An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Oral History Program Series: Civil Service Interview no.: E12 Interviewee: Charles Sokile Interviewer: Andrew Schalkwyk Date of Interview: November 21, 2008 Location: Umoja House Dar es Salaam Tanzania Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace & Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540, USA www.princeton.edu/states SCHALKWYK: Today is the 21st of November, 2008. I'm with Charles Sokile, who is the Public Sector Advisor for the DFID (Department for International Development) office in Tanzania. We are in Umoja house in Dar es Salaam. And before we begin the interview, I'd like to ask if you've given your consent for this interview. SOKILE: That's OK; We can proceed. SCHALKWYK: Thank you. So I'd like to begin this interview by asking you to again describe the responsibilities of your current position at DFID. SOKILE: Yes. I'm Public Sector Advisor, and my major role is to link up DFID initiatives with the government of Tanzania, including other reform programs like Legal Sector Reform Programs and Local Government Reform Programs, but mainly Public Sector Reform Programs. SCHALKWYK: All right. Could you talk a little bit about your involvement in the Public Sector Reform Program? SOKILE: Yes. As you may wish to know, DFID is one of the development partners financing the Public Sector Reform Program. So I come in to oversee what the government is doing and to advise them accordingly on interventions and decisions that will bring value for the involvement and value for resources as far as the program is concerned. It's a wide portfolio, maybe in the course of talking we'll come up clearly into some specific interventions. SCHALKWYK: Certainly. I'd just like to start -- before we start talking about specific interventions, talk about the goals and the motivation for the reforms. What are the major challenges facing the civil service that the Public Service Reform Program seeks to address? SOKILE: For Tanzania specifically, the current round of reforms a second phase. We had a first phase which ran from 2000 up until 2007, and then we are embarking on a second phase, and then the third phase would follow later. The major challenges in the completion of the first phase were issues around harmonization and coordination of the major reforms. And then there were issues around capacity, in terms of the government departments, and then there were also issues around linkages between the reform and the President's Office Public Service Reform. The reform is coordinated from the President's Office. That's the main government department that is supposed to be coordinating reforms. So there was a sort of de-link between the President's Office and the other MDAs -- Ministries, departments, and agencies. The other one was on the execution ability, the spirit of the reforms. It was a sort of -- the targets could not be met timely, and the aspirations could not be met wholesomely, so it's like maybe the ambitions were quite high, or there was not enough capacity to deliver all the aspirations of the reform program. SCHALKWYK: So when you talk about the problem with the de-linking of the reforms from POPSM (President's Office, Public Service Management), what sort of issues were those creating? SOKILE: What happens is, reforms have major components, many components. The first phase, for example, had setting up institutions and building a culture of performance within the government and many other small components. Now the Public Service Reform Department was mainly on top. They were supposed to be coordinating and driving, but it was the MDAs -- the departments of the government who were actually supposed to undertake, to deliver, to do the actual work. But then, MDAs were not as much involved. The levels of consultations were not wide----. It was like all the work was being done by the POPSM. So their responsibilities changed from that of coordinating to more of an implementing organ. So that was one of the challenges that was really noted in the first turn of the reform, but the second round now is addressing that. SCHALKWYK: So how is the second round addressing that? SOKILE: Within the activity schedule, what we call MTEF -- Medium-Term Expenditure Framework -- and then these medium-term plans -- so within the plans and the expenditure frameworks, there are many activities that are done by the central coordinating ministry, and others are done by the other departments of the government. So it's a sort of a client service agreement -- the POPSM is the major client, other departments are customers. So they agree on the areas -- what they are going to do, and what MDAs are doing to do, and how they are going to do it. This is spelt quite clearly in the documents, and the milestones, the objectives are set alongside that. SCHALKWYK: And at this point, how is that working out? How are those milestones and that planning working out? SOKILE: What they've done -- you see, we come in as development partners to advise and just keep an oversight, but the whole work is done by the government in this particular case, the coordinating ministry, which is President's Office, Public Service Management came up with a work plan, and then they shared the work plan with the departments. And then they went down to the departments, and they facilitated them to come up with the criteria of the issues they thought were priorities as far as they're concerned. So ----after collecting those criteria and those priorities, t they came back and listed -- sort of, you know, compiled them -- and came up with an agreed list of priorities as far each ministry is concerned. SCHALKWYK: And what has DFID's role been in this? SOKILE: DFID is the major funder of the reform program. The