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Imperatives of professionalising public service

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Since Lesotho gained independence five decades ago, there have been frequent cases of political instability that drastically stifled anticipated development. While there is a tendency to blame all the ills to a weak political system, focus should also be on establishing whether public service competently and professionally carries out its mandate. Since Lesotho gained independence five decades ago, there have been frequent cases of political instability that drastically stifled anticipated development. While there is a tendency to blame all the ills to a weak political system, focus should also be on establishing whether public service competently and professionally carries out its mandate. This paper argues that competent and professional public service plays an indispensable role towards improving the economy of a country and strengthening the pillars of sustainable development and efficient governance.

Premised on profound reflection on minimal strides of public service in Lesotho, inferences are drawn that it failed to play the role entrusted to it because of the prevailing political patronage and weak government systems. It becomes clear, therefore, that, lack of professionalism in the public service in Lesotho will engender and perpetuate seemingly perennial political and socioeconomic perils. The paper is largely dependent on the literature on ethics and professionalism in the public service. Government official documents such as the Constitution and the Public Service Act of 2005 were also referred to as reliable sources that articulate the role of public officials.

Former and current senior public officials’ observations about the performance of the public service were purposively obtained. Based on overt lack of professionalism and weak government systems, this paper recommends that the public service in Lesotho should put in place good systems that will enable it to maintain required professionalism. It also recommends that continued tenure in office by top officials should be based on satisfactory performance.

The role of government is wide and influences, either positively or negatively, almost all the operations of other organisations within a country. Thus, the success of all organisations in a country largely depends on the efficiency of government. Among others, prevalence of professionalism in the public service is one of the necessary conditions towards enhanced efficiency of the government. The heightening consciousness among the members of the public about the lack of professionalism in the public service results from unscrupulous conduct of politicians and bureaucrats (Kuye and Mafunisa, 2003: 421). Since both politicians and bureaucrats serve in the public domain, they ought to account for every task that they discharge in the public interest. Relationship between politicians and bureaucrats should ideally enable prompt, responsive and impartial service delivery. Failure to professionally and ethically conduct the business of government erodes public trust, which ought to bond public service and the citizens.

The thesis that this chapter advances is that, a professional public service in Lesotho is an integral variable in securing stability of government because the public service plays an indispensable role in assisting governments to carry out their mandates and to implement their policies.

As Woodrow Wilson (1887: 198) contends, administration is the most obvious part of government, demonstrating that it is in action. Different regimes in Lesotho have neglected the responsibility to nurture a competent and professional public service. The prevailing nonconformity of public officials’ conduct with established standards, codes of conduct and policies are noticeable indicators depicting lack of professionalism in the public service. This problem has engendered a number of problems, including flawed government systems, unprofessional conduct, and political patronage, all of which have become very conspicuous. Broadbent and Laughlin (2012: 293) suggest that, systems in the public service should be geared towards defining, controlling and managing both the achievement of outcomes or ends as well as the means used to achieve the results.

The existence of effective systems in the public service is crucial towards enhanced performance and professionalism. Good systems have the potential to transcend regimes and generations and to promote sustainable efficiency in service delivery. Deficiencies in systems and professionalism in the public service in Lesotho are worsened by a constantly volatile political landscape which dates back to the beginning of the independence era. There is a dire need for public service in Lesotho to map out strategies towards its professionalization so that it can competently discharge its mandate. For this to be attained there ought to be a systematic approach on how professionalism is mainstreamed into the public service culture.

Conceptualising Professional Public Services
Public service is concerned with the business of government.  It deals with how the machinery of government should work for effective and efficient service delivery. Due to its wide scope, public service borders with virtually all areas that affect human life. Because public service touches on all aspects of citizens’ lives, all public officials need to adhere to professional values. This would ensure that public interests are prioritised above narrow interests of individual public officials.Professional public service is the springboard of sustainable development and stability in a country. It is based on professional public officials who possess required qualifications and also exhibit unreserved commitment, competence and maintenance of high professional standards. Professionalism is commonly understood to be concerned about the rules and standards governing the conduct of the members of a profession (Fattah, 2011: 65).

Professional public service would, thus, refer to public officials’ willingness to discharge their responsibilities under the guidance of the rules and standards that govern their conduct. Fatah (2011: 65) contends that the dearth of professionalism among the public servants has, in part, contributed to lack of citizens’ confidence in their officials, and is also a contributing factor in the emergence of weak and failed states that lack capacity. This observation was based on the research which showed that prospects of development and progress are bleak without credible, ethical and professional public organizations (Bagchi in Fattah, 2011: 65).  Because political stability is possible where there is sustainable development, it means that a professional public service is an indispensable ingredient in any attempt to establish and maintain a politically stable society.

