Hon House Chairperson, hon Acting Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Minister Mildred Oliphant, hon Deputy Minister, Ayanda Dlodlo, hon Members of Parliament, commissioners present here, Table staff, distinguished guests, officials in their various capacities, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
This year's Public Service and Administration Budget Vote debate is taking place in the midst of a sad moment as we are mourning the recent passing of our beloved Minister who was responsible for this portfolio. In our deliberations today, we wish to pay tribute to the late Minister Roy Padayachie for his insightful leadership and for the critical role he played within the entire African continent. May his soul rest in peace.
As we are assembled in this House today, it cannot be contested that the democratic South Africa that came into being on 27 April 1994 is significantly and progressively different from the fragmented and undemocratic Union of South Africa that was established on 31 May 1910.
We will remember that this was preceded by colonial occupation of our country as early as 1652. So what it actually tells us is that we have come a long way. This 18th year of our freedom and democracy certainly sets apart today's South Africa from yesterday's South Africa. As people of this land, we have indeed triumphed over 300 long and hard years of colonialism and apartheid rule.
The 100 years of the African National Congress we are celebrating this year indeed epitomise our collective triumph over the evil systems of colonialism and apartheid, and all that it represented. We therefore look forward to the next 100 years of our glorious movement of the people. However, we are also reminded by our former President, Comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela that:
Our road to the glorious future lies through collective work to accomplish the objective of creating a people-centred society.
Certainly, we have to build on our successes and learn from our experiences as we further advance the struggle for a better tomorrow, underpinned by a caring and capable state. This is the promise that is fundamentally embedded in our Constitution and it ought to be delivered to the people of this country in real and practical terms.
In line with today's meeting, the perspective we therefore embrace and advance is that our Committee on Public Service and Administration, as it should be with other committees in this Parliament, is an integral part of the national project emanating from our Constitution.
Our country and its people deserve more and better, and we dare not fail them. The task is complex and mammoth. It requires collective intelligence and action that transcends parochial, sectoral and institutional confines within the respective mandates. It is in this context that we would want to advocate for a new and dynamic collaborative approach to oversight that we are highlighting below.
The significance of oversight in our parliamentary system cannot be overemphasised. In a report entitled Trends in Parliamentary Oversight, the authors assert:
The legislative oversight of government policies in general, and of the budget process in particular, is of vital importance in ensuring that governments carry out their duties efficiently, democratically, and in a fiscally responsible manner.
It is therefore no surprise that, irrespective of the underpinning political systems in the respective countries, parliamentary oversight constitutes the cornerstone of the work of any parliament. It is impossible to conceptualise parliament outside the context of oversight.
In this context, we believe that our oversight efforts as committee seek to encourage and propel the department to remain closer to the people and ensure that service delivery challenges are addressed so that people's lives can be changed, in both qualitative and quantitative terms, in line with the promise of the Constitution.
As we deliberate on the budget and programmes of the Department of the Public Service and Administration in line with our constitutional mandate, we have to be alert to the fact that the budget ought to be transformative and significantly contribute to the overarching objective of a better life for all the people of our country. The budget is therefore not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
Pele ke kgelekgetha, ka taba tsa mokitlane wa lefapha lena, ke bona ho le bohlokwa ho hlakisa tse sa kang tsa hlaboseha ha monate ho komiti - ha re ntse re sebedisana le lefapha.
Tsena di mabapi le ha lefapha le dutse nako e telele le sena hlooho e le okametseng. Hona, ebile bofokodi bo boholo. Jwalo ka ha re ile ra hlalosa nakong ya pele hore, 'Ha katse e le siyo, ditweba di a hlanaka.' Re bona ho bile teng ho hlanaka ho itseng. Re tlamehile ho hopola bohlokwa ba lefapha lena, mabapi le tsamaiso ya ditshebeletso tsa mmuso. Ho mme he, ha se lona le ka dulang le sena hlooho - hohang!
Ha re bua ka dikgeo tsa mesebetsi tse leng teng hara mafapha a mmusong, ha re a tlameha ho balella lefapha lena. Ka nnete ha re a tlameha! Re leboha ha e le mona, ho se ho ena le Hlooho ya Lefapha - ka mora nako e kana! (Translation of Sesotho paragraphs follows.)
[Before I go too far about the department's budget, I think it is important to clarify some things that did not go down well with the committee when we were dealing with the department.
