Public Service Amendment Bill [B13B—2023]:
Submission of public comment to the National Council of Provinces
Submitted by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and The Ethics Institute (TEI)
30 June 2025
PARI, with the Ethics Institute (TEI), recently made a submission to Parliament on the Public Service Amendment Bill. This is the primary piece of legislation regulating the conduct of public servants in national and provincial departments in South Africa.
PARI and TEI support the Bill, which contains some important changes to the roles and responsibilities of our political leaders versus administrative leaders in the management of departments. For example, several changes to the legislation move authority and responsibility for administration, appointments, and HR management from the executive authority of a national or provincial department (political head) to the departmental head (i.e. the Director-General in the case of national departments). The Act also bars senior public servants from holding political office.
We hope these amendments will better distinguish political roles from public administrative roles, reducing inappropriate political interference in the operational work of government, and helping to promote more stable working relationships between political and administrative leaders. We welcome government moving forward with concrete legal reforms, and we hope to see further movement toward a public administration that serves the people of South Africa. For example we would like to see the introduction of appropriate, transparent checks and balances in appointments and dismissal processes for DGs and heads of departments. This is a reform that was called for as far back as 2012 – in Chapter 13 of the National Development Plan.
