Unstable state can never have capacity, warns Motlanthe

Motlanthe was addressing a panel at social cohesion and nation building event hosted by the Department of Arts and Culture in Tshwane on Thursday.

Motlanthe advised the government to focus on long-term employment as it is a permanent entity.

"The state is a permanent entity and we should seek to construct the state as a permanent entity. The capability should be there permanently. The best department in government nationally - up until this new administration - was Science and Technology because the department had one DG from the beginning and ministers come and go as it should be.

"Whereas in all other departments there is a high turn over of DGs, DDGs and senior management level and that is why it is difficult to the build these institutions and have the requisite legitimacy of the state and that, of course, has to be earned because where we are today is that there's no confidence in the state.

"Our people have no confidence in the state so it has to be earned and the way to earn it is for the state to prove in concrete terms that indeed that it represents the interests of the people".

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Motlanthe says part of the problem is the fact that the government is conflated.

"Those who are selected should not be employed on short-term contracts. It should be long-term contracts that are close to permanency so that they stay on to gain institutional memory because part of our problem is the conflation of government and state.

"We take government and state to be one but truth be told government is but the face of the state at a term at a time, once you go into an election possibility exists that different government may be in place after elections.”