Whiteness and power in the South African civil service: Paradoxes of the apartheid state

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 99-119

  Posel, Deborah ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

APARTHEID; ETHNICITY; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; POWER RELATIONS;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0032967347     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/030570799108777     Document Type: Article

References (145)

1. Jokes courtesy of Gerrit Olivier, Patrick Pearson, Steven Lukes and I. Galnoor, No Laughing Matter: a Collection of Political Jokes (Harmondsworth, 1987).
2. See J. Branford and W. Branford, A Dictionary of South African English (Cape Town, 1991), p. 357.
3. D. O'Meara, Forty Lost Years (Johannesburg, 1996), p. 62.
4. See Lukes and Galnoor, No Laughing Matter, pp. vii-xiii.
5. Largely for the sake of manageability, this paper focuses on the civil service, rather than the public service more broadly. However, there are several points which apply generically to the public service, with the civil service serving as an illustrative case. In such instances, I refer more generally to the public service. In terms of working definitions, by civil service I mean those agencies and employees directly engaged in the running of Government Departments and implementing policy decisions. The public service more broadly includes agencies and employees involved in the direct delivery of services, e.g. educators, nurses, police and prison personnel. The public service as a whole was structured in terms of seven basic divisions: Administrative (which included departmental Secretaries and their deputies, accountants and other administrative officials who functioned as the immediate supervisors of the clerical officials and the majority of the officials in the General A and B Divisions); Clerical; Professional (in the case of the civil service, primarily lawyers); Technical; General A (other officials, with a matriculation exemption); General B (non-matriculants); Services. In addition there were a significant number of staff in 'Non-classified' positions. Sec J. N. N. Cloete, 'The Administrator and the Expert', South African Institute of Public Administration, 2, 2 (1966), pp. 286-292.
6. See, e.g., O'Meara, Forty Lost Years; H. Adam and 11. Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised (New Haven, 1979), ch. 8; L. Baxter, Administrative Law (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1994 edn). There are several texts on public administration in South Africa, which give a primarily descriptive account of the structure and designated functions of the various parts of the civil service. See, for example, J. N. Cloete, Public Administration and Management (Pretoria, 1992 edn).
7. See, e.g., O'Meara, Forty Lost Years; H. Adam and 11. Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised (New Haven, 1979), ch. 8; L. Baxter, Administrative Law (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1994 edn). There are several texts on public administration in South Africa, which give a primarily descriptive account of the structure and designated functions of the various parts of the civil service. See, for example, J. N. Cloete, Public Administration and Management (Pretoria, 1992 edn).
8. See, e.g., O'Meara, Forty Lost Years; H. Adam and 11. Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised (New Haven, 1979), ch. 8; L. Baxter, Administrative Law (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1994 edn). There are several texts on public administration in South Africa, which give a primarily descriptive account of the structure and designated functions of the various parts of the civil service. See, for example, J. N. Cloete, Public Administration and Management (Pretoria, 1992 edn).
9. See, e.g., O'Meara, Forty Lost Years; H. Adam and 11. Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised (New Haven, 1979), ch. 8; L. Baxter, Administrative Law (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1994 edn). There are several texts on public administration in South Africa, which give a primarily descriptive account of the structure and designated functions of the various parts of the civil service. See, for example, J. N. Cloete, Public Administration and Management (Pretoria, 1992 edn).
10. Adam and Giliomee, Ethnic Power Mobilised, pp. 224-225.
11. Sunday Express, 14 October 1973.
12. J. Kriklcr, 'Review Article - Lessons from America: the Writings of David Roediger', Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 4 (1994), pp. 663-669.
13. D. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London and New York, 1991), pp. 13, 12.
14. See D. Posel, 'Modernity and Measurement: Further Thoughts on the Apartheid State', Institute for Advanced Social Research, Seminar Paper no. 407, 1996.