current phase has about 100 million U.S. dollars, and DFID is putting in 20 million U.S. dollars. So you see, that's quite considerable. The World Bank is putting in another $40 million, but that's a loan. The DFID intervention is a grant, and then the remaining $20 million is shared between the Canadians, the government itself, and other development partners. And we also give technical oversight -- advisory roles -- depending on what the government requires from us from time to time. SCHALKWYK: What sort of advice have you been giving? When has the government come to you? SOKILE: Policy advice. Most of the issues would revolve around best practices and experiences from other countries. As you know, DFID is involved with many other countries in Africa and the world, so out of those cases, there's some experiences that might be useful to Tanzania, then we feedback about those cases. We give them forums to share experiences, and then we also respond to specific requests that they may be asking or requiring, and we occasionally keep eyes -- keep track on what they're doing, when it comes to, for example, procurement of goods and services or issues around technical assistance. Sometimes we support recruiting and posting technical assistants who work with the President's Office, Public Service Management, to try to help out with some outstanding issues. And sometimes, some systems and structures which are required to make things move. . SCHALKWYK: I wonder if you could talk a bit about merit recruitment and promotions. Have you had any experience with Tanzania's efforts to introduce merit systems? SOKILE: Yes. The first form -- the first round of the reforms had a clear intervention in instituting meritocracy. You see Tanzania is coming from a socialistic hegemony. The former public service that was built up as early as 1961 onwards was more of, you know, socialized public service with a lot of civil servants, most of them underperforming and ill-trained, ill-equipped, and promotion mechanisms were more automatic. If you stay in the job for a long time, automatically, you move to the next phase and all these other things. And later, you know, such systems would provide for some abuses and some, you know, political interference and many other things. So when the reforms came in the late nineties, one of the areas that was highlighted to be turned around was meritocracy and promotional criteria. So that was really dealt with in the first phase of the reform. So currently, what happens is that normally, when positions falls vacant, they'll be advertised, and then people will be encouraged to apply meritocratically and get recruited accordingly. You can get most of this information from the Department of Human Resource Development within the Public Service. And there is also a Public Service Commission which is doing periodic audit to see to it that the compliances and merit requirements of the public service recruitment has been adhered to. And this aspect of meritocracy is also captured well in the Public Service Act -- a new act -- 2002. SCHALKWYK: Are these criteria being used in practice? Are they adhering well to the new systems? SOKILE: You could get some updated and some clean statistics around that from the Public Service Commission. But in our last review, they made us know that there is up to about 76% levels of compliance, which is quite satisfactory. While they are not yet there, they are not 100% compliant, but at least 76%, you see, they are moving towards that. SCHALKWYK: What do you think accounts for the gap, the 24%? SOKILE: I wouldn't be in a position to speak about that, but I think it's all about, you know, doing the systems and structures. But you also get to know that the challenges of the meritocracy is that sometimes there are cases where maybe there's no adequate capacity, there are cases where the government feels like some of the posts still need to be, you know, held and be placed through the formal -- through the conventional appointment. So such cases which, especially in some key departments -- armed forces and other departments that they don't really bring them clearly for meritocracy purposes. SCHALKWYK: Has there -- I understand that the civil service has implemented a performance management system. How has this worked out? SOKILE: Civil system? SCHALKWYK: Performance management. SOKILE: Performance management. Yeah, the first phase of the reforms actually focused into instituting performance management. The second phase now is rolling out the performance management and instituting quality cycle management. In the first phase, issues around performance management, open appraisal systems were put in place, strategic plans, and actually, the whole -- what we call the whole package of the performance management system was installed, and it is in use. And there's a lot of compliance. I think Tanzania is one of the countries that is doing well in the region as far as performance management is concerned. SCHALKWYK: So what is phase 2 attempting to do, with regards to performance management? SOKILE: Checking more on maintaining the trust and -- actually, maintaining quality. That's why we talk about improving quality and quality cycles. So building on what was built in phase 1 --building on the existing systems, existing structures, existing rules and regulations -- and seeing to it that the quality is attained and is maintained. That is the major thrust. So we are talking more about issues around having capacities, having adequate capacities in the MDAs to plan and deliver the plans accordingly, report back -- of course, after monitoring and evaluation of what they've done. So it's all around quality improvement as far as their performance management is concerned. SCHALKWYK: Do you think the