[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

22 June 2006

Comrade Speaker and Deputy Speaker
The Honourable Premier
Colleagues in the Executive Council
Honourable members of the House
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction
It is my pleasure to present before this House the programme of the GSSC and to map out the road ahead as we continue our effort to build an effective and caring government.

Comrade Speaker, 30 years ago, the youth, starting in Soweto and spreading to other parts of our country, declared that the discriminatory apartheid education system was unacceptable and they took a conscious decision to render it unworkable. Through their heroic actions and sacrifices they changed the course of history.

As we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the adoption of our country's Constitution, it is appropriate that we acknowledge the heroic efforts of the scores of our young lions who dared to challenge the military might of an unjust order. In the same breadth, we wish to acknowledge the 50th Anniversary of the historic women's march to the Union Buildings. Through this march, the women of our country made a bold statement that they would not be complicit to the perpetuation of the unjust pass laws.

As the GSSC we are committed to honouring the heroism and steadfastness of our youth and our women. This we will do through focused interventions manifested in our procurement, budgeting and recruitment processes. True to the provincial strategic priority of enabling faster economic growth and job creation, we have mainstreamed the recently-launched provincial Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) strategy as the overarching strategy into our procurement processes. In this regard we will pay particular attention to BBBEE companies as well as small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) especially those owned and managed by women, the youth and people with disabilities.

Furthermore, as part of our concerted effort to give expression to the political imperative of empowering women, the youth and people with disabilities, we are developing sourcing strategies and approaches that would enable us to set aside certain opportunities to these groups.

We will also encourage collaboration and joint ventures with established business and in the process expose and transfer skills to our women, youth and people with disabilities.

The GSSC is best placed, indeed uniquely placed, to spearhead the provincial drive towards achieving the target of ensuring that by 2009 at least 70% of government procurement is done through BBBEE companies. Pointing to the seriousness with which we attach to the achievement of this important target, we at the GSSC have set for ourselves a 60% target for the 2006/07 financial year.

Strategic Direction
It is my pleasure, Comrade Speaker, to announce that during the 2005/06 financial year we undertook and completed a review of our strategy. This we did in order to identify and close gaps between our corporate strategic perspective and our operational environment, to bring about the necessary alignment between strategy and operations and to ensure that this alignment finds expression in our budgeting priorities and processes.

Let me state also that the strategy review has necessitated a reprioritisation of projects and programmes, which will result in a shift of funds to higher priority projects during the current financial year. We have outlined a roadmap towards the implementation of our service delivery model and an action-oriented agenda which by 2010 should help us realise our objective of being a high-performance organisation and an employer of choice.

It is these and many other developments that indicate to us that indeed the Age of Hope has also dawned at the GSSC. This hope is grounded on the progress we continue to make in building an effective and caring government.

Notwithstanding the challenges that continue to beset us, we are confident that we are now firmly on course towards not only meeting but also going beyond our customers' expectations. Working together with our sister departments, we are responding in a comprehensive way to the needs of those we serve: our ultimate customers, the citizens of Gauteng.

Comrade Speaker, the GSSC budget for the 2006/07 financial year is R751,339 million. I shall now give a breakdown of the allocation of this budget among the programmes at the GSSC.

Gauteng Audit Services (GAS)
The Gauteng Audit Services provides services in corporate governance, integrated risk management processes and forensic and fraud investigations. These services are essential to our objective of maintaining an efficient and effective internal control environment within the public sector.

GAS established a transversal audits unit and administers the National Fraud Hotline on behalf of the provincial government. It also rolled out a Control Risk Self-Assessment tool across all Gauteng Provincial Government entities. During the current financial year, GAS will, amongst others, embark on the following initiatives:
* Performance audits of departmental programmes.
* Finalise the implementation of quality assurance reviews.
* Conduct fraud prevention and awareness campaigns, targeting GPG employees.

An amount of R50,125-million has been allocated to Gauteng Audit Services for the current financial year.

Human Resources Services
The Human Resource Services will continue on its quest for service delivery improvement. Primary focus will be on the consolidation and/or implementation of the following key initiatives:
* Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation: The focus is on the consolidation and full implementation of an ERP system for human resource services.
* Improving business intelligence and reporting: This initiative should enable Human Resource Services to provide more value-add human resource management information services to provincial departments for better human resource planning and management.
* Training and development: This initiative is central to the success of the business unit. This training and development programme will be informed by both the competency assessments and the outcomes of the performance management system.
An amount of R79,858-million has been allocated to Human Resources Services for the current financial year.

