Modulasetulo, mohlomphegi Baloyi, maloko a mangwe a Kabinete ao a lego gona, ba?omi?animmogo le baeng ba rena, Mopresidente wa Repabliki ya Afrika-Borwa, ka polelo ya gagwe ge a bula Palamente, o ile a gatelela bohlokwa bja go ?oma ka thata le go ineela ga ba?omedi ba mmu?o. Ke ka moo re kgobokanego mo bjalo ka maloko a Palamente go kgonthi?i?a gore se se a phethagat?wa. (Translation of Sepedi paragraph follows.)
[Ms M C MOHALE: Chairperson, hon Baloyi, other Cabinet members present, co- workers and our distinguished guests, in his State of the Nation Address, the President of the Republic of South Africa emphasised the importance of hard work and dedication by civil servants. That is the reason we are gathered here as Members of Parliament to ascertain the implementation of what he had spoken about.]
Our shared purpose and responsibility is to transform the SA Public Service into a formidable, effective vehicle capable of supporting the socioeconomic development that South Africa and her people need and deserve, particularly providing support for the poor in order to close the gap and erase the sharp disparities that mark the livelihoods of the privileged and the underprivileged.
Public administration is part of the construction and maintenance of human rights. Our own Batho Pele principles are fundamentally informed by a humanistic philosophy, placing people central and foremost in the governance experience. Simply put, this means that the Public Service should love, respect, serve, consult with and be tolerant of members of the public.
The State Information and Technology Agency, Sita, covers the very important angle of creating and maintaining the ICT backbone of government in this technologically-driven era. The SA Management Development Institute was only established in its current form in 1999. Since then, we have incubated the Centre for Public Service Innovation, CPSI, in 2003. The CPSI has to ensure that innovation becomes an embedded way of working across the public sector, solve problems in creative ways when and where they arise and ensure that such knowledge is freely shared across the public sector so that we do not spend unnecessary resources on reinventing the wheel.
Added to this, the President, in his state of the nation address, enjoined us to put plans to improve monitoring and evaluation across government, including electronic information management systems. To achieve these objectives, we will build human capacity by: establishing uniform and high entrance requirements and standards of employment; emphasising professionalism, discipline and commitment to serve; and ensuring adequate numbers of personnel to ensure delivery, particularly in the area of frontline personnel in departments such as Education, Health and Police.
The integrated Human Resource Management Development deals with human resource development, employee practice and career management, employee health and wellness and the Public Service Education and Training Authority, Pseta. The strategy serves to improve the competency levels of public servants through internships, learnerships and skills interventions in order to transform the Public Service into a better service delivery agent. Competency profiling, human resources planning and the monitoring of employment equity targets form part of the strategy. The strategy also focuses on the development of leadership and management capacity of senior and middle management.
The Public Service Commission, PSC, is still not satisfied with delays in the filling of vacant posts in the Public Service. Hence, it highlighted discrepancies in its 2008 state of the Public Service report, and key amongst these is the poor implementation of effective recruitment and selection processes. Inordinate delays continue to exist in making appointments. Despite standards being in place, this is largely not met. PSC surveys on monitoring and evaluation systems show that for the samples of departments assessed between 2000 and 2007, only one department met the three months requirement of filling all of its posts.
In 2005, the Government Employee Medical Scheme, Gems, was launched. Within three years of its establishment, Gems is now the largest restricted membership medical scheme, the second largest scheme overall and boasts growth in excess of 400% in 2007. The scheme covers over 250 000 Public Service employees and 680 000 beneficiaries when we include family members. This is double the figure quoted in the Budget Vote speech a year ago. More than one in five Public Service employees are Gems members. This is something to celebrate when there has been much scepticism about Public Service agencies.
The PSC, a Chapter 10 body, is there to provide honest feedback to Parliament as required by the Constitution on how well our policies are implemented so that we can take the necessary corrective action within the policy and implementation domains where and if it might be necessary. The commission also generates reports on an annual basis on matters affecting service delivery, corruption, observance of personnel practices and the general state of affairs in the Public Service. Parliament also uses the reports to determine areas of follow-up, as well as a basis for legislation and oversight.
To deal effectively with fraud, corruption, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the PSC has recommended, among other things that departments should also strengthen key internal control procedures such as the conflict of interest regimes. More robust conflict of interest policies should be applied more strongly in relation to sustained high fraud risk areas and categories of employees - that is, production level employees and procurement activities. Such policies include requirements to disclose areas of potential conflict of interest and mechanisms of managing such conflicts of interest. An ideal situation would have been one in which the PSC's recommendations are not only advisory, but are also mandatory. This approach would help in strengthening the capacity of the Public Service to decisively deal with management issues. The department presented frequent reports to Cabinet and ultimately to Parliament through the portfolio committee, outlining information on corruption and the efficacy of anticorruption measures. The Public Service Amendment Act is assisting in fighting corruption. It created measures to prevent employees who are charged with misconduct to avoid disciplinary action against them by resigning and accepting employment in new departments where their charges will not be followed up. It is now possible to expedite charges even in the new department because government now works as an integrated system. This would assist in gaining public confidence.
By May of every year and within two months of the beginning of the financial year at local government level, all senior managers should have filled in their key performance agreements, KPAs, with the relevant authorities. The Office of the Public Service Commission was directed to set up monitoring systems in this regard. Heads of departments are mainly responsible for defaulting on the filling of the KPAs despite the fact that this is a requirement that all senior public servants must adhere to. The executive authorities, in their capacity as immediate supervisors, are also to blame for this shortcoming.
The PSC has established that in many instances where heads of departments are not evaluated, this occurs as a result of the failure of the executive authorities to initiate evaluations provided in the framework for the evaluation of the performance of heads of departments. In the 2008 state of the nation Public Service report, the PSC has not clearly identified the filling and signing of KPAs as a glaring problem, except to highlight that there should be a careful examination of KPAs as a management tool in the Public Service.
Notwithstanding the significant process we have made during the past 15 years in terms of Public Service delivery and the continuous strengthening of the social safety net for the poor and the destitute, we have not yet succeeded to completely break the back of poverty and the dehumanising living circumstances that some of our people are in. Service delivery improvement plans of all departments should illustrate intentions to deliver on all programmes mandated to them by legislation. In this regard, the committee on Public Service and Administration worked closely with the PSC to expose entities and departments that provide inadequate service delivery.
The commission produced the state of the Public Service report on an annual basis so that efficient departments could receive recognition while those that are ineffective could be exposed. The portfolio committee would then, in collaboration with line portfolio committees, follow up on the unproductive departments, requiring their accounting officers to provide reasons for their failure to deliver on a service.
The objective of the management of compensation strategy is to ensure that appropriate remuneration and conditions of service policies and practices are developed and implemented in order to attract, recruit and retain a high calibre of skilled employees. The strategy incorporates engaging employee representatives to enhance appropriate labour relations policies across the Public Service and to provide a negotiations framework regarding conditions of service and remuneration. The ANC-led government continues to make strides towards achieving citizen satisfaction on service delivery.
Completing the review on gender balances and representation of people with disabilities ... [Interjections.] [Time expired.] [Applause.]