civil service provides an atmosphere and environment in which civil servants can do their jobs effectively? SOKILE: Service providers? SCHALKWYK: Do you think the civil service provides and atmosphere and environment in which civil servants can do their jobs effectively? SOKILE: Maybe I'm not getting you clearly, but I hope you're trying to make a sense between the service providers and the working environment. SCHALKWYK: I'm trying to -- I'm asking whether there's a conducive working environment in the civil service. SOKILE: Well, it depends on where we benchmark it from. There's a lot of improvement actually since reforms came in, but again, the private sector is still more competitive. And one of the issues that we are struggling with is actually whether to benchmark the service using the private sector or using other public services elsewhere. Yeah, but we've come to issues around pay and pay reform. The government is slightly lagging behind, although quite frequently, there have been, you know, initiatives for the government to improve the pay and pay reform. And then quite a lot of interventions in improving the state of art capacity and putting facilities in place, putting systems and structures. There's a lot of improvement since reform started, but it's not yet there. There's still some way to go. SCHALKWYK: And I'll get back to pay reforms later. What are the major obstacles encountered in implementing the performance management schemes? SOKILE: Performance management schemes you see elsewhere as a rule of thumb is that most staff would not be very open to it. Because it brings in -- it's about change, and you know, many people are resistant to change. So Tanzania, like elsewhere in the world, there were some, you know, levels of compliance and impressing the change were quite a challenge. Normally, when we talk about performance management, the political will would be there, and there would be a big push from up. But the cascading of that downwards becomes a problem. When you talk about huge public service, like in Tanzania, where we have about 350,000 staff. You'd imagine cascading from higher levels all the way down to the lower levels becomes certainly a challenge -- rolling it over. So that is one of the challenges. And again, the second challenge is that performance management systems work better when they are tied to incentives. Now, how do we incentivize -- how do we provide incentives for such a big work force, and is it something that can be done at a go; is it something that can be done in phases? Like in earlier phase, the PMS were tied to what was called SASE -- that's salary -- Self-Accelerated Salary Enhancement scheme. But again, this one had to be -- some of it had to be stopped because there was a feeling that maybe it's suffering double standard for the same public service. But again, for such a big public service, where do you start from? So you see issues around the numbers -- issues around funding the public service comes on board -- how do we -- how do we reward performance to keep the performance going? SCHALKWYK: I've heard from one or two people concerns about the influence the president has in hiring and firing members of the civil service. Has this been problematic, and has it undermined the meritocratic ethos that has been introduced in the last reforms? SOKILE: I wouldn't really think it's a problem in Tanzania, because for one, there is a very vibrant Public Service Commission, which is dedicated for dealing with issues around complaints and compliances -- around hiring and firing. There might be some cases around hiring and firing, but I don't think it's really an issue. It has not really come in as one of the challenges. I don't know what the government would be having as a feeling, but it has not come to the attention of the deputies as a challenge. SCHALKWYK: Can I ask you some questions about the Public Service Commission? Could you describe the Public Service Commission's structure and its responsibilities? SOKILE: Oh, wow. This one, I wish you had an appointment with them. But currently, they're going through some structural changes, and what we know as it appears is that they are moving from the implementers to a sort of compliance -- compliant institution. Yeah, initially -- a few years back, they used to recruit, but now, they are no longer recruiting, so they are just there to check on whether the compliance has been met as far as recruitment is concerned. And they were also -- they were also highly concerned with issues around teacher service -- you know, teachers provide a huge bulk of the workforces -- it's around 108,000 teachers in this country. It's about 54% of the total workforce. So they also used to do recruitment of those -- of the teachers -- and take care of that. And it was actually a commission -- Teachers Service Commission -- but now, with the new structure, the Teacher Service Commission has been collapsed, so it is a department within the Public Service Commission, and it's also moving towards being a compliant -- a compliance auditor institution. They're still going through some institutional changes. I'm not really clear with the ultimate final structure. I wish you would talk to them. Madame Shangali, the Executive Secretary, is quite useful. She's very informative. SCHALKWYK: So the next area I'd like to talk to you is pay policy. Can you talk about the major changes that have been made in the civil service with regards to pay policy? SOKILE: Yeah. Not changes as such, but issues and cutting them down from where they've come from, and how they're going. The notion of pay policy is more towards what we call compression and decompression of the pay ratios. And donor partner -- development partners have been quite key on that, really negotiating