Procurement Services
The GSSC Procurement business unit aims to be a 'best in class' organisation in the areas of sourcing, contracting and purchasing whilst proactively contributing to demand management within the GPG. The unit will focus on, among others, the following areas in this financial year:
* Streamline, accelerate and obtain visibility over all dimensions of the value chain of procurement activities.
* Enhance business processes with new capabilities powered by technology improvements.
* Optimise the utilisation of the current technology platforms through further automation.
* Translate and facilitate the implementation of imperatives outlined in the BBBEE Strategy. An amount of R85,817 million has been allocated to Procurement Services for the current financial year.

Finance Services
The GSSC's finance services unit handles all financial administration and processing services for GPG departments. The primary aim of this unit is to bring the GPG's financial administration to optimum levels of efficiency.
The new initiatives that the finance unit will undertake in this year include:
* Electronic payment advice (e-payments).
* Electronic invoices (e-invoicing):
* Restructuring and refocusing the Accounts Payable unit.

An amount of R58,218-million has been allocated to Finance Services for the current financial year.

Technology Support Services (TSS)
The Technology Support Services unit is responsible for all transversal Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in the GPG. It is the responsibility of this unit to manage this infrastructure to ensure an adequate ICT-enabled working environment for all departments.

Building on the progress made in the 2005/06 financial year, we will in the current financial year focus on stabilising the initiatives we started whilst also enhancing the GPG-wide ICT environment with new initiatives to enable e-government.

Some of the key focus areas and projects for 2006/07 include:
* An all-encompassing e-government programme building on the initiatives and pilot projects completed in 2005/06.
* The GPG-wide Portal will continue to be expanded and enhanced with more online services.
* Rollout of Enterprise Resource Planning and Procure-to-Pay to entities within GPG.
An amount of R332,563-million has been allocated to Technology Support Services for the current financial year.

Corporate Services
The Customer Contact Centre continues to offer improved services to our clients despite the negative media coverage that it has attracted. Together with the Department of Public Transport, Roads and Works we have established a task team to evaluate current processes and make recommendations with a view to ensure further service improvements. The implementation of the first phase of recommendations is already underway with the Langlaagte licensing unit as a pilot site.

Furthermore, the Customer Contact Centre is working on rollout plans of the GPG one-number strategy. The one-number strategy will allow for a single access point for all GPG-related information queries. Future plans are for this number to be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The GPG Contact Centre will be expanded to economically depressed parts of the Province, such as Wynberg, Sedibeng, in the Vaal and the West Rand. Its capacity will increase from the current 165 to 800 seats when the expansion process concludes.

An amount of R102,715-million has been allocated to the Corporate Services unit.

Programme Management Unit (PMU)
This Unit was established to gather and disseminate information through effective reporting using application systems that house verified data and monitor project performance.
In the 2006/07 financial year, PMU will undertake the following initiatives:
* Establishment and rollout of the unit and service lines within the GSSC and other GPG departments.
* Development of the application systems and management reporting tools.
* Mapping of policies, processes and procedures for all departments, along with the capturing of key identified projects.

An amount of R42,043 million has been allocated to Programme Management unit for the current financial year.

Conclusion
Comrade Speaker, the GSSC is at the core of our efforts to build an effective and caring government. It has come of age and now more than ever before it is adequately positioned and capacitated to make further progress in promoting efficiency across GPG departments.

We will continue to rely on the GSSC to ensure that we implement best practice in the provision of back office support to departments. We also look up the GSSC to lead efforts aimed at promoting BBBEE and the development of SMMEs, particularly those owned and managed by youth, women and people with disabilities.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the management and staff of the GSSC for their dedication and hard work. Without your collective effort the GSSC will not have achieved the many milestones it has thus far achieved.

I urge you not to tire nor give in even when the road may appear long and winding. Yours is an important task and without you our government machinery is less efficient.

To all GPG Departments we wish to say: thank you for your continued co-operation with the GSSC.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Economic Affairs and Tourism, Gauteng Provincial Government
22 June 2006
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government (www. http://www.gpg.gov.za)