Good Business Basics: Mismatch between intellectual capacity of policy developers and implementers
If meaningful strides are going to be made in the development trajectory of this country, the most qualified and competent individuals must be allowed to ply their trade without fear or favour.
It is common cause that the quality of our planning at a government level is world class, but our execution and implementation of plans are dismal.
The first is due in no small part to the competence and qualifications of those tasked with developing plans and the second in large part to the political interference, lack of will, and general incompetence of our elected officials at all levels of government.
Take a quick look at the organogram of most government departments, in particular the Office of the President, and you will notice that it is populated by officials with PhDs and Masters degrees in highly appropriate disciplines such as Development Economics and Town Planning.
There is a clear mismatch between the intellectual capacity of the policy developers, and those tasked to implement.
I pondered what the impact would be if even just a third of these highly qualified individuals were deployed into roles that would enable them to roll out policies that they had developed.
It brought to mind a discussion I had had with a recent Masters graduate in Town and Regional planning from the University of Kwazulu-Natal, after he had made a radical and novel contribution at a seminar I attended on spatial planning.
He had just been accepted as a Doctoral candidate, and I quizzed him as to whether he would not be able to make a greater contribution to this country by assuming an implementation role.
In a nutshell, he was dismissive of the idea, citing numerous examples of colleagues who had tried just this, and were hounded out of their roles for either showing up their seniors or political principals in pursuit of their mandates.
More chilling, he mentioned incidents of brazen intimidation and threats where existing patronage or corrupt networks where threatened.
The reality is that the most qualified and potentially impactful individuals are not willing to play the political game, or are not ‘connected’ enough to be allowed to operationalise, in most cases, world class plans they have had a hand in developing.
If meaningful strides are going to be made in the development trajectory of this country, the most qualified and competent individuals must be allowed to ply their trade without fear or favour.
Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
