Chapter three: Democracy and good political governance Objective 5: Ensure the accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of civil servants and other public office holders i. Summary of the CSAR 254. The public service is a crucial arm of government, since it is responsible for the technical aspects of public policy making and implementation. There are legal provisions to ensure an accountable and efficient public service. However, official records and evidence from the field led the CSAR to conclude that Lesotho’s public service during the period under review (1996–2006) had been characterised by a number of negative features. The public’s assessment of the performance of the public service is that it is inadequate in delivering services. 255. The minister of public service acknowledged during the country self-assessment process that, although, over the years, the building blocks for the reform of the public service had been put in place in the form of laws, regulations and structures, the greatest challenge regarding civil service reform remained attitude and mind-set. The CSAR notes a litany of officialdom’s reasons for the negative characteristics of the public service, ranging from colonial legacy, through a culture of arrogance, confrontation and cynicism, to the lack of institutionalisation of change as a permanent feature of the public service. 256. The CSAR observes that the challenge of inefficiency in the public service has impaired the execution of crucial national initiatives. Citizens deplore the fact that the implementation of the nation’s PRS, like the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has not had much impact. Measures to improve public access to information remain ineffective owing to the lack of proper channels for the public to interact with government structures and to the unwillingness of most officials to submit themselves to public scrutiny. While the report appreciates the transparency and the application of procedures and practices for recruiting, evaluating and promoting civil servants, it deplores the fact that the appointment of top civil servants, the principal secretaries, remains the prerogative of the prime minister, and hence lacks transparency. 257. Legal provisions and procedures to ensure accountability in the public service are disregarded across the service; hence public finance management and accountability have consistently been deteriorating. In a budget speech to Parliament for the year 2008/2009, the minister of finance and development planning conceded that Lesotho has had a poor record of public accountability dating as far back as 1974/1975. Characteristically, there has invariably been late submission, or nonsubmission, of public accounts for Parliament to scrutinise. The State of Accounts has not been passed without qualification. Indeed, in some periods (e.g. in the period 1982/1983 to 1989) no accounts were submitted to Parliament for scrutiny. The lack of financial accountability has adversely affected the management of the kingdom’s relations with other countries, in particular the Republic of South Africa. 258. The CSAR takes cognisance of the fact that the government of Lesotho recognises the challenges confronting the public service, particularly with regard to efficient delivery of services and accountability, and has therefore initiated measures to address the problems in the context of 77