Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon Deputy Ministers, especially our Minister, Ms Sisulu, Deputy Minister, Mrs Dlodlo, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, South Africa is hailed by the world at large as a shining example of a functioning constitutional democracy. At the centre of our constitutional democracy are the values and principles enshrined in section 195 of the Constitution, which seeks to achieve a professional, effective and efficient Public Service.
The Public Service Commission has been established primarily to ensure that the Public Service upholds these values and principles. I can mention some. A high standard of professional ethics must be promoted and maintained; efficient, economic and effective use of resources must be promoted; public administration must be development-orientated; service must be provided impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias; people's needs must be responded to and the public must be encouraged to participate in policy- making.
Transparency must be fostered by providing the public with timeous, acceptable and accurate information; good human resource management and career development practice to achieve the maximum human potential must be calculated; public administration must be broadly representative of the South African people, with employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness and the need to redress the imbalances of the past to achieve broad representivity.
Section 195 of the Constitution provides a very sophisticated and demanding framework with which the public administration must comply. Recently, the Public Service Commission published its report on the evaluation of the state of the Public Service against the values in section 195 of the Constitution. The commission found that the Department of Public Service and Administration has improved in many respects, but in crucial areas continues to struggle to meet the necessary standards required to be considered well governed and managed.
On the issue of compliance with the disclosure framework by senior managers, the commission found that, as at 31 May 2012, a total of 77 out of 159 departments had a 100% compliance rate on the submission of disclosure forms, of which 13 were at national level and 64 at provincial level.
Given the high rate of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the number of cases of financial misconduct reported to the Public Service Commission by national and provincial departments seems low. Cases of misconduct have increased from 1 042 in 2006-07 to 1 243 in the 2011-12 financial year.
We are worried, though, that analysis of the 2010-11 and 2011-12 annual reports of 77 national and provincial departments shows that the number of departments that suspended employees for periods exceeding 60 days is increasing. The percentage of national and provincial departments that managed to achieve more than 80% of their planned targets declined from 9% to 4% between the 2010-11 and 2011-12 financial years. We are pleased that departments have worked hard to ensure that our people gain access to basic service delivery.
A comparative analysis of statistics between 2007 and 2012 indicates that the percentage of people accessing housing subsidies, sanitation and social grants has increased. There is also a comparative improvement by departments in paying invoices within 30 days, although there is still much work to be done.
Asifuni ukumane sikhathazwa ngabantu abathi abahlawulwanga ngurhulumente. Sifuna niyilungise ke loo nto. [We don't want people to keep on saying government didn't pay them. We want you to rectify that.]
It is also encouraging that the compliance rate in respect of the submission of performance agreements of the heads of departments by the due date of 30 June each year has improved by 65% in 2012. There has also been an improvement in the percentage of financial unqualified audit opinions issued by the Auditor-General. As at 30 June 2012 almost 80% of all national and provincial departments have a vacancy rate of about 10 in respect of professionals and senior managers. Although the vacancy rate is high, organograms are not always fully funded.
We are encouraged that the Department of Public Service and Administration is assisting departments to clean up their Persal systems and remove unfunded vacant posts to ensure that we have reliable information about how many public servants are employed in the Public Service. The recommendations by the National Development Plan that the Public Service Act be amended in order to locate the responsibility for human resource management with heads of departments needs to be explored so that we will be able to fill posts quickly.
The President has made a call that departments should shorten the period within which they fill vacant posts. The compliance rate with this call is slow. The Department of Public Service and Administration should do more to get compliance from departments, as required by the President's directive. Our view is that the long time taken to fill vacant posts has a negative impact on service delivery and the drive by government to create jobs in the public sector. This matter should be attended to without delay.
The other matter that needs attention relates to meeting disability targets in the Public Service. As at 31 July 2012 only 15 national and provincial departments exceeded the target of 2% for people with disabilities. The rest are still battling to achieve this target.
Processing of cases referred from the national anticorruption hotline to departments is still at a low level and this needs improvement. We are, however, happy that the following achievements have been made in the fight against corruption in the Public Service. Let me mention a few: 1 004 officials have been dismissed from the Public Service, 16 officials were demoted, 341 officials were given final written warnings, 202 officials were prosecuted and R300 million was recovered from those involved in corruption by the various departments. [Applause.]
We appreciate the initiative being taken by the Minister to combat corruption head on, to improve compliance by the department with laws and regulations, to strengthen the skilling of public servants through the school of government and to introduce common norms and standards. The ANC supports this Budget Vote. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]