15. Union of South Africa, Social and Economic Planning Council: Report No 3: Aspects of Public Service Organisation and Employment (Pretoria, Government Printer, 1944), UG 15-44, para 4.
16. Ibid., para 5.
17. Ibid., paras 14, 15.
18. Baxter, Administrative Law, p. 4.
19. See Posel, 'Modernity and Measurement: Further Thoughts on the Apartheid State'.
20. Ibid., p. 18.
21. This raises the question of how to assess the capabilities of the apartheid state - was the enlarged apartheid state, its capacities punctured by staff shortages, inefficiencies and incompetence, nevertheless 'stronger' than others? The question signals the need to conceptualize 'strength' in qualitative rather than merely quantitative terms - an issue which is however beyond the scope of the present paper.
22. The judgement about the competence and skills of the civil service refers to its overall capacity. Of course there were many experienced and talented individuals - perhaps even increasing numbers of such individuals - but even so, the performance of the civil service as a whole was widely perceived to have declined as the state enlarged.
23. House of Assembly Debates, 1964, vol. 11, col. 5944.
24. See D. Posel, The Making of Apartheid, 1948-1961 (Oxford and Cape Town, 1991 and 1997), ch. 3.
25. Addressing parliament, one United Party MP referred to figures cited by 'a University of South Africa professor' to the effect that between 1937 and 1966, 'the number of civil service employees has increased by 276% [at the same time as] ... the white population increased by only 70%'. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 26, col. 4457.
26. Measuring the growth of the public service is complex. Different sources produce contradictory statistics, partly because the number of departments which fell under the auspice of the Public Service Commission changed over the years. The figures cited should be treated as indicators of trends, rather than exact measurements.
27. Republic of South Africa, Public Services Commission: 50th Annual Report, RP 26/62, annexure A.
28. Republic of South Africa, Public Services Commission:56th Annual Report, RP 39/1968, annexure A. Note that statistics compiled by the PSC after 1967 changed the basis of measurement, so that it is not possible to make accurate comparisons before and after 1967.
29. According to these figures, the most dramatic rate of expansion of the permanent establishment occurred prior to 1951 - an increase of 110 per cent from 1938. The data cited in the next paragraph, however, takes temporary appointees into account and produces a different picture, with the decade from 1950 - 1960 as the period of most accelerated growth of the public service.
30. These figures are not entirely compatible with the data cited in the previous paragraph from the Public Services Commission; once the numbers of temporary appointees are excluded, the data cited here still measures a larger permanent establishment than docs the PSC - a reminder of the caution with which all these statistics should be treated.
31. See A. Seegers, 'The Head of Government and the Executive', in R. Schrire (ed), Malan to De Klerk: Leadership in the Apartheid State (London, 1994), p. 42. These figures exclude the administrations of bantustan states.
32. B. Roux, 'The Central Administration, Provincial and Local Authorities, and the Judiciary', in D. Worrall (ed), South Africa: Government and Politics (Pretoria, 1971), p. 82.
33. By 1949 the roots of this process were already evident. According to the Rand Daily Mail, of the 369 recommendations for appointments made by the Public Service Commission in 1949, 79 per cent had received a mark of less than 40 per cent for the English entrance examination (Rand Daily Mail, 12 November 1964, 'Something Rotten in the Public Service').
34. Interview with N. J. Olivier, 7 May 1985.
35. See O'Meara, Forty Lost Years, p. 61.
36. See Posel, The Making of Apartheid, p. 70.
37. The Star, 14 July 1959, 'Domination in Public Service'.
38. The Star, 1 August 1959, 'English-speaking Customs Collector Bowler-Hatted'.
39. Rapport, 26 May 1974, Ons Opname tel Koppe'.
40. The Star, 12 December 1976, 'Few English in Top Jobs'
41. 'Address of Retiring President, Mr D. van Wyk', The Public Servant, April 1944.
42. 'Address of Retiring President, Mr D. van Wyk', The Public Servant, July 1943.
43. Rand Daily Mail, 7 September 1959, '5000 Needed in Public Service'.
44. The Star, 19 April 1961, 'Staff Shortage is Critical'.
45. Central Archives Depot, SAB K262 99/G/37/9 part 4; 1 April 1971, Committee on Administrative Training for the South African Public Service, 1970, 'Die Konferensie van Hoofde van Departemente'.
46. Sunday Express, 14 January 1965, 'No Pay Rise Yet For Civil Servants'.
47. Rand Daily Mail, 2 April 1965, 'Staff Shortage No Better'.
48. A full discussion of these changes is beyond the scope of this paper. By way of one example: in the sphere of so-called 'Bantu administration' alone, the 1960s saw a sustained assault by the central government's Footnote 46 continued Department of Bantu Administration and Development on the powers of local authorities, leading to a considerable enlargement in the scope and range of central government powers, and therefore also in the number of personnel required to exercise these new powers. All forms of surveillance over the affairs of African people were intensified and diversified, requiring closer and more copious bureaucratic scrutiny; a policy of forced removals was introduced, along with a new set of bureaucratic structures dedicated to the task; and a policy of homeland self-government was introduced with the central government taking responsibility for staffing most, if not all, of the new bureaucracies created as a result.
49. Rand Daily Mail, 22 February 1968, 'Call for Public Service Probe'.
50. Rand Daily Mail, 24 October 1968, 'All-Out Bid for State Workers'.
51. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 26, col. 4454.
52. Quoted in Rand Daily Mail, 19 March 1969, 'Public Service "Facing Crisis'".
53. Rand Daily Mail, 22 February 1968, 'Calls for Public Service Probe'.
54. Secretary of the Treasury, quoted in Rand Daily Mail, 15 August 1969, 'Shattering Staff Shortage'.
55. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 26, col. 4457.
56. The then Minister of the Interior, T. Gerdener, acknowledged the problem publically in 1971: see The Star, 21 September 1971, 'Congress of Civil Servants'.
57. Rand Daily Mail, 26 May 1967, '"There's No Place for You Here" - Allegation'.
58. Cited in G. Adler, 'Skills, Control and "Careers at Work",' South African Sociological Review, 5, 2 ( 1993), p. 51.
59. Rand Daily Mail, 21 June 1961, 'Hundreds Resign Every Month'.
60. Republic of South Africa, Public Service Commission: 56th Annual Report, RP 39/1968, p. 5.
61. House of Assembly Debates, 1964, vol. 11, col. 5932.
62. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 27, col. 7170; Republic of South Africa, Public Service Commission 56th Annual Report, annexure F(1), p. 21.
63. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 27, col. 7170; Republic of South Africa, Public Service Commission 56th Annual Report, annexure F(1), p. 21.
64. Rand Daily Mail, 21 February 1968, 'Manpower Shortage Hits Transvaal'.
65. Rand Daily Mail, 22 May 1968, 'Top Level Checkup on State Pay'.
66. Republic of South Africa, Public Service Commission: 61st Annual Report, RP 97/1973, p. 34.
67. Republic of South Africa, Public Service Commission: 59th Annual Report, RP 43/1971, p. 12.
68. Rand Daily Mail, 7 January 1975, 'Mulder Warns on Scramble for Staff.
69. 'Address of the Retiring President, Mr D. van Wyk', The Public Servant, July 1943.
70. 'Address of the Retiring President, Mr D. van Wyk', The Public Servant, April 1944. In 1960, a short orientation course for new (white) junior recruits to the civil service was introduced; but, by then, the problems of poor service had taken on completely new dimensions.
71. One of the indices of this is the extent to which the English - and to a lesser, but nevertheless still significant, extent the Afrikaans - press gave prominent coverage to bunglings of various kind in the civil service. Hence the frequent reference to newspaper sources in this article.
