It is widely accepted that in mapping out their development paths, all countries are guided by, among other things, consideration and recognition of the specificity of their socio-economic, political and cultural realties. It is also a given (at least theoretically) that governments understand the issues and realities of their relational attachment with and to the international socio-economic and political trends and the limitations and/or enhancement capacity of such on the choices each country can make as sovereign states.
This week I want to broadly look at the choices we have made over the years as a country, with respect to mainly public service reforms. In doing so I want to also throw in my contentions on the relevance of these choices and how our ability to maximise on attaining their goals could be explained, in part by our specific conditions as referred to above and the realities of the relational attachment to the larger international systems. This country has pursued a number of reform measures since independence. Over the years we have embraced, public service reform measures such as Organization and Management, Parallel Progression, decentralization, Work Improvement Teams, privatization, Performance Management Systems, Balanced Score Card and others.
I will not go into details of what each entailed and neither will I discuss the stated objectives of each of these reforms in this article. I just want to posit that each of these were a component of some larger or broad reform measures that ordinarily would be best adapted and implemented as a collective. My sense of it is that when we chose the above reforms measures we probably narrowed our pick on just a limited aspect of the broader reform measure and in my view this was neither a good or bad thing necessarily. It would be a good thing if the choice was, firstly guided by our specificity and uniqueness as a country, and secondly, if the same choices did not upset the relational attachment with and to the international systems that have always been decisive in defining our development path as a nation. If however we choice reform aspects that did not respond well to our specificity and uniqueness or if the same choices did not fit in well with our key relational attachments and their limitations and/or enhancement capacities to ensure their smooth implementation, then we would have made bad choices.
What then is the issue about bad or good choices? When we make good choices on which reform measures could be pursued and implemented with maximum rewards, we are able to see through the attainment of the reform measures objectives and see marked improvements in our public service, with improvements in productivity levels, attitudes, ethical & moral conduct and general recognizable impacts on the economic development of the country. We would be able to confidently show the measurability of these successes and easily evaluate the impact and tease out our way forward from the experiences. Are we or can we confidently, bask in the glory of the impacts of any of the reforms mentioned earlier? I suspect not, because, notwithstanding any discernable positives associated with any of these, I want to argue that we have not maximized on what was on offer from implementing these reforms.
Of course, the extent to which each of the reforms would have measured to either the specificity/uniqueness or relational attachment will vary by each reform measure, but I want to argue that at a general level we may say most of the reforms were not compliant with our value systems as practiced within the public service itself and the very general traditional/cultural values and country environment (note that even at this level it’s a multiple and diverse cultural environment). I will also argue that we have tended to assume that the chosen measures for us will necessarily find easy attachment and be equally complemented by both our value systems and those of the international systems. The underlying assumption been that there is necessarily less contradiction between our value systems and those that we have to always keep in mind, either because we chose to, as a nation or simply because the international systems impose on us certain patterns and choices that we really don’t have the latitude to ignore or vary.
The extent to which we have achieved or failed to achieve meaningful results from implementation of these reforms is, in my view, partially explained by very inherent contradictions between the choices we have and our held value systems (bad or good) and the extent to which, despite any efforts at national level, the international value systems are invariably the overall determinants of the measurement scales and standards. Let me admit here that I am not zeroing on the details of the arguments nor even those of my assertions in any specific manner and this may not give you the reader enough opportunity to appreciate my doubts on the choices we made. I am however, of the view that some of those details are well known and here I am just attempting to tease the general rules that we often leave behind and assume they are taken care of. To that extent I will obviously appreciate different viewpoints.
Are we then different, that we can choose limited aspects of broader reforms and easily and productively infuse them into our public service environment with minimal constraints? My answer here is no and recognition of our uniqueness will not always be enough to allow us to pick our own preferred medicine. Are we different, that we can almost at will ignore the impact and more often regulatory power of the value systems of our international relational attachment, on not only the choices we make, but more importantly, our ability to maximize on the intended goals and objectives of the reform measures we prefer. Again I am inclined to answer in the negative and say our reforms at both civil service and local government level cannot go against the international current. It is difficult enough to safe yourself on a fast flowing water current, but when you even try to oppose it, it will be an impossible task and a suicidal choice.