with the government to put their compressions and decompression ratios right. That's one of the key elements. And then these issues around the general -- improving the involvement of the civil servants. Yeah, which also has been trailing. And there are also issues around allowances -- per diems. They're allowances on per diems that are offered to civil servants when they go for some specific assignments. So that also has been an element of the pay policy, and it has been captured. They're trying to really reduce their allowances so that interventions should be done through the ministry time schedule, and the staff should be -- you know -- the public servants should treat whatever they are doing as part of their day-to-day work and not as part of -- not project-oriented approach. And then there are issues around equity, definitely, and across the cadres and across geographical dynamics. Tanzania is a very big country. One of the challenges currently is how to get civil servants attracted and stay in underserved areas in the peripheries. And the pay policy's also trying to address that. So there's quite some nice elements around that. SCHALKWYK: So how is the pay policy trying to attract civil servants to underserved areas? SOKILE: There's two major initiatives going about that. One -- there was a presidential commission that was formed last year. They've just given -- they've given in their reports, but it's still not yet released for the public, which was trying to see how to implement the pay policy and how to put up systems and mechanisms to attract staff and pay in underserved areas. But this also -- the President's Office, Public Service Management is also working on a document, a sort of strategy, which would see to it that -- there is some attractions and some involvements for staff who are raised in the underserved areas. We still don't know the contents of the paper yet, because it has to go through the government and the Cabinet Secretariat, but in the last review, I guess, a couple of weeks ago, they made us know that they are working on a comprehensive document, and the good news is that it is not financial-based. I mean, it's a non-financial incentive mechanism. So they're trying to come up with some other areas that could - some of the, you know, benefits that could attract staff, apart from the conventional financing, which we think is really likely to add some value. SCHALKWYK: Do you have any idea what those could be? SOKILE: Not details, but tentatively, they've divided the country into several geographical zones so that they don't have a holistic -- they don't have an holistic offer to the whole country because situations are quite different. They've also come up with other criteria on access to further training, and issues around how they -- those who stay in underserved areas get the basic services, like do they get their salaries on time, and what about housing and other state-of-art facilities, which could really --influence, you know, education for their children and some other, you know, less comprehensive emolument issues that might attract them in underserved areas. SCHALKWYK: Could you talk about the issues of allowances? How has the government changed its policy with regard to allowances? SOKILE: As development partners, we are yet to see comprehensive change towards this, but time and again, the government is pledging change and support into doing what the development partners are advising. That allowances still remains to be a high element of the expenditure of the government,) some things still being debated, but we'll be having general budget support review next week, and this is one of the issues that would be critically discussed. SCHALKWYK: You also talked about the compression ratios in the -- SOKILE: Decompression. SCHALKWYK: And decompression. SOKILE: Yes. SCHALKWYK: What attempts have been made to decompress pay? SOKILE: Yes, every time when the government is doing pay adjustments, they really try to address the issue of the compression and decompression ratios, and we normally request that we get the ratios and have an idea of how the progress is made. In the last review, one of our concerns was that they need to break it further into professional categories. Because if it's just offered wholesomely, then it does not give us much understanding. We will be talking about the compression ratios from the very -- from the uppermost civil servant to the least civil servant. Maybe from a secretary to the Permanent Secretary. So such ratios cannot make much sense. But if we are talking about some job categories, then at least you can have an idea that well, here, there's still a gap here, and there's still not a gap here. So we are waiting for some of the updated ratios as far as this comment is concerned. SCHALKWYK: And what have been the challenges in getting these ratios correct? SOKILE: I don't think it's a matter of challenge; I think it's just a matter of working. I mean, working out the ratios. If they're worked out and they are broken down according to categories that make sense, I think -- something that can be done, because the statistics are there and the data is there. I don't think it's something that really amounts to any challenge. SCHALKWYK: What information have you been using to measure the effects of the paycheck -- the pay changes? SOKILE: The effect? SCHALKWYK: Of the pay changes. SOKILE: Mm... Well, when we get to know the wage bill, one of the quick indicators is getting how it relates to the GDP -- wage bill as percentage of the GDP. And the wage bill-GDP ratio could quickly tell you whether the government is faring well or is not faring well. There might be some other economic indicators, but GDP to -- the ratio actually makes a lot of quick sense. SCHALKWYK: