A skills audit conducted by the Department of Communications (DOC) has shown the average performance rating of directors, deputy-directors and senior managers in the department has been approximately 50% for the past three financial years.
This was revealed in communications minister Yunus Carrim's reply to a parliamentary question posed by Inkatha Freedom Party MP, Liezl van der Merwe.
Carrim pins the underperformance of the senior staff on "complexities and delays associated with key projects that were set to be achieved in the strategic plan of the department".
"The bursary scheme is currently being used to ensure that employees at all levels take up academic programmes that are relevant to their areas of work. At times, employees are also sent on short programmes to enhance their skills," says Carrim.
Van der Merwe has responded by saying a 50% performance rate is "absolutely shocking" and there should be consequences. "The auditor-general has pointed to the fact that a lack of consequence for poor performance is one of the reasons for the department's poor performance," she says.
"There is no excuse for under-performance. When one considers, for example, that an increase in broadband penetration is linked to an increase in the GDP, it is astonishing that we would tolerate this type of under-performance from the management of DOC. The failures directly jeopardised South Africa's economic growth. There can be little doubt ICT development in our country has not prospered, as it has elsewhere in the world and even here on the African continent."
Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister of communications, Marian Shinn, says the performance rating reflects the lack of leadership from the previous ministers of communications. In July, Carrim took over from embattled former communications minister, Dina Pule, who left a string of unfinished projects behind.
"[The performance rating reflects] that, for years, the government has not grasped the importance of ICT to SA's economic growth and social development, and does not put pressure on the DOC or [its] ministers to perform," says Shinn. She notes this aspect is changing, but says the inertia and uncertainty that was endemic in the department was due to lack of vision and drive from the top, and was aggravated by a poorly skilled executive management.
"Blaming it on complexities shines the light on the inadequate skills level in the department and the inability to grasp the key issues and drive them," she says. "For example, the delays in digital terrestrial television (DTT) caused by ministerial interference in choosing a standard, [persisting] policy confusion and lack of drive. The external advice was there, but the DOC's inexperience and poor skills level meant they lacked confidence to make the right choices."
Shinn says she will meet with DOC officials today, when she will demand answers for the poor performance rating.
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