In order to uphold high professional standards within the public service, public officials, as moral agents, should constantly maintain the highest professional standards. This is because the acid test of professionalism lies in the ability of professionals to diligently execute their duties to their clients (Hedahl, 2013:1). It is imperative of public officials, therefore, to responsibly serve the public to the highest professional and ethical standards. Based on this professional responsibility, which is underpinned by duty, it is reasonable to infer that public service is largely about the duties of government towards the citizens. The perpetual challenge confronting public service is building and maintaining professional culture. Often, efforts that are taken to cultivate a professional culture in the public service fail to reach fruition due to flawed strategies deployed.

Above all, the greatest challenge is lack of political will to support initiatives aimed at professionalising the public service. Inevitable results ensuing from lack of professional culture culminate in the lack of conformity between bureaucrats’ conduct and established policies, systems and standards. Studies on professionalism in the public service have immensely proliferated in the last three decades (Cooper, 2004:395). This is evidenced by the number of journal articles, conferences and training exercises on professionalism, which, at times, present professionalism in the public service as a complex phenomenon that is not easily implemented (Radhika, 2012:23).

At the hub of public service are skilled and knowledgeable technocrats who specialised in different areas relevant for discharging the business of government. Professionals subscribe to different value systems; this turns out to be another challenge threatening establishment of professional culture in the public service. There exists an asymmetrical approach in the emphasis and inculcation of professional values in different professions. It, therefore, follows that, each profession will emphasise particular professional values that best advance its professionalism. This calls for a concerted effort to train top bureaucrats on ethics and professionalism so that they become competent overseers for the entire public service.

According to Mafunisa (2008:81), unprofessional behaviour in the public service may be manifested under the following forms: covering up incompetence, fraud, bribery, corruption, sexual harassment, nepotism, victimization, subjective and arbitrary decisions, a disclosure of confidential information, tax evasion, speed money and inefficiency. Although the list can go on, the great concern is on the role of professionalism in the public service towards overcoming each of these challenges.

Kuye (2003:421) argues that a professional public official is the one who pursues values such as accountability, integrity, neutrality, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, representativeness, and equity in the procurement of good governance in the public service. As a means of realizing these values and mainstreaming professional culture in the public service, Mafunisa (2008:81) refers to codes of conduct as some of the viable means for promoting professional culture among the public servants. He goes on to give practical means of translating codes of conduct and other ethical principles into reality within the public service by emphasizing the importance of the following points:

l Principles for the promotion of ethical conduct; l Clear ethical standards; l The reflection of ethical standards in the legal framework;l Ethical guidance to public employees;l Political commitment to reinforcing the ethical conduct of public employees;l Senior public managers should demonstrate and promote ethical conduct.
Although the suggested points may be sound and plausible for cultivating professional culture in public service, their implementation may still be wanting. This may be reflected by lack of clear policies geared towards promoting professional culture in the public service.

In this way, each of them requires a careful consideration, and this calls for profound ethical knowledge and competency by public administrators at all levels. In relation to professional competency, Radhika (2012:25) quotes the ancient philosopher, Socrates, who contended that “knowledge and morality are interrelated and one cannot be moral if one does not know what morals are and what is good for mankind.” It is for this reason that, Socrates thought of virtue as the centrepiece of knowledge and argued that virtue is knowledge. Dvoráková (2005:173) postulates the following four ways through which professionalism within public officials can be saved and developed:

l Educational systems preceding the accession into the public sector, especially in the case of civil service appointments,l Training and development,l The acceptance of written regulations and the code of ethics of public administration employees,l The influence of supervisors and their leadership style
All of these four undertakings are indispensable towards successful integration of professional culture in the public domain. Their successful implementation depends, largely, on professional competency of those who pedagogically take others through them.
Ethics as a Basis of Professional Public Service

In order to make sense out of ethical and culture of professionalism in the public service, it is vital to explore relevant moral principles and values that would be instrumental towards the establishment of such culture. The reason for this approach is that ethics and professionalism in public service fall squarely under the domain of applied ethics.Culture of professionalism will only prevail in the public service if public officials are driven by a sense of duty. As deontological approach to ethics attests, what makes a human act ethically acceptable lies in the act itself, not the results that it produces. One of the renowned proponents of this theory is Immanuel Kant who used two imperatives to ascertain the morality of human act. Kant made a distinction between categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative, where the former is ethically binding while the latter has no ethical obligation (Rachels, 2007: 121). Categorical imperative is two pronged and is summarized thus:

l Always act in such a way that you can also will that the rule or maxim of your action should become a universal law;l Act so that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means. (Kant in Miller, Roberts and Spence, 2005: 65)It becomes evident from the first imperative that, a public official ought to be convinced by his action and wish that it can be universally applicable to persons who come across a similar situation.

