Importance Of Public Administration Essay Example

put an obligation on the officials to serve the public.

Therefore, an official within a department or agency is obliged to discharge his or her responsibilities in ensuring that services are provided to the society. One scholar claims that “public administration has no generally accepted definition”, because the “scope of the subject is so great and so debatable that it is easier to explain than difine” Public administration is a field of study (i. e. , a discipline) and an occupation.

There is much disagreement about whether the study of public administration can properly be called a discipline, largely because of the debate over whether public administration is a subfield of political science or a subfield of administrative science.

According to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,1996 chapter 10,section 195. Basic values and principles governing public administration. Public administration must be governed by the democratic values and principles enshrined in the Constitution, including the following principles;  A high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained  Efficient, economic and effective use of resources must be promoted.Public administration must be development-oriented.  Services must be provided impartially, fair, equitably and without bias. People’s needs must be responded to, and the public must be encouraged to participate in policy-making. Public administration must be accountable.

Transparency must be fostered by providing the public with timely, accessible and accurate information.  Good human-resource management and career-development practices, to maximise human potential, must be cultivated.  Public administration must be broadly representative of the South African people, with employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness, and the need to redress the imbalances of the

past to achieve broad representation. One example that I wane give is one that shows that our administrations implementation of these principles and the lack of democratic values and principles and the lack of high professional ethics and the ineffective use of resources.

This will show how services is not imparatially, unfairly, inequitably and bias. The last item brought to council for consideration and decision was the registration of capital projects for 2013/2014. The reason I am taking this example. is because of the problem it created in the other communities. As an public rep, it is very important to make sure that every desition council takes, it was be a fair, impartial, eguitable and without bias as aspoused in section 195(1) of the Constitution of South Africa and I feel that it was not in the best intrust of all communities.

Let me give a background on this problem. In Gariep the is 4 town and every town has 3 townships. All this towns where serviced with paving in the townships. So after all the towns has been service, it starts all over in Burgersdorp. The problem with this is that one township in Burgersdorp has not been service or a project of paving of roads. So as u cane see in the table that thy gone give Mzamomhle R4 million to pave interconnections of other roads that was not been paved.

Now there is one township by the name of Eureka that for the past 19 years haven’t received anything of that nature. The streets of this township is very bad and the local council knows this. So I feel that it is unfair,

bias and very unprofessional to do this. Section 195(1) of the Constitution states clearly that “high standard of professional ethnics must be promoted and maintained and efficient, economic and affective use of resources must be promoted”. Services must be provided impartially, fair, equitably and without bias.

The people of Eureka feels that Constitutional rights has been violated and that the local administration was not fair in doing what they did. Thy further feels that as one of the older communities in the local municipality, thy should have moved the R4 million rand to them instead of giving it to an area that has been paved and where development takes place on an regular basis. This have made the community of Eureka not paying the rates and taxes.

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) provides for Parliament to be the supreme legislature. The National Assembly and the National Council of provinces function separately or jointly in accordance with their own rules and orders, or according to joint rules with they can agree to. It should be mentioned that, although the President is not a member of a House of Parliament, he or she is able to play a decisive role in the legislature through his or her leadership of the ruling political party or parties in the national executive. Chris Thornhill) The legislature in parliamentary system of government has full control over almost all sphere of government. The legislature in a unitary government has both legislative and constituent functions.

The Function of Parliament:

* Legislative functions,

* Regulatory functions,

* Control over Parliament,

* Advisory institutions of parliament.

Constitutional and other legislation usually prescribes the functions of legislatures. This legislation seldom

prescribes the functions, also referred to as powers, specifically or in detail.

However, if one examines the activities of legislature in all sphere of government, one finds that there are a number of generic functions which all of them to perform, namely legislative, control, financial, reconciliation and representation functions. The prime function of every legislature is to pass legislation on the matters entrusted to it. Therefore there will always be constitutional legislation to demarcate the fields in which the upper and subordinate legislature may pass legislation.

Usually in a state like the Republic of South Africa, the legislature known as Parliament has unfettered power to make laws even on matters that subordinate legislatures, such as provincial and local government legislature, are empowered to pass legislation. The prime purpose of the state is to create conditions under which the citizens can live in peace in an orderly way, and can as far as possible, satisfy their personal needs and expectations for themselves.

To establish such conditions in the state at large as well as in all its regions or provinces and local communities (cities, town, villages and rural areas) requires a hierarchy of legislature with specific legislative powers, as described in chapter; When the 1996 Constitution came into effect, South Africa had a fairly well developed system of municipal authorities.

However, as a result of the existing policies, the local authorities responsible for the welfare of the black, coloured and Indian people were not financially sustainable and could not provide the basic needs of their communities. These authorities had been established and performed their functions in terms of the provisions of act of Parliament and provincial ordinances. The local authorities

were therefore subject to directives of and control exercised by the national and provincial authorities.

Sub-section 151 of the Constitution(1996) states;” The local sphere of government consists of municipalities which must be established for the whole of the territory of the Republic. ” Section 152 states that the objects of local government are –  “ to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities;  To ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner;To promote social and economic development.

Section 91 of the Constitution (1969) provide for the Cabinet which consist of the President as heard of the Cabinet, a Deputy President and Ministers. The President must appoint the Deputy President and ministers. In addition, the President must appoint a member of the Cabinet to be the leader of government business in the National Assembly. The political executive institutions are governmental institutions which employ political functions.

The governmental functions performed by these institutions should be regarded as political functions. These political functions consist mainly of the integrations of political considerations and administrative considerations to establish a government and public which will promote the welfare of society, that is, to create a society in which the real needs and the justified expectation of the population will be promoted to the greatest extent with the available limited resources.

The political functions are:

* Putting into operation activities that must be performed for the implementation of legislation passed by the legislatures.

* Supervising the administrative activities to ensure that they affectively (to the administrative extent) and efficiently (with the least cost) satisfy the real needs and the justified expectations of the people.

Processing the representations of the population in relation to the activities

af the governmental and administrative institutions to ascertain whether the directives of the legislative and executive institutions are realistic and are producing worthwhile results.

* Overseeing the administrative institutions to ensure that they are functioning effectively and efficiently, and * Giving account to the legislature and society about the functioning of the executive

Broadly speaking, public administration embraces all the activities of the government. Hence as an activity the scope of public administration is no less than the scope of state activity. In the modern welfare state people expect many things, a wide variety of services and protection from the government. In this context public administration provides a number of welfare and social security services to the people.

This requires the state to play a dual role. On the one hand it has to provide traditional service such as safety, security and defence. On the other hand it is required to promote economic development in conjunction with or in lieu of the private sector. No matter what the political ideology of a state (nationalisation, privatisation or developmental), its public institution exist mainly for two purposes, namely.

To maintain law and order, and To provide the population with essential goods and services which private enterprise cannot provide or cannot provide equitably to all inhabitants for various reasons. Thus, the functions of legislatures are to make laws and to control the executive institutions, the function of the governmental institutions are to see to it that laws are implemented, the function of each administrative executive institution such as a state department are determined by the laws it has to implement.

Various factors determine the number and extent of the functional activities public institutions

undertake; the physical characteristics of the state, such as climatic conditions, and physical resources; social condition such as the number and density of the population, and international political development. The line function of the administrative executive are as following.