These are in regard to the fact that the department has been without a head who is responsible for it. This was seen as a huge setback. Just as we mentioned before, ''When the cat's away, mice will play,'' we have noticed that there has been a lot of playing around. We must keep in mind the importance of this department with regard to the management of services by government. Therefore this is not the kind of department that should be without a head at all!
When we talk about vacancies that are available in government departments, we should not count this department as one of them. Really we should not! We are grateful now that there is a head of department after such a long time!]
This appreciation of the sociopolitical purpose of the budget is imperative if one takes into consideration the nature and type of our country's developmental challenges we have to contend with, which are well articulated in the Diagnostic Report of the National Planning Commission, NPA. We therefore believe that we will keep this purpose of the budget in mind in our oversight efforts as the committee.
Having articulated the significance of parliamentary oversight in our context as the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration in this Parliament of the people, we remain keen, with unflinching commitment, to fully explore new methods and approaches of exercising our oversight responsibilities.
We believe that, in order to achieve a significant and transformative change, it is of strategic and political necessity that we maximise our oversight efforts within the respective constitutional mandates of the institutions and structures that are within the domain of public service in general. As highlighted earlier on, the road to such a journey is complex and therefore necessitates collective intelligence and action that transcends parochial, sectoral and institutional boundaries.
The Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration therefore seeks to transcend what can be characterised as the traditional approach to oversight and to move towards a more dynamic collaborative approach. That is our buzz word!
In tandem with this initiative and in our endeavour to consolidate and strengthen our oversight approach, we employed the following strategies and approaches. We conducted oversight of the Department of the Public Service and Administration and its state organs, not only as portfolio committee, but also through partnerships with other committees of Parliament; for example, the Portfolio Committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. We are going on a study tour in order to learn more about and discuss the issue of a single or integrated public service.
Within Parliament, this partnership for oversight included, but was not limited to, the NCOP's Select Committee on the Public Service and Administration, with the further intention to work closely with the Public Accounts Committee. Working with the NCOP, as well, assists us to move towards our approach of even going to the provinces in terms of the collaborated oversight.
Outside Parliament, the partnership for effective oversight included, but was also not limited to the Public Service Commission and Auditor-General of South Africa. We also intend to include all Chapter 9 institutions: the Public Protector; the Commission for Gender Equality; the Human Rights Commission; the Electoral Commission; and the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. Many other partnerships will be sorted out.
The Constitution of our country obligates us to ensure that public administration is governed by the democratic values and principles outlined in section 195 of the Constitution.
The Department of the Public Service and Administration, in line with the mandate to oversee the overall functioning and organisation of government, has to adhere to the same democratic values and principles that were highlighted before. Naturally, the Portfolio Committee on the Public Service and Administration, through its oversight efforts, will always encourage the department to ensure it does govern public administration in line with the Constitution. The reality, though, is that all government departments, organs of state and public enterprises are expected to comply with the principles governing public administration.
During our process of oversight we have identified issues that require the collaboration of parliamentary committees for effective oversight. It is along this observation that we call for the seminar on Public Service oversight by Parliament. The Committee on the Public Service and Administration would therefore like to propose a sectoral platform for the deliberation and concretisation of the new approach to oversight of the Public Service.
Some of the issues that could be explored in such a seminar include, but are not limited to: the administrative heads of departments in the Public Service, in general; the overarching Human Resource Development and Management Strategy for the Public Service; the role of the Forum of South African Directors-General, FOSAD, and the implementation plan thereof, since we need to understand that FOSAD did present an implementation plan to the President who has actually shown a keen interest to us; achieving part A and part B of outcome 12 - I know there are many more speakers who will be talking about outcome 12, so I will not elaborate, also considering that most of the speakers and most of the people around here understand outcome 12 - and key aspects and proposals emanating from the National Development Plan. There will be many more, but we have already identified those as key issues.
We believe that the seminar on Public Service oversight is an ideal whose time has come. We feel strongly that we will work closely with the Public Service Commission as an independent body that monitors the Public Service and reports to Parliament. We are really glad, as the committee, to indicate that they do report to Parliament and not to the media, and therefore it makes our work much easier.
We want to conclude by indicating that as the ruling party, the ANC, we support this Budget Vote to ensure that the people of our country get the service they deserve. As we cast our eyes to the future, we still have a collective responsibility within our constitutional mandates to bequeath a bright future to the next generation, when our movement, the people of this country and the world celebrate the next centenary. Until then, let us remember that coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success. Thank you. [Applause.]