Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 Submission of Public Comment

A joint submission by the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI), Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM), The Ethics Institute (TEI), and Corruption Watch providing comments on the Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023. The submission supports the professionalisation of the public sector but proposes strengthening prohibitions against public sector employees conducting business with the state to prevent corruption.

• The submitting organisations support the Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 and the 2022 National Framework Towards the Professionalisation of the Public Sector as means to achieve a public administration that is professional, impartial, effective, and developmentally directed.
• The submission argues that Section 8 of the Act, which prohibits public sector employees from conducting business with organs of state, should be strengthened to include beneficial owners of companies, not just directors, and that failure to comply should be a criminal offence and an act of misconduct.
• The authors propose several additional measures to enhance integrity in the public sector: extending Section 8 prohibitions to employees of public entities, aligning the Bill with the Public Procurement Bill to exclude relatives of public office bearers from bidding, and creating a comprehensive database of public administration employees to check against company directorships and beneficial ownership lists.
• The submission expresses concern regarding a new clause, Section 8(4), which allows the Minister to prescribe that certain remunerative but non-profit transactions do not constitute conducting business with an organ of state; the authors request that the circumstances for this application be clearly indicated and open to public scrutiny.
• The organisations support the introduction of a 'cooling off period' for public sector employees (Section 8A) and the development of norms and standards for upper limits of remuneration (Section 17A), though they warn that remuneration limits should not hinder the state's ability to attract scarce, high-level skills in public entities.

APA

Public Affairs Research Institute (2023). Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 Submission of Public Comment. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PAM-Bill-2023_Submission_v13.pdf

Chicago

Public Affairs Research Institute. Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 Submission of Public Comment. 2023. https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PAM-Bill-2023_Submission_v13.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Public Affairs Research Institute |title=Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 Submission of Public Comment |date=28 July 2023 |url=https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PAM-Bill-2023_Submission_v13.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{publicaffairsresearchinstitute2023public, author = {{Public Affairs Research Institute}}, title = {{Public Administration and Management Amendment Bill 2023 Submission of Public Comment}}, publisher = {Public Affairs Research Institute}, year = {2023}, month = jul, url = {https://pari.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PAM-Bill-2023_Submission_v13.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }