Public Service Commission Amendment Bill Set to Reshape Public Administration

The Public Service Commission (PSC) Amendment Bill is emerging as one of the most significant proposed reforms in South Africa’s public administration system since the dawn of democracy, with far-reaching implications for governance, accountability and professionalisation across the public sector.

If enacted, the legislation will substantially expand the powers of the PSC, enabling it to exercise oversight not only over national and provincial departments, but also over municipalities and state-owned entities (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet.

PSC Chairperson Commissioner Somadoda Fikeni described the Bill as a major institutional milestone aimed at addressing long-standing weaknesses in governance, accountability and public administration.

Bill Advances Further Than Previous Reform Attempts

The Amendment Bill was first published for public comment in June 2023 and is currently before the National Council of Provinces after receiving approval from Parliament in March 2025.

According to Fikeni, previous attempts to strengthen the PSC’s role had failed to progress this far, making the current legislative process especially significant.

He stressed that the Bill offers practical mechanisms to improve oversight and accountability within state institutions that have increasingly faced governance crises in recent years.

PSC Powers to Extend to Municipalities and SOEs

One of the most important changes proposed in the Bill is the expansion of the PSC’s jurisdiction to include local government and state-owned enterprises.

Historically, the PSC’s oversight role was interpreted narrowly and largely confined to national and provincial government departments.

“Most of the time those institutions were outside the gaze of the PSC, for one simple reason – the notion of public service was interpreted narrowly to mean national and provincial government,” Fikeni explained.

The Bill seeks to fundamentally change this arrangement.

“The Bill immediately gives us powers to go to local government, and it gives us powers which we were exercising provincially and nationally. It gives us powers to go to Eskom, to Transnet and every other state-owned entity,” he said.

The reform is also intended to help standardise norms, ethics and governance practices across the entire public administration system.

Stronger Enforcement Powers for the PSC

The proposed legislation also strengthens the PSC’s authority to enforce its recommendations and directives.

In the past, government departments often ignored PSC findings without consequence, undermining accountability mechanisms and weakening oversight effectiveness.

“The new Bill says you will no longer ignore those directives from the PSC and the findings. You would have to challenge them in court rather than just ignore them,” Fikeni said.

He compared the reform to earlier developments involving institutions such as the Public Protector and the Auditor-General, both of which gained stronger enforcement powers through legislative and judicial developments.

“You saw the same thing with the Public Protector when the case law started giving it more teeth. You have seen the same thing with the Auditor-General. Now the PSC is coming to that space,” he added.

PSC to Conduct Independent Investigations

The Amendment Bill further enhances the Commission’s ability to initiate investigations independently without waiting for formal complaints.

Fikeni said the PSC’s ability to act proactively distinguishes it from many other oversight institutions.

“We can do our own accord investigation without anyone reporting, and we can recommend policy changes. We can partner with the department or with an institution to change certain things,” he explained.

This would allow the Commission to identify governance failures, corruption risks and administrative weaknesses earlier and intervene more effectively.

Reforming Institutional Independence

Another major reform concerns the governance structure of the PSC itself.

Currently, the PSC secretariat operates as a government department under the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), a situation Fikeni described as institutionally contradictory.

The Amendment Bill seeks to resolve this by granting the PSC greater operational independence.

“In that way, we will not have this awkwardness of overseeing the DPSA, and at the same time having our department reporting to the Minister. They will be completely outside,” Fikeni said.

Professionalising the Public Service

The Bill complements broader government reforms aimed at professionalising the South African public service, particularly through the National Framework towards the Professionalisation of the Public Service approved by Cabinet in October 2022.

Fikeni emphasised that professionalisation must begin with merit-based recruitment and expert-led appointment processes.

“Professionalisation of the Public Service will ensure that a panel of experts is created by the PSC,” he said.

Instead of politically connected appointment processes, sector-specific expert panels would guide recruitment for senior positions such as Director-General and Head of Department posts.

“If it is science and technology, if it is communication and digital technologies, we go to the relevant professional bodies or highly respected experts in that field,” he explained.

According to Fikeni, politically motivated appointments based on loyalty rather than competence contributed significantly to the decline in state capacity.

“One of the reasons that we saw a decline in our public service over time was that people were being appointed for loyalty rather than for competence,” he said.

Lifestyle Audits and Anti-Corruption Measures

The PSC is also intensifying anti-corruption efforts through lifestyle audits targeting officials in high-risk functions such as procurement, human resources and project management.

Fikeni stressed the need for ethics officers to identify suspicious financial behaviour and unexplained wealth among public servants.

“All of a sudden, a person who is earning R15 000 just rolls in in a Maserati or another type of car... the lifestyle audit ought to target those,” he said.

The PSC plans to work closely with institutions such as the Auditor-General and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to establish coordinated early-warning systems against corruption.

Technology to Combat Fraud and Ghost Workers

Technology and digital governance also feature prominently in the PSC’s reform agenda.

The Commission is advocating for an integrated biometric digital system for all public servants to address persistent issues such as:

• Ghost workers;

• Fraudulent employment practices;

• Disciplinary evasion, and

• Duplicate employment records.

“You do not get expelled in province A and reappear in province B. Whenever you put your finger, your face or your iris into the system, it will bring in all those files,” Fikeni explained.

Municipalities and SOEs Seen as Priority Areas

Fikeni identified municipalities as one of the PSC’s primary oversight priorities because local government remains at the frontline of service delivery failures and governance challenges.

“That is where most criminal cases, corruption cases and service delivery issues are concentrated,” he said.

State-owned enterprises are also expected to receive increased scrutiny.

“If we get that one right, especially in the current geopolitical situation, our logistics and harbours will be in good space,” Fikeni added.

Implementation Will Determine Success

While the Amendment Bill has been widely viewed as a potentially transformative reform, Fikeni cautioned that implementation will ultimately determine its effectiveness.

“The problem in South Africa is that we come up with good policies, but struggle with implementation,” he warned.

Nevertheless, he expressed optimism that the proposed reforms could significantly strengthen accountability, restore public confidence in state institutions, and improve governance standards across South Africa’s public sector.