An elec­tion is like a com­pet­i­tive team sport, ex­cept the stakes are much high­er and the win­ner is the cham­pi­on for five years. There can on­ly be one win­ner, and win­ning the elec­tion is on­ly the be­gin­ning. The re­al work is to sur­pass the per­for­mance of the out­go­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion.

As with all con­tests, the an­nounce­ment of the re­sults will evoke a mix­ture of hope, doubt, and fear. Most will hope that the win­ning team will per­form well. Some will doubt the new team’s abil­i­ty to per­form and de­liv­er the cam­paign promis­es. The rest will fear or wor­ry over the ef­fect of the new ad­min­is­tra­tion’s poli­cies and pro­grammes on their lifestyles and liv­ing stan­dards.

No one can pre­dict what the fu­ture holds. What is im­por­tant is com­mu­ni­cat­ing the new ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pri­or­i­ties and the mech­a­nisms de­ployed to achieve those pri­or­i­ties. Yes­ter­day, a new Cab­i­net was sworn in, a mix of ex­pe­ri­enced heads and the new. We look for­ward to a shift from po­lit­i­cal rhetoric to ser­vice de­liv­ery.

The elec­tion re­sults in­di­cat­ed a de­sire for a “change” and new and im­proved ser­vice lev­els in the de­liv­ery of pub­lic goods and ser­vices. The new ad­min­is­tra­tion will have to con­front the ex­pec­ta­tions of its sup­port­ers and cit­i­zens in gen­er­al con­cern­ing its promis­es. There are five key de­liv­er­ables.

First is the cost-ef­fec­tive and eq­ui­table de­liv­ery of pub­lic goods and ser­vices, whether wa­ter, roads, hous­ing, health­care or ed­u­ca­tion, or the myr­i­ad of per­mis­sions, per­mits and cer­tifi­cates re­quired to con­duct our dai­ly lives. Sec­ond is the cre­ation of a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment which fos­ters sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

Third, the pro­mo­tion and achieve­ment of so­cial sta­bil­i­ty that de­liv­ers a safe, se­cure en­vi­ron­ment for all cit­i­zens. Fourth, to man­age, ad­min­is­ter and op­er­ate the na­tion’s agen­cies, as­sets and re­sources ef­fi­cient­ly and with­out cor­rup­tion. Fifth, to pro­mote, po­si­tion and mar­ket 9the coun­try to in­crease ex­ports and gen­er­ate the for­eign ex­change nec­es­sary for sur­vival.

These five de­liv­er­ables are the ba­sics re­quired to meet cit­i­zens’ ex­pec­ta­tions and must be achieved with­in the ex­ist­ing bud­getary con­di­tions.

Fur­ther, the im­po­si­tion of tar­iffs by the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has made the task more dif­fi­cult by re­duc­ing world eco­nom­ic growth. This will af­fect the en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy sec­tors’ ex­port earn­ings ca­pac­i­ty. Every­one will have to do more with less.

Do­ing more with less will re­quire more than min­is­te­r­i­al in­ter­ven­tion. It will need greater co­or­di­na­tion be­tween min­istries to achieve a whole-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach and greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty from every sec­tor. Achiev­ing this will need a change in out­look and re­forms in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors.

Pub­lic sec­tor re­form is a key com­po­nent and must mean more than a trite recita­tion of the need for “dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion”. It re­quires a re­think of ex­ist­ing sys­tems and pro­ce­dures and root-and-branch changes, not cos­met­ic changes.

More im­por­tant­ly, be­fore any change can hap­pen, pub­lic ser­vants must be en­gaged and mo­ti­vat­ed to be part of this re­form process in pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery. This fac­tor alone man­dates speedy ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PSA and some lev­el of com­pro­mise. How­ev­er, avail­able re­search in­di­cates that the pos­i­tive im­pact of a salary in­crease on job sat­is­fac­tion is quick­ly lost. Lead­er­ship at every lev­el will be nec­es­sary.

There are chal­leng­ing times ahead. Cit­i­zens want and hope for a bet­ter fu­ture for them­selves and their fam­i­lies. It re­quires sac­ri­fice and com­mit­ment from the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, a part­ner­ship to sup­port a prac­ti­cal agen­da for ed­u­ca­tion, youth de­vel­op­ment, and the econ­o­my. To whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed.