John Kruger

Biography

John Kruger is Director of Oxford Policy Management's South African office in Tshwane (Pretoria) and a senior consultant with the company. He is an economist who specialises in social policy and public finance. He studied law and economics at the University of Stellenbosch and completed a masters dissertation under Prof Servaas van der Berg focusing on the economic and historical aspects of the South African social security system. He lectured in labour economics, development economics and economic history at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Port Elizabeth.

In 1998 he joined the South African National Treasury (then the Department of Finance) as Director Social Services responsible for the oversight of the financing and financial management of the social service departments (Education, Health, Social Development and Labour) and for monitoring and support of policy development and policy implementation in these areas. He has been closely engaged with South African social policy, financing and administration over the last fifteen years, including research for and engagement in the deliberations of the Lund Committee and being a member of the Taylor Committee which investigated a comprehensive social security system for South Africa. Other key processes with which he engaged include the extension of the child support grant, the development of budgets for the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the roll-out of anti-retrovirals, administrative reform of various social insurance funds and improving administrative systems in grant delivery and the establishment of the South African Social Security Agency.