72. Rand Daily Mail, 17 October 1964, 'Plea for More Pay in Public Service'.
73. The Star, 19 March 1964, 'Public Service Image'.
74. Rand Daily Mail, 20 October 1967, 'Inquiry Urged into Image of Government Workers'.
75. Rand Daily Mail, 15 August 1968, 'Shattering Staff Shortage'.
76. Sunday Express, 20 December 1970, 'Cabinet Staff Crisis'.
77. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 27, col. 7166.
78. This concern is registered in various articles published in the South African Journal of Public Adminstration. The quotation is from N. J. J. Cloete, 'The Present and Future Personnel Requirements of Public Institutions', Journal of Public Administration, 4, 1 (1968), p.41.
79. This concern is registered in various articles published in the South African Journal of Public Adminstration. The quotation is from N. J. J. Cloete, 'The Present and Future Personnel Requirements of Public Institutions', Journal of Public Administration, 4, 1 (1968), p.41.
80. Editorial in The Public Servant, quoted in The Star, 14 August 1975, 'Road to Service with a Smile'.
81. The Star, 26 Februaiy 1976, 'Public Service Crisis'.
82. Indians, Coloureds and Africans - although by far the majority of black public servants were African. For example, in 1968, on one count, out of a total permanent establishment of 326,263,31,364 were Coloured, 7,027 were Indian and 152,507 were African (Rand Daily Mail, 25 November 1968, '700 000 Public Workers').
83. House of Assembly Debates, 1964, vol. 11, col. 5942.
84. Figures compiled by Seegers, 'The Head of Government...', table 2.4, p. 42.
85. Ibid.
86. Sunday Express, 21 February 1965, 'More Women in Public Service'.
87. House of Assembly Debates, 1969, vol. 26, col. 4454.
88. Rand Daily Mail, 21 May 1969. 'Call for Change in Recruit Methods'.
89. Sunday Express, 21 September 1975, 'Public Service Takes Notice of Bonus Days'.
90. The Star, 26 February 1976, 'Public Service Crisis'.
91. In fact, during the 1960s, the reaction from the Cabinet to reports of an incompetent, inefficient or oversized public service was defensive and accusatory: such talk, it was said, 'was peddling a crisis-mindedness' (Rand Daily Mail, 17 June 1969, 'Public Servants Shortage').
92. The Star, 17 September 1979, 'Revamping the Public Service - Key is Speed'.
93. Beeld, 19 November 1979, 'Super-Sekrelarisse met Nuwe Bedeling'.
94. O'Meara, Forty Lost Years, pp. 283-285.
95. Ibid., p. 279.
96. This was reflected in figures released by the Department of Statistics, published in Rand Daily Mail, 17 September 1980, 'Public Sector Spends More'.
97. Rand Daily Mail, 8 December 1979, 'No Civil Servants will Lose Their Jobs'.
98. Republic of South Africa, Commission for Administration Annual Report 1980-81, RP 36/1982, p. 11.
99. The Star, 25 February 1981, 'The Civil Service Crisis'.
100. Rand Daily Mail. 7 September 1981, 'Public Service Crisis Grows'.
101. Rand Daily Mail, 16 July 1980, 'Tortoise Remark Upsets Public Servants'.
102. Rand Dail Mail, 30 August 1968, 'Manpower Wasted in Public Service'.
103. Sunday Times, 3 October 1976, 'The Little Men who are Strangling Us'.
104. Ibid.
105. The Public Servant, Editorial, September 1962.
106. SAB K262 99/G/37/9 part 4; 1 April 1971, Committee on Administrative Training for the South African Public Service, 1970, 'Die Konferensie van Hoofde van Departemente'.
107. Roux, 'The Central Administration', p. 89.
108. Ibid., p. 90.
109. There is scope for much more research on this issue than has been covered in this paper. By 1987, the PSA's membership was 43 per cent female and 57 per cent male, according to Mr Anton Louwrens, a Public Service Association officer for many years (interview, 14 May 1997). Yet these numbers did not reflect the influence of women, or their interests, in the workings of the PSA.
