Chairperson of the NCOP, Cabinet colleagues present here, Deputy Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Chairperson of the Select Committee on Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, members of the select committee, Chairperson of the Public Service Commission, hon delegates of the House, the portfolio leadership in the Ministry, our distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen ...
... avuxeni. [... greetings.]
Thank you very much for affording us an opportunity to address this House on this very important day - the day for the presentation of our Budget Vote for the financial year 2010-11. Under normal circumstances, debates on budgets are financial statements accompanied by activities of the departments. In that narrow sense, we often would like to expect, present and inform the nation, through Parliament, on how we are going to spend the money allocated to us. In this case, we will be talking about the R651 million, of which R380 million is for the Department for the Public Service and Administration; R117 million for the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama; R133 million for the Public Service Commission, PSC; R19 million for Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority, PSETA; and R14 million for Centre for the Public Service Innovation, CPSI.
We will do so and give a detailed breakdown of how much of these we will be spending, in each case, on personnel-related activities versus core programmes.
This occasion also presents us space to share with the nation, through this august House, what we are planning to spend our budget on, and as a means to providing information for members of the House to hold us accountable for the things we identify as priorities. This information will also empower the nation to manage their expectations at the minimum around those issues we commit ourselves to doing.
It is also a moment to account for the things we did before this financial year, as well as to project the political state of affairs on issues of governance and administration.
We made commitments when addressing the National Assembly on 21 April this year, to the effect that we will do the following: Through innovation, we will continue to search for ideas that work in order to respond to the demanding Public Service environment. We will give priority attention to the capacity development programme to prepare public servants at entry to the service and continue enhancing their competency in dealing with their day-to-day programmes. We maintain our unwavering stance on the continued fight against corruption. We will strengthen our efforts to maintain sound labour relations. We will conclude the debate on the single Public Service. We will stabilise the Senior Management Service, SMS, in managing issues of recruitment and work contracts. We will further redefine the architecture of our Public Service to respond to the expectation of a developmental Public Service. We will soon finalise the discussion on the corporate forms of both the Public Service Commission, PSC, and the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, commonly referred to as Palama.
We are gathered here today still in a mood of Freedom Day celebrations, remembering a peaceful breakthrough to democracy in 1994. As we celebrate, it is critical that we remind each other that the democratic South Africa born 16 years ago found her existence in compliance with the principles of nonracialism, nonsexism, democracy and unity.
South Africans should be made aware that our public administration is responsive to these characteristic features of our country - characteristics of nonracialism, nonsexism, democracy and unity. They transcends our public administration.
We pronounced, as enshrined in our Constitution, that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity, and we made it a policy position that our staffing norms should reflect the demographic representation according to the racial mix of our people in the country and in the respective provinces.
We also introduced a policy of affirmative action so as to redress the historical racial imbalance in affording employment and promotion opportunities to previously disadvantaged racial groups in the country. This year, we will communicate the state of compliance with these policies by all our government departments nationally and in the provinces.
Our public administration subscribes to the principle of nonsexism. In this regard, we developed a policy and passed legislation to ensure employment equity in the workplace in general, and in the Public Service in particular. We want to acknowledge on this matter that our compliance rate leaves room for improvement. In dealing with this aspect and also the issue of disability management, the Department for the Public Service and Administration launched a guiding document for all government departments in March last year. That was a contribution to such interventions at the deployment of job access strategy.
This document prescribes, among other things, the following steps - and we need to stress these steps, for these are the steps that hon members present here, when doing oversight work, may check government departments on as tools that can be used to deal with issues of compliance with the employment equity requirements: ensure that the human resources, HR, plans incorporate employment equity; set departmental numeric targets according to national targets; create an enabling environment; develop implementation plans; ensure continuous monitoring and evaluation of the plans; and consult with relevant stakeholders as well as give progress reports on implementation.
This year, we will step up awareness campaigns on the provision of this document, so that, from next year on, we will insist on compliance. Our public administration is also founded on the principle of democracy. We created the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, PSCBC, and the SA Local Government Bargaining Council, SALGBC, as vehicles to ensure that workplace democracy takes place through organised collective bargaining processes.
The principle of unity in our Public Service finds expression in the historical transformation journey of our Public Service, from fragmentation to one administration based on the following founding values: a high standard of professional ethics; efficient, economic and effective use of resources; development-oriented public service; providing service impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias; responsiveness; accountability; transparency; good human resource management; and demographic representation.