The second imperative seeks to treat humanity as a kingdom of ends, where none can be used solely as a means to advance selfish interests of an individual. A deontologist public official is the onewho shuns corruption at all costs albeit aware of the personal gain and fortune that such corruption might bring into his life. Thus, if corruption is considered to be universally unethical, it should be abhorred under all circumstances.Ethics and professionalism in the public service can also be approached from the virtue ethics perspective. This approach emphasises that, moral agents ought to cultivate virtuous character traits. The approach was mostly shaped by Aristotle, who made a distinction between intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Virtue is learned and people acquire it over time through practice. Under virtue ethics, a person acts in a particular way and exhibits relevant virtue for the sake of morality itself (Christensen and Laegreid, 2011:461). Further, under this theory, public officials are expected to exhibit virtuous acts when they render services to their customers.

A public official who has cultivated a virtuous character, will at all times, strive to meet the interests of the public even if doing so does not benefit him or her. It is vital to make reference to African morality because in the world so interconnected, with people from different cultural and religious backgrounds, it is important to appreciate other ethical traditions (Murove, 2009: 14). Ubuntu, as an African moral theory that is widely acknowledged in sub-Saharan context, finds full expression in African languages in Southern Africa: motho ke motho ka batho babang  (Sesotho) or umntu ngumntu ngabay’ abantu (Xhosa); both statements can be literally translated as ‘a person is person through other persons’ (Munyaka and Motlhabi in Murove, 2009: 65). Ubuntu emphasises a constant need for human beings to act humanely towards others. It can also be referred to as an ideal stewardship theory.

Ramose (1999: 77) provides a profound reflection on ubuntu as a “quality of being”, or an indispensable human characteristics that underpins the primacy of the value of being a human. According to this perspective, a person who subscribes to ubuntu habitually cultivates a virtuous character by constantly performing good deeds that promote the wellbeing of others. Ubuntu has a great potential to promote professionalism in the public service by inculcating to public officials a sense of prioritising and promoting community wellbeing above selfish interests of an individual such as political patronage, nepotism and favouritism.

By ; Napo C. Khasoane

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Insight

Shining Like Stars: Part One

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Last week, in a piece titled “Hope Springs Eternal”, I wrote about the relative values of (leftist) political commitment and Christian faith in a world that is beset with violence, poverty and oppression. Now I’m offering a review of a book by Lindsay Brown titled Shining Like Stars: The power of the gospel in the world’s universities, which explores the work of evangelical students in propagating the Christian faith in some of the world’s most dangerous countries, such as Columbia, China, Russia, Sudan and the DRC. Countries where despair seems to be a pretty rational response to the lives that huge numbers of people are forced to lead. I shall concentrate on cases where that effort to spread the Christian faith is allied to a commitment to agitate for better political and social conditions.

As an aside, I begin by quoting Will Shoki, editor of the invaluable online opinion journal Africa is a Country. I know I’ve mentioned him at least once in previous weeks, but that is because they are so good. In a piece Shoki wrote for the edition of March 4th this year, he records the Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s reference to “the courage of hopelessness”, whereby “it is only when we despair and don’t know anymore what to do that change can be enacted.” Shoki adds: “I have never been quite sure what this means — in fact, I have never been quite sure what Zizek means about anything.” Which is to say, Zizek is a pretty difficult read, but his work is a nut it’s well worth cracking.

Be that as it may. Let us turn again to the question how, in a harsh world largely run by greedy, selfish, murderous brutes, a dedication to the message of the gospels and a commitment to political and social transformation can be a joint life-saver.

Lindsay Brown, the author of the book I’m reviewing, was for many years General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). Towards the end of his book there is an Appendix in which he lists around 150 student organisations worldwide that are affiliated to IFES. Many countries where IFES-allied groups have a strong presence are only nominally Christian, many others (for example, China and the Gulf States) are hostile to the gospel. In Lesotho — where neither of these impediments holds — the relevant body is called the Scripture Union of Lesotho, Tertiary Ministry (SULTM); as Brown’s book doesn’t touch on Lesotho, I’d be very interested to hear from my readers about the activities of SULTM.