And has there been -- apart from the SASE (Selective Accelerated Salary Enhancement), have there been other efforts to use pay policy to increase the attractiveness of the civil service? SOKILE: It definitely is. Yeah, that is the underpinning principle of the pay policy, so that it will be able to see more qualified and more senior civil servants keeping around and staying around in the job. Actually, currently, we do demand that we see the numbers and the ratios of the departures -- the turnover ratios. Those who are moving out of the civil service, especially at Master's and Ph.D. levels, and we are seeing the trend going down, which is suggesting that somewhere, somehow, there is some attraction. But again, it boils down into the compression and decompression ratios. So the two goes together. SCHALKWYK: So what do you think the main reasons for the reduction in turnover has been? SOKILE: Slightly because of the improved pay in the government, improved work conditions, and some other improvement in terms of state-of-art capacity, and other issues around the emolument which are not necessarily financial -- job security, opportunities for further study, and such similar trends which can be attracting civil servants to hang on and stay on. SCHALKWYK: How has the population -- the general public -- reacted to the changes in pay for civil servants? SOKILE: Oh, wow, I wish we had a study on that. Yes, that could be a potential area for maybe having a big study. But I wouldn't say that they've reacted positively or negatively, but at least I know that the government is normally setting up a pace, and then the private sector follow. So if the government pushes the equilibrium up, then the private sector will have to keep the equilibriums higher so that they will be able to retain the workforce they have and get more of the workforce. But the general public, maybe -- I wouldn't really say what the reaction is, but when government does adjustment in terms of pay, just so that the private sector will follow, and later, the civil society will also follow. So you see, it's like the government is the determinant. So when we push for -- when we negotiate for better pay in terms of -- in the civil service -- then chances are that this will cascade throughout the entire country. SCHALKWYK: And have there been any pressures with regards to the total wage bill? How have those been balanced with the needs to increase pay? SOKILE: Yeah, that's a complicated question. You see, when you increase pay, you eventually -- you are eventually swelling the wage bill. Now, in a country like Tanzania where the current establishment has not been attained with the 350,000 civil servants, we are not yet even up to 90% of the total establishment. So by the time there is a whole establishment, maybe the civil service would be about 500,000. And now, can you imagine how that one itself is exerting a lot of pressure on the pay. Like now, we have the -- the government has the initiatives on the Vision 2025, which is well-captured in the National Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, which is aspiring that services would need to be devolved down to the communities. So we are talking about having all key expertise at the district level. So sending people at the districts in a country with more than 100 and forty-something districts, so it means at the end of the day, there's a huge establishment. So this will implicate back on the payroll in terms of numbers, and then in terms of figures and other dynamics around that. SCHALKWYK: So how does the government plan on -- how do you think the government plans on managing those issues? The increasing wage bill because of the increasing staff numbers, and also the need to increase pay. SOKILE: Yeah, there are two levels. One is the percentage increase -- the annual increase, which is inevitable because population is increasing, and then the services must also increase to people, so there must be growth in civil service. But then there's the other aspect of the devolution -- the decentralization, devolution, taking more service to more people, including service delivery, which pushes for even more numbers, more people. So those are captured in the national pay policy, but even the wide national -- we call it MKUKUTA the acronym for the National Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy. So the milestones and the Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks and Medium-Term Strategies captures these projections. So it's like -- as the civil service expands, as the wage bill swells, then it is captured in the plans -- ahead of the plans. Our major concern is that if the economy does not grow too much up -- too much after the expansion, then we will be having unfavorable figures in the GDP, in the ratios of the GDP to -- of the wage bill to GDP, and then that might not be very healthy. SCHALKWYK: So the next area I'd like to talk to you about is managing the reforms and the approach the government has taken in the reforms. Could you describe the role DFID had in planning the reform process? SOKILE: I wouldn't really talk about that, because I wish you had a discussion with my colleague, Ian Shapiro; he was around when the reforms were being chartered out. But DFID has been a trusted partner from the first round of the reforms, actually, as early as 1995-96, and quite a lot has happened, especially supporting, bringing in technical assistance, financing consultants -- quite a lot has gone on there. SCHALKWYK: So what have been the major challenges facing the government in implementing the reforms? SOKILE: The government as government -- I think most of the challenges could be the other challenges that we addressed earlier, about general challenges that are there as far as implementation of the reforms is concerned: issues around capacity, issues around financing, harmonization of the reforms -- like currently, there's a lot of reforms here. We have about five core reforms, and then we have several sector reforms, so you can see when they all come, it's like there is an impetus to move. So if you don't control this movement, then you may be having reforms that are not talking to one another. You may be having some specific sector report reforms moving this way, and the centralized understanding also moving on the other way. So those areas has been really a challenge, although there are a lot of forums for discussion and talking, especially from the DP side. But from the government side, time and again, we tend to observe that, even within the same ministry, there are some departments that are not talking to one another. They all have good aspirations of pushing -- moving ahead -- but then they are not consulting enough. So you -- you find that there are systems that are contradicting, and there are also some duplication. SCHALKWYK: Where are there duplications or contradicting systems? SOKILE: For one, when systems are acquired, are put in place. Like we have just noted in the recent review that most departments, most MDAs, were involved into installing HRMISs, Human Resource Management Information Systems, and some other management information systems within the specific departments for sector management, and the POPSM -- the President's Office -- was also in the process of installing some MIS systems, and these systems were not talking to one another. So at the end of the day, it's duplication of effort, and sometimes would be having, you know, the same set of information here and there, and sometimes the informations are not harmonized; they are contradicting. And such issues. And we also have areas where we have contradicting policies, although that one has been duly worked on. But that is still one of the areas that need to be attended to. SCHALKWYK: And what has worked well so far in the way the reforms have been managed? Where do you think Tanzania has been very successful in managing its reforms? SOKILE: I think maintaining the reform. This is about eighth year, and some of the good practices that were attained early on are still sustained. For example, some executive agencies that were established have been able to stay on; they've been tested with time and some have been doing exceptionally well since establishment. Most of them are now fully fledged, quite independent. Generally, some of the elements of the reforms are moving on very well. SCHALKWYK: OK, before we finish, I wonder if I could ask you about -- if I could ask you, if you had a chance to manage -- to write a handbook or a manual for people who have to manage civil service reform, what kind of topics would you consider most important to know about? SOKILE: One is coordination of the reforms. Yeah? Coordination of the reforms in the light of other reforms, if any. Two is political awareness. You have -- the managers of the reform need to be really -- to be in context on -- are they right with the politics? Do they play their politics well? Do they pull enough clout? Do they command respect from the politicians? Maybe to the President, to the Prime Minister. So those two, three areas, I think are the really core. The technical side of the management may really come in depending on the specific reform, but the coordination aspect, the political awareness aspect, I think those are really core as far as -- SCHALKWYK: How has the political awareness aspect played out in Tanzania? SOKILE: Well, it depends, but at the end of the day, we must agree that the take of the politicians -- the president, the ministers -- can really implicate reforms -- if they are pro -- a reform program, the chances of that program will clearly move ahead, but if they are skeptical, they are not keen into the reforms, there is not enough political push, and chances of that, the reforms might not really move ahead. SCHALKWYK: And has it been supported in Tanzania? SOKILE: Not really. It's good that at least since reforms come in, the former President, Mkapa was quite positive with the reforms, and actually was the major force pushing in reforms. And even Kikwete is quite pro-reforms. But we also have some of the reforms, like Legal Sector Reform Program, which is not really moving as much as we may wish to see it moving. We couldn't blame it for the minister or for the politicians, but maybe if there was more and more political will, there might have been some more leap as far as the reform is concerned. SCHALKWYK: OK, thank you very much. Is there anything else you would like to add before we finish up? SOKILE: Just two quick things. One is that I would be really happy if you share with us a copy of your findings, because this is quite an interesting area. You see, even development partners also -- at the time, we are also caught in a maze, seeing -- balancing between how to advise in reforms and manage reforms and how not to. Of course, we do not want to micromanage the government, especially in the setup where we work through, through basket funds and through general budget support. But again, if it is totally hands-off, eyes-off, then things don't move. So what you've just asked, your last question that what one thing to be areas of concern as far as managing reforms is concerned, I think the same also goes to what would development partners like to get to know as far as managing reforms is concerned. It's both ways. SCHALKWYK: Thank you very much. SOKILE: Good. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Civil Service Oral History Program Interview number: E12 ______________________________________________________________________ 3