The PSC develops themes every year on the basis of which they analyse government's compliance with these values. As you remember, every year, the PSC publishes a report on the state of the Public Service which is based on compliance with these founding values. This year's theme is Innovation in Service Delivery.
We are aware at this point that there is general inaction on the recommendations of the PSC, and we took a decision that, with immediate effect, our Deputy Minister will follow up on noncompliance with these recommendations. We are saying on this point that when the PSC investigates an issue, and then writes a report, having made observations and findings on the performance of departments, those recommendations need to be implemented. Amongst other things, our Deputy Minister will make sure that that happens.
The rate at which we fill vacancies in the various departments is cause for concern. If we regard these vacancies as opportunities for employment, we will agree that failure to fill them is, in fact, depriving employable South Africans of the opportunity to enter the job market and compromises the state's capacity to deliver on its promises.
During this year, we will give a status report on each department's performance profile in this regard, after which we will facilitate that action be taken to insist on compliance. The other problem is delays in the filling of vacancies, resulting in so many people in acting positions in the Public Service. We are weighing options on this matter and we will soon experiment with one of them.
One possibility in this case is that we may prescribe that we centralise the management of the appointment of the executive components of the departments wherein we would further regulate that acting appointments may only be entertained for advertised posts. We may have to put a requirement that each advertisement should reflect a date of the interviews.
We are deliberating in this important House today during a time where we have witnessed and continue to witness confrontations in areas where there are protests by people demanding, among other things, accelerated service delivery. I know that our reactions as individuals may differ as to how we interpret it, but I know that we will all agree that we need a solution to these challenges. Yes, we need a solution, and that will come if we all work together to confront the situation.
Last year, addressing this House, we committed ourselves to review the implementation of the Batho Pele principles. We are happy to announce that we have since relaunched the programme, focusing more on impact assessment. We allocated the eight principles of the policy each to a province, as follows: Eastern Cape focuses on service delivery; Free State focuses on openness and transparency; Gauteng on value for money; KwaZulu-Natal on information; Limpopo on courtesy; Northern Cape on accessibility; Western Cape on redress; North West on consultation and Mpumalanga on all eight principles.
At the end of the financial year, we will account on the roll-out of this impact assessment exercise, so that this very important policy on the transformation of service delivery will guide all steps of the activities of our public servants to ensure quality and access to services.
In this year of outcomes-based performance management, we committed ourselves to doing things differently. One of the things that we will do differently is how we run the State Information Technology Agency, Sita, business. There are three questions that are part of the key issues that we will give attention to during this year, and these are: The review of the Sita pricing model; the review of and compliance with tightening the Sita procurement prescripts; and the improvement of the quality of service for the services of the Sita.
This debate takes place at a time when the country is going through the process of accounting to the heads of state of the African Union, AU, that have acceded to the voluntary instrument of the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM. We are preparing our second report as a country, which is due in July this year. The APRM programme, apart from dealing with issues of compliance with the voluntary instrument, gives us an opportunity to also mirror ourselves against our own performance on those issues that we are called upon to respond to.
In the report, we should talk about our compliance with questions in the following thematic areas: democracy and good governance; socioeconomic development; corporate services; and economic governance. Of course, there are issues that were identified as cross-cutting and to which we should pay attention and report on. In order to deal with these issues, we embarked on provincial visits and organised consultative sessions to reflect on them as follows: In the Eastern Cape we looked at unblocking the service delivery challenges; in the Free State land reform management; in Gauteng stakeholder participation; in KwaZulu-Natal HIV/Aids; in Limpopo inequality and poverty eradication; in Mpumalanga fighting corruption; in the Northern Cape violence against children; in North West racial harmony; and in the Western Cape diversity management.
As you recall, Parliament played an important role during the time of the country's self-assessment process and the writing of the country's review report. It will be a worthy contribution if this institution of public representatives can also participate in the process that is now on. My office is interacting with the leadership of Parliament in this regard, but importantly, members of this House may use the issues in the APRM report in doing their oversight work.
In conclusion, and as we are due and ready for the 2010 Fifa soccer kick- off next month, allow me to indicate that it will not all be holidays for all public servants, as we made arrangements to make sure that the people and the guests in the country receive minimum service so that government will not be seen to be on leave. Government will be active as we are entertaining, welcoming and showcasing our talents to the world.
Once more, Chairperson, I want to thank you very much for providing this opportunity for us to present the Budget Vote for the Ministry for the Public Service and Administration. "Hi khensile" [Thank you]. [Applause.]