WHAT’S THE POINT? – POSTSCRIPT
Introduction
In a previous story on this site, InsidePolitics asked ‘What’s the point’ of the latest citizen satisfaction survey, produced by the Public Service Commission (PSC).
The survey looks at 14 public services provided by the departments of water affairs and forestry, agriculture and land affairs and sets out to determine to what level of satisfaction those departments are providing the relevant service.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the departments faired very well. (The overall customer satisfaction scores for each department were: 79% [department of agriculture], 73% [department of land affairs] and 71% [department of water affairs and forestry].)
However, the services identified were highly specified (the issuing of breeding certificates or the licensing of state forest land, for example) and when one considers the massive levels of public dissatisfaction with basic services provided by key departments like home affairs or provincial and local government, the question becomes why did the PSC bother with the survey at all?
To put it in practical terms, when a citizen can’t get an identity book, the train to work is late and the electricity keeps cutting out, who cares if the state is providing breeding certificates?
Government’s focus – and that of the PSC – should be elsewhere.
As InsidePolitics pointed out in the previous story, at no point in the survey – even in a detailed methodology section – does the PSC explain why those three departments were chosen or those 14 services investigated, only that they were the result of much consultation and discussion.
Which makes the latest report to be tabled by the Office of the Auditor-General – ‘Report of the Auditor-General on a performance audit of the import inspection services at the Department of Agriculture’ – all the more interesting.
On reading the citizen satisfaction survey one is left with the distinct impression that all three departments are doing a great job (and that agriculture is doing the best of them all). Yes, the survey does only look at specific services, but it makes no attempt to contextualise them, or say that, while these specifics are being well managed, there might be others which are not being well managed and which the survey does not address.
Instead it creates the impression that, apart from tweaking a few things here and there, those three departments are doing excellent work, delivering basic services to the people.
Well, given that the PSC obviously made a decision to focus on specific narrow services - the majority of which have little impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary South Africans - why didn’t it assess the department of agriculture’s import inspection services?
Because, according to the A-G, there are a number of significant problems with the import inspection service, which need to be urgently addressed.
What are the Import Inspection Services
The import service’s full name is the Agricultural Product Inspection Services (APIS). The APIS is relatively new and only became fully functional in 2005 as part of the response to the drastic changes in international trade-related to imports that came after 1994.
Legislation requires importers to declare controlled agricultural imports. The department of agriculture approves the import and issues a permit, subject to certain conditions. The permit is then presented at the port of entry where the documentation is checked by inspectors. Consignments are checked to determine whether they can be allowed into South Africa or whether they must first be treated, be refused entry, or be destroyed.
The Auditor-General’s report
The A-G’s report looked at the relevant documentation, other infor
| Posted on 31/5/2007
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