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30 August 2007

Programme Director
Members of the Executive Council
Distinguished members of the various panels
Senior managers
Ladies and gentlemen

The third Senior Management conference is taking place under the theme: "Implementing government strategies and programmes: the key to improve service delivery to the people". It is an instructional road map and a call to action to all of us as the implementing organs of our democratic government.

During our last SMS conference, we went a step further by establishing the Free State Society for Administration and Governance as a mechanism to sustain the discussions and debates in between the conferences.

We may want to do a critical assessment of the value-add of this conference because whereas we are all convinced that the conference provide a platform to share good practices and discus challenges of service delivery within the framework of the intergovernmental relations and mandates, the key challenge remains the implementation of the recommendations and resolutions of this conference.

We must avoid falling into a trap of creating very important platforms like this one merely for discussions without follow-up and implementation.

Programme Director, my specific interest will be to find out how the deliberations of this conference will bring us closer towards the attainment of government priorities as outlined by our Extended Executive Council (Exco) Lekgotla of 2 and 3 August 2007. At that Lekgotla, we agreed that the 2014 vision remains the strategic mobilising programme for South Africa and that the 2004 to 2009 electoral mandate as embodied in our Free State Growth and Development Strategy, remain the core of our programme of reducing unemployment and poverty.

In taking forward this strategic vision, we need to pursue programmes which ensure:

* economic growth and inclusion
* reduction in social welfare and dependence
* strengthening of state capacity for effective delivery and fighting crime
* consolidating international work to pursue the imperatives of economic growth and inclusion.

Obviously, as we engage ourselves with the execution of our mandate we must never loose sight of our character as a developmental state.

Our first attribute as a developmental state must be our ability to lead in the definition of a common agenda and mobilise the rest of society to take part in its implementation. This means that our people cantered and people driven approach must allow us to utilise our popular legitimacy to drive the transformation agenda.

Secondly, we must demonstrate organisational capacity. We must ensure that our structures and systems facilitate the realisation of our agenda. Macro organisational issues must continue to receive our attention and we must ensure permutations among policy and implementations organs and various spheres of government within the inter-governmental framework.

Thirdly we must have the technical capacity to translate broad objectives into programmes and projects and ensure their implementation. Obviously for this to happen we must have proper training, orientation, skills acquisition and retention among our public servants.

The transformation drive of our public service means that we must identify our own weaknesses and correct them. It also includes engendering new doctrines, cultures and practices and ensuring that all the state institutions are reflective of our demographics, including appropriate representation of women and people with disability.

This conference must therefore help us to asses ourselves within this framework and must further provide a peer review platform of determining to what extend have we as senior managers internalised the core values of our constitution and Batho Pele in our day to day work.

It is a fair expectation by ourselves as the political leadership of government, acting in the interests of our people to insist that your overall conduct as senior managers of our government must reflect the values of:

* promoting and maintaining high standards of professional ethics
* providing service impartially, fairly, equitably and without bias
* utilising resources effiently and effectively
* encouraging citizens to participate in policy making and implementation
* responding to people's needs and relating to all stakeholders with humility and courtesy
* rendering an accountable, transparent and development oriented public service and
* promoting sound human resource management and representative service.

We emphasise these values because they are not negotiable. They are your contract with the people and are inherently linked with the success or failure of our government.

Programme Director, our own provincial evaluation of the mid-term reflected positive progress as well as some challenges. A number of interventions we embarked upon are already yielding laudable results. The provincial economy has risen to an impressive 4,2% in 2006 from a negative growth rate of -2% in 2001/02.

Perhaps more commendable is employment creation opportunities. This is a positive sign of the capacity of the province to mobilise human capital and resources for the idea of shared growth. Data from the Statistics South Africa Labour Force Survey of September 2006 shows that unemployment fell from 30,2% in September 2005 to 26,5% in September 2006.

The development of the provincial infrastructure base is well on course. By the end of February 2007, the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport was milling, patching, repairing and rehabilitating roads with a completion ratio rates between 35% and 81%

Despite this positive picture, information provided by Statistics South Africa indicates that the majority of our people still exist in an environment characterised by poverty, with the Thabo Mofutsanyana District the most affected and Motheo District the least affected.

To raise the range of growth to a higher level, Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) was initiated to propel our economy o a higher level .In its nature all interventions identified, must reinforce the first and the second economy.

In the province, the impending Harrismith logