North West Business 2019 edition

PROFILE
Regaining the trust of communities
The Premier of the North West, Professor Job Mokgoro,
brings a unique perspective to a tough assignment.
In June 2018, a new Premier
was sworn in for the North
West Province. The elevation
of Professor Job Mokgoro to
the key position in the provincial
government brought to an end
a period of uncertainty and
allowed the residents of the
province to look forward to the
leadership of the province being
able to focus on the business of
government.
Professor Mokgoro could be
said to be uniquely qualified
for this appointment, for two
reasons. Firstly, he served as the
Director-General of the North West in the first months after South
Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. Among his tasks was to
integrate three government administrations (including homelands)
into one. This hands-on experience gives him vital insight into the
infrastructure (what might be called the “scaffolding”) of the area’s
administrative structures.
Secondly, Professor Mokgoro is both academically highly
qualified and deeply experienced in public administration and
public governance. He has been widely published on a broad
range of topics. Among the long list of titles of his published papers
are “Equity and Efficiency in the Public Service”, “Inter-Provincial
Fiscal Equalisation” and “The role of Leadership in Organisational
Responsiveness to Service Delivery”.
His academic qualifications include Bachelor and Master's
degrees in science and public administration from three universities
and he was a visiting professor at Wits University’s Graduate School
of Public and Development Management. When the ANC called
on him to lead the province, he was the head of the North West
Ikatisong School of Governance. He had been responsible for the
establishment and the curriculum of this school, which forms part
of the North West Administration.
The selection by the African National Congress (ANC) of Professor
Mokgoro to lead the province followed several weeks of sometimes
violent protests within the province by citizens upset by lack of
services. Mokgoro has also worked within the economic policy
unit of the ANC.
Establishing priorities
In one of his first speeches, Premier Mokgoro said that regaining communities’
trust in government was top of the agenda. He said that his
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