist to observe that the department staff is demoralised, however, this is not to say that it is solely because of the department, surely there are also external social facts that interfere with them exercising their full potential and capacity to work and be the social change of the department.

Again, the staff does not have to stress with the restructuring of the department, as it is meant to assist the Weberian Bureaucratic System to be in a better position to fully implement the envisaged tasks from the National Development Plan, the six administration objectives and our constitutional democracy imperatives enshrined in our section 9 of our constitution-building equal society. It is our responsibility to build a developmental

state, part of the requirement for building a democratic state is having patriotic government workers. Therefore, restructuring the department underpins the imperatives of building a national democratic society with the characteristics of the development state.

By restructuring, we do not mean to purge or marginalise some staff, but we meant to harness the department (SACR) to function in the best interest of the people. Of course, looking at supporting capabilities of staff and improve their skills to be better government workers guided by the spirit of social transformation.