The first chapter of Shining Like Stars is titled “Never Underestimate What Students Can Do.” This begins by recounting the story of Daniel and his three fellow captives in Babylon under the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, the story that ends with three of the young Jews being saved by their faith when they are cast into the burning fiery furnace. Then there are reminders of the long history of evangelism in western Europe, followed by the observation: “world mission is less and less about westerners going elsewhere to serve Christ, but about believers from everywhere going everywhere . . . for example, during the twenty years of civil war in Chad its displaced students, sent by the government to study in other countries, founded IFES movements in Niger, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Burkina Faso.”

One of the first of many testimonies the book contains is, however, from a female British student of Russian, identified simply as Elizabeth, who travelled as an evangelist to one of the -stan countries, former Soviet republics of Central Asia (which of the former -stans this was isn’t specified). It was a perilous but highly successful mission. Elizabeth records: “My birthday was fun. I had five cakes and three parties. They really know how to make cakes here!” Not much peril involved in that, you might say. But then Lindsay Brown notes that many sensitive words in Elizabeth’s testimony have the letter “x” inserted in them and explains that this was to escape electronic surveillance.

And so it seems being an IFES evangelist can be a bit like being James Bond, except more graceful. The second chapter in Brown’s book is titled “Our Sovereign God and Human Courage” and that’s where I’ll pick up the story next week, as well as detailing the activities IFES evangelists organize to attract students to the gospel. And then — after all, the chief focus of this piece — how they strategise evangelical work in relation to the advocacy of political and social transformation.

To be concluded

Chris Dunton

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Hope springs eternal

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Given the abysmal state of the world today, what is it that keeps one going? I mean, just look at the mess we’re in. The cowardice of world leaders faced with the challenge of climate change —world leaders most of whom are, of course, in thrall to capitalism (for when it comes to our mismanagement, that’s what really rules the roost). The appalling violence in Ukraine and the Middle East. The apparently endless misgovernance of countries as diverse as Lesotho and Nigeria. How does one not give into despair?

Me, I have an interim resource and a vastly more profound one. The former is my commitment to left-wing socialism, a conviction that life on earth can be vastly improved by following the principles of Marxist-Leninism (not — an important qualification — the corrupt form of those principles that moulded dictatorships such as the Soviet Union). The second resource is faith in the message of the Gospels, the embracing of our Lord Jesus Christ. For with this, the ills of the world pale into insignificance. Which is not — I absolutely insist — to refuse the responsibility of political commitment to ease the suffering of millions on earth, a duty we have while we’re still stuck on the bloody place.

Of those two resources, one allows a limited, constrained kind of hope, the other a hope that is boundless.

To expand on the notion of hope, recently in these pages Bishop David Ramela quoted the great Czech author and political leader Vaclav Havel, who became President of his country after resisting Soviet oppression in acts of dissidence for which he was imprisoned. Havel, as quoted by Bishop Ramela, wrote: “I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart . . . I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.”

Hope as distinct from optimism? Well, a couple of references here. First, the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (like Havel, imprisoned for his beliefs, in his case by Mussolini’s Fascists) wrote of the need to maintain “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” In other words, any reasonably intelligent person knows that things are going to screw up, but must act as if this were not the case. And another Marxist, the British critical theorist Terry Eagleton (the mentor of your columnist, incidentally, when he was an undergraduate — and ever since) has written a fine book, Hope Without Optimism. I shan’t go into that here, but shall review it in this column in a few weeks’ time.

Turning to the relationship between political commitment and the Christian faith, the evangelist preacher Robert Sheehan once commented: “Many Christians put more weight on political programmes and economic packages than on the power of the gospel in the nation. Do you?” The answer, I would hope, is “no”, but “quite a lot of weight all the same.” And I’m going to sign off this week with a lengthy quotation from the New Testament—namely, Ephesians 2: 14-22—which has to do with the relationship, in the time of Paul’s evangelism, between Jews and Gentiles. It is a passage — to refer to my piece some weeks ago on the Gaza crisis — that one would like to read to the Hamas leaders in Palestine and to Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu before banging their heads together.

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordnances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. And that he might reconcile them both to God in one body, through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place in God in the Spirit.”

Joining, harmony, hope.

Chris Dunton

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Reading and emotion

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What does a good piece of writing do? How does a piece of writing evoke emotions in you? Well, reading is a good art that can stimulate and sharpen our sensibilities. In this instalment we focus on the emotional journey triggered and enabled by good literature. While other books may educate us and sharpen our cognitive abilities, that is the abilities to think and solve problems, reading literature of fiction does more; it stirs our emotions and sharpens our affective capacities.

By affective capabilities, we refer to the abilities to feel and tune in to our emotions and sensibilities. Life, after all, is not only about heart facts and reason. Life is about feeling and experiencing and the ability to put ourselves into other people’s shoes. Reading literature is so liberating and humanistic! Reading art in all its many genres grounds us in the varieties of human experiences and engenders in us tolerance, understanding and empathy.


