Ramaphosa signs law to reshape how public service is run

President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the Public Service Commission Act into law, completing a trio of reforms that will change who holds administrative authority in South Africa’s public service, how senior officials are appointed and held to account, and how public servants are trained. The timing was pointed. The act’s arrival coincided with testimony before the Madlanga Commission of inquiry into corruption in the police and security forces.

In September 2026, the commission’s chairperson, Somadoda Fikeni, told the inquiry that governance and accountability failures had sustained a culture of impunity in which officials directly benefited from the inconvenience suffered by members of the public. He called it the “political economy of inefficiency”. The hope attached to the new legislation is that it will close gaps in accountability that have allowed that economy to function.

The Public Service Commission Act completes a package that also includes the Public Service Amendment Act 9 of 2025 and the Public Administration Management Amendment Act 7 of 2025. Taken together, they touch the machinery of delivery itself: who exercises administrative authority inside departments, how senior administrators answer for performance, how public servants are developed over a career, how conflicts of interest are managed, and how the constitutional values governing public administration are protected.

The legal foundation for all of this is section 195 of the constitution. It requires the promotion and maintenance of “a high standard of professional ethics”, and it insists that public resources be used efficiently, economically and effectively. Public administration must be development-oriented and responsive to people’s needs. It also demands accountability, transparency, fair and impartial service, good human resource management and a public administration broadly representative of the South African people. Section 196 gives the Public Service Commission the power to promote those values throughout the public service, and they apply to all organs of state, not only national and provincial departments.

What the new laws do, in large part, is give legal certainty to questions that have been studied for decades. Much of the legislation responds to the work of the commission under the late Stan Sangweni, who chaired it from 1999 to 2009. Under his leadership the commission grappled with protecting merit in appointments, holding senior administrators accountable, managing the boundary between political authority and administration, making ethical conduct routine, and ensuring public administration was answerable to citizens. Until now, however, there was no legal certainty on the commission’s mandate in these areas.

That gap became clear in 2020, when the author of this analysis, a researcher who also served as head of the National School of Government, was asked to develop a national framework for the professionalisation of the public sector. Going back through the commission’s archives revealed that many of the questions confronting the drafting team had already been examined during Sangweni’s tenure. The lesson was that institutional memory is itself a form of state capability. A state that keeps starting again condemns each generation of public servants to rediscover problems that others have already studied.

There is a longer thread connecting that earlier work to the present reforms. The National Development Plan: Vision 2030, in its chapter on building a capable and developmental state, called for a professional public service, stronger technical and specialist skills, and clearer delegation, accountability and oversight. The Professionalisation Framework, published in 2022, then set out how people enter the public sector, how senior appointments should become more merit-based and technically rigorous, and how public servants should be inducted, developed, assessed and supported throughout their careers. That framework provided the policy basis for the legislative process that produced the three laws.

The practical changes are specific. The Public Service Amendment Act shifts the balance of authority inside departments: heads of department will now hold some powers that used to belong to ministers, including the power to make appointments. Political executives remain responsible for political leadership, policy and strategic direction, while heads of department carry clearer administrative responsibilities. That transfer raises the stakes around who becomes a head of department. If they hold more authority, there must be greater confidence in the integrity and professional rigour of how they are appointed.

Meanwhile, the Public Administration Management Amendment Act strengthens the statutory position of the National School of Government and the basis for education, training, assessment and professional development across public administration. It also tightens integrity provisions, including restrictions on employees doing business with the state. The Public Service Commission Act strengthens the commission itself through a secretariat and extends its mandate to municipalities and public entities, a step closer to the idea of a single public administration system.

The significance of the reforms becomes clearer when they are considered as a whole. Administrative authority is being moved closer to those who must account for what departments do. Senior appointments are meant to become more professional. The machinery for professional education and development is being reinforced. Integrity provisions are being tightened. Most importantly, the constitutional institution charged with promoting the values of section 195 is being strengthened and given wider reach.

The immediate delivery test now sits with implementation. South Africa will hold local government elections on 4 November. The South African Local Government Association, the National School of Government, provincial governments and other institutions preparing the induction of incoming councillors and municipal executives will have to incorporate the new legal framework into those programmes.

New laws do not, by themselves, produce a capable and developmental state. South Africa has enough experience to know the distance that can exist between law and practice. The real test is whether these changes alter how authority is exercised, how appointments are made, how public servants are developed, and how breaches of constitutional standards are dealt with.