Chairperson, Minister and your Deputy, hon members, no one can accuse the government of not displaying good attention. Neither can anyone accuse the government of not creating new programmes or new committees. The problem is the lack of implementation.
The people of South Africa have been generally unhappy about public administration. In the past they suffered at the hands of the Public Service because of the brutal laws that were administered against them. Now they are unhappy because there is general lack of capacity and corruption. When Batho Pele was introduced, the whole country was happy. The people thought that an instrument to implement and work properly had been found. However, the problem is that Batho Pele did not take root.
The Public Service Commission monitors only the application of the Batho Pele principle that produces the reports. However, people are not happy about the reports. The reports are only there to do that.
Now, Minister, how can we say that we have Batho Pele approach? Can the Minister tell me that I can go to a particular department and see the Batho Pele principle in action? One cannot get that. Do we have a situation where there are, for example, 10 nominees that are identified by government in terms of a Batho Pele award in order to promote the principle? Nothing is happening.
We are happy to see, when we check issues from the last financial year - the Minister was there - that some of them have been achieved. Mthondolovhani, hi ndlela yaleyo ha ku ndhundhuzela. Leyi hi yona ndlela leyi munhu a fanelaka a tirha hayona. Hina va Cope a hi lavi ku bvinya leswi mi swi tirhaka; hi lava leswaku mi tirha mi ya emahlweni. Hina ho tiyisisa leswaku ku tirhiwa hi ndlela leyi; a hi bvinyi ku ya emahlweni ka mfumo. Xana loko Presidente Jacob Zuma a vurile a ku ... (Translation of Xitsonga paragraph follows.)
[Mthondolovhani, on that note we praise you. This is the way a person should work. As Cope, we do not want to sabotage what you are doing; we want you to work and make progress. What we are doing is to ensure that work is done in this manner; we don't sabotage government's progress. When President Jacob Zuma said that ...]
... this is the year of action, is it really happening? We must definitely act because the principal has spoken. I thank you.