Stories have a way of taking us on journeys real and imagined which stories transform us from the inside. These stories allow us to visit far-flung places and meet new people and feel their environment. Art has a way of mending bridges because through stories we come to understand people who may seem different from us. And at times we may have felt hatred and dislike for them and their way of doing things. But through reading about them, we hear their stories. We experience that which they are experiencing. We begin to see them from the inside out, and we get to know what lies underneath their skin, so to speak. That’s why they say that we can only begin to make sense of the world once we have reduced the whole world to stories. Let’s write a small story together and ascertain how it would move us. Let’s go.


“He trudged on thinking how he would approach Mwandionesa. Her warm and coy smile flashed before his eye.


Slowly mustering up a morsel of self-belief, Themba trudged along the battered, winding road in the heart of a thicket of musasa trees in the Musirizwi enclaves in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe. Like a heavy burden, a gnawing sense of failure nibbled at his conscience and a sense of uselessness clung on the air with unrelenting defiance. The stain of failure, the feeling that his people and he were inconsequential had taken lodging in his entire being. That is why he found a sense of solace only from isolating himself in his flimsy cocoon of loneliness like the proverbial ostrich which buried its head in the sand. He would have an occasional home-brewed beer called chikeke and thereafter lock himself within the labyrinth and sordid visceral being.


A gaunt bird flew overhead and he heard its flapping feathers amidst the thickening doom and darkness. “Bird”, he retorted to its presence, “what would you do if you were ever crushed by the label of failure.” A soft, warm tear tricked down the rugged terrain of his face. “Makauyo went to Egoli and returned without a name to himself, Khuyumani, too, lies buried in the bowels of the soil with nothing to show” he said as if he were speaking to the bird.


As he touched the cold handle of the door to his heart clutching a small, whimpering puppy in a cardboard box, he could hear the breathing of Mwandionesa and her stabbing, moist eyes asking him without a word where he has been for the last three days. He stood for a moment which seemed like an eternity. With false bravado, he mustered a not-so-convincing, frail knock. Mwandionesa, heavy with child, slowly made for the door and slid it open. Themba did not know what to do. He loved her but he did not know how to express it, like a person bereft of a language. Mwandionesa rummaged her pots on the dying embers of a hearth and gave him respectfully a plate with sadza and a small portion of chicken. A tear escaped-one, two, and another! She broke down, a downpour of tears streaming down her lips. “Themba, ngendaa yei weidaro mwamuna wangu? Indaa yei ndiripe Dube? Indaa yei weiita mukuba wekunzerereka kungaitei imbudzi irikumakaba isina unousha?” (Themba, why do you treat me in a manner? Why do you behave as if you are a stray goat without a shepherd? If I have wronged you I am prepared to appease you”).


“Look at me, Themba,” she demanded as a visibly pregnant and swollen stomach bulged through her threadbare blouse. The puppy whimpered plaintively. With hesitation Themba went to where Mwandionesa stood. With his furrowed labour-weary hands he touched her waist and led her to their mat of reeds made of “umhlanga” as she was fond of referring to reeds. She did not protest. A glow, a faint glow burnt in her eyes as she eased comfortably on his lanky chest. She fumbled for his hand and shepherded it to the lower regions of her belly and said, “He was kicking all these days you were away.” Themba was engulfed in a flurry of emotions; guilt as well as pride. With deliberateness, Mwandionesa said, “this boy will be called Thando. Yes Thando. He will build this homestead and more should you feel that you don’t have a home.” Themba nodded in agreement.
Themba began to feel the warmth of her presence as her succulent breasts pressed against his lanky chest and slowly closed his eyes…”

What a gripping tapestry which evokes a lot of emotions! It’s a story that stirs a lot of emotions; from empathy, sadness and an inner glow in the heart at the end. As the story begins, we feel Temba’s struggles, fear and hopelessness. He seems to be carrying a huge emotional burden and a crushing sense of defeat. I hope you have also seen Temba’s bid to reassert his sense of being and purpose through his desire of caring for a puppy – we could actually feel it whimpering. And the new hope ignited at the end of the story and affirmations of hope and new beginnings! The birth of a child always brings with it new beginnings – hope springs eternal!
So here we are! Stories are so humanising. Learning to read art in all its genres evokes emotions in us. It sharpens our affective side and warms our hearts.

Vuso Mhlanga teaches at the University of Zimbabwe. For almost a decade and half he taught English language and Literature in English at high school. Send your comments and questions to: mhlangavuso85@gmail.com

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