{"id":876340,"date":"2026-09-21T08:54:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T06:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=876340"},"modified":"2026-09-21T08:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T06:54:07","slug":"big-test-coming-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/876340\/big-test-coming-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Big test coming for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The newly signed Public Service Commission (PSC) Act is a positive step for South Africa, but an increased budget and willingness to prosecute may be necessary for it to be effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Act gives additional powers to the existing Public Service Commission to monitor the actions of South Africa’s municipalities and public entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that municipalities can now be compelled to report on how they implement decisions, and obstructing the PSC could bring fines or jail time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business Leadership South Africa CEO, Busi Mavuso, said the Act was an important tool for South Africa to improve municipal service delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The PSC will have the power to robustly impose changes to improve service delivery,” she said. “No longer will it be a body that just writes reports that gather dust.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the new Act would give the PSC “real teeth” to enforce good governance and improve how the country’s public sector functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The PSC Act enables the PSC to direct executive authorities in public entities to report back on progress in implementing decisions,” she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Previously, its decisions could be largely ignored with no consequences.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PSC was established in 1996 to “promote the constitutionally prescribed values and principles governing public administration,” the commission said in its mission statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission acts as an independent body and is required to report at least once a year to the National Assembly on the functions of public entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the commission has existed for many years, the new PSC Act gives it additional powers to oversee South Africa’s municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that while this is a positive step for South Africa, the Act will need to be adequately enforced to create meaningful change in service delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A test for the PSC<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said the PSC has previously struggled to fulfil its mandate, and now has a much larger role to fill with the new Act being implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The PSC has in the past seen resources diverted away from it, forcing it to cut back staff even while its workload was growing,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was already struggling to monitor national and provincial government \u2013 the addition of 257 municipalities and several other public bodies will stretch its resources even further.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that the commission could require a larger budget to adequately handle the larger workload it now faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I cannot see the PSC becoming effective without meaningful increases in its budget,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also noted that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) would have to work with the PSC to ensure that obstruction cases are suitably prosecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So while the legal architecture is stronger, we still need to see whether it will be able to make a difference at the coalface of municipal service delivery.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obstructing the PSC is a criminal offence, which can result in up to 12 months’ imprisonment, a fine of up to R50,000, or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PSC Act is one of several new laws which have been recently enacted to improve South Africa’s service delivery and municipal performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Public Service Amendment Act was introduced last year, bringing new laws for the appointment of civil servants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Public Administration Management Amendment Act was also enacted to establish new rules for the tender process and promote ethical conduct in the public sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Together, these three pieces of legislation amount to a significant overhaul of the rules governing the civil service,” Mavuso said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The hard work now lies ahead to turn these powers into real effectiveness. And that cannot be done by one department alone \u2013 it needs all the state monitoring and oversight machinery as well as the criminal justice system to be effective.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa has new laws to improve the country’s collapsing municipalities\u2014but whether or not the government can enforce them, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":853390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2101928054675169441","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2211803706306695","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17991211206051707","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15351,17507,26579,6515],"class_list":["post-876340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-blsa","tag-busi-mavuso","tag-psc-act","tag-public-service-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876340"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876360,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876340\/revisions\/876360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}