110. The Star, 16 May 1959, 'Five Day Week Turned Down for Public Servants'.
111. Rand Daily Mail, 20 November 1958, 'They Want Right to Negotiate'.
112. SAB A 272, vol. 341, 'Konsultasie tussen Owerhcid en Personeel'.
113. Its regular complaints on this front unheeded, the PSA resorted to measuring the incidence of heart disease amongst public servants to make the point, and claimed to have found a higher than normal rate of heart disease (compared to lower than normal rates of non-stress-related illnesses) in the public service (Rand Daily Mail, 26 September 1964, 'Public Service Want Less Load on their Hearts').
114. Sunday Express, 14 October 1973, 'Cabinet Meddling Angers State Staff.
115. The most highly publicized and controversial instance of this process was the appointment of Dr Eschel Rhoodie as Secretary for Information. Rhoodie was brought in as an outsider, over the heads of long-serving officials, on grounds of his relevant experience in the private sector - much to the outrage of senior civil servants, as well as reactionary Nationalist politicians (Sunday Times, 3 September 1972, 'Verkramptes upset over Rhoodie).
116. Interview with Mr A. Louwrcns (currently Deputy General Manager of the PSA), 14 May 1997. Sec also The Citizen, 9 February 1977, 'Everything that Moves'.
117. The idea of the RSA excluded the independent homelands, but included the self-governing homelands.
118. Interview with A. Louwrens, 14 May 1997.
119. J. N. N. Cloete, Public Administration and Management (Pretoria, 1992 edn), p. 156.
120. The Star, 14 January 1966, 'Essential Services'.
121. The Star, 23 March 1970, 'Fear of a Stab in the Back'.
122. Rand Daily Mail, 14 April 1964, 'Public Service Act Provision Attacked'.
123. The Star, 2 June 1971, 'Position Difficult'.
124. Sunday Express, 14 October 1973, 'Cabinet Meddling Angers State Staff.
125. Ibid.
126. Republic of South Africa, Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Labour Legislation, Part 5, 1980, para 4.65.20.
127. For example, in 1960 public servants openly assisted the National Party in its campaign to promote the creation of a republic; but the chairman of the PSC refused to take any action against them (The Star, 15 June 1960, 'Public servants canvassed a colleague').
128. See, e.g., Sunday Times, 10 November 1974, 'Five-Year Fight for Justice by Fired Public Servant'.
129. Rand Daily Mail, 17 September 1969, 'Public Servant Shortage'.
130. The Star, 20 September 1967, 'Civil Servants not to Enter Politics'.
131. Sunday Times, 30 February 1977, 'Quango'. The article quotes Professor B. Roux, Public Administration Department, University of South Africa.
132. Interview with Mr A. Louwrcns, 14 May 1997.
133. Rand Daily Mail, 21 July 1959, Officials Unions Avoids Politics'.
134. The Public Servant, Editorial, October 1962.
135. Interview with Mr A. Louwrens, 14 May 1997. In fact, there were no legal prohibitions on the unionization of white public servants; it was the right to strike which was denied them.
136. House of Assembly Debates, 1964, vol. 11, col. 5931.
137. Rand Daily Mail, 22 September 1965, Officials Told to be More Tolerant'.
138. Rand Daily Mail, 1 February 1968, 'Wage Freeze under Attack'.
139. The Public Servant, Editorial, March 1961.
140. Interview with A. Louwrens, 14 May 1997.
141. Ibid.
142. Ibid.
143. Louwrens claims to have made the discovery by going through the long list of Broederbond members published in The Super-Afrikaners (1979), I. Wilkins' and II. Strydom's exposé of the Broederbond.
144. Wilkins and Strydom, The Super-Afrikaners, pp. 397-405.
145. Rand Daily Mail, 10 January 1972, 'Broederbond Domination'.