It is at risk of being lost in the gathering gloom around our economy, but the appointment last week - with President Jacob Zuma's approval and support - of private-sector banker Mark Barnes to become CEO of the South African Post Office is a genuinely bright spot on our landscape in the coming new year. It is a reminder to the government that there is passionate, experienced and patriotic private-sector talent available to it.Sizwe Nxasana has allowed himself to be diverted from his immediate post-retirement plans after departing from the leadership of the FirstRand group to spend two years reorganising and rebalancing the chaotic state-run student loan scheme. Former South African Chamber of Business CEO Kevin Wakeford has been appointed CEO of Armscor.Even within the state, Zuma has, when he has allowed himself, managed to deploy resourceful people to extremely difficult jobs.story_article_left1Brian Molefe is my South African of the Year, not because Eskom is suddenly operating at full strength but because he recognised the debilitating effect that load-shedding was having on the public and on investors and has found a way to re-energise a dispirited machine and to cheer us all up.It takes courage and vision, sure, but most of all it takes self-confidence. At the Reserve Bank, Lesetja Kganyago, the governor, has it in barrels.Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, under the most hideous political pressure, is holding his line, reassuring investors that however poorly much of our government might be, he has the strength of character to do what he has promised to do and to prevent public spending from running out of control.On one level, the most remarkable thing about Barnes's appointment is that he is a middle-aged white male. But that would ignore much more about him than it reveals. He is almost zealous about South Africa succeeding.I had known for a while he was keen on running the Post Office because it was so obviously broken."The Post Office will be a case study, if we succeed," he says, "for how business, labour and the state can create the foundation for political and economic transformation to begin in earnest."He is a straightforward man with a natural ability to galvanise the people around him. There is a solution to everything with Barnes. He won't suffer fools, but I suspect his managers will like him. The wider staff will love him. He will pay them attention. He will pay them on time and include them in discussion about what should be done.Needless to say, he is still in for a shock. My advice to him is to make the Public Finance Management Act holiday reading. It is where all senior public-service jobs begin and end.But the Post Office as a whole is also in for a shock. He knows how large and complex organisations work. He knows how money works and how and where to get it.There is a real prospect that he will be able to make Postbank the state bank that almost everyone wants. It should be making welfare payments at a fraction of the cost the state currently pays the private sector to do. It should be the bank to which millions of rural South Africans can entrust their savings.story_article_right2You can almost intuit the empowerment possibilities in the thousands of Post Office (and Postbank) branches.What you get with Mark Barnes or Brian Molefe or Sizwe Nxasana or Kevin Wakeford are the beginnings of experience and professionalism becoming the anchor requirements for top public service jobs. I am sure there are many other dedicated people at all levels of government doing their jobs properly, which is all you can expect of anyone.The stark fact is that the transformation of our society is both vital and urgent, but it cannot be achieved on the back of cronyism, neglect, arrogance or entitlement.It requires hard, dedicated and patient work.There is room in South Africa to create a new economic model. It chases profit but it includes rather than excludes. It empathises with the poor and recognises that until they are secure, none of us are.It anchors us all here, at home.With the right leadership in place, positive change is possible. The cruel debacle at SAA is, perhaps fortunately, a large and living example of the menace of believing that prosperity will come easy...