Cooperative Governance Minister Zweli Mkhize on Friday urged public servants to be incorruptible and to be driven by the desire to serve people instead of their business interests and greed, as such attributes threaten good governance and service delivery. 

Speaking at the launch of 2018 Ibrahim Index of African Governance in Pretoria, Mkhize said that the fight against crime and corruption remains pivotal as "we strengthen our democratic institutions and promote clean governance, hard work, efficiency, and effectiveness". 

"In this era of seeking to control our public service and its vast resources, we must have a public service cadre that is impenetrable. We appeal to our public servants to focus on their work and not be distracted by business interests and greed which threatens the public service and enables corruption to creep in, and seriously threatens good governance," Mkhize said.

"We need a stable, efficient, corrupt-free, caring and effective public service because the lives of our people depend on such a service being made available to them by their governments. At the end of the day it is not about being a full-time public servant but more about people who have dedicated their lives to serving the people. That is what public service should be about."

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the African Peer Review Mechanism hosted a high-level discussion about the 2018 findings of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance at the event that brought together African-focused stakeholders, including policy-makers, international dignitaries, partners and academics, members of civil society and business leaders.

While the event will reflect specifically on the performance of South Africa, its overall focus was on the progress and development of governance across the continent. 

Mkhize also said promoting the type of leadership within government and society that people can trust and believe in, and the promotion of good governance remained central to the achievement of the goals of honesty, integrity, loyalty and selfless service to the people as espoused by anti-apartheid luminaries Nelson Mandela and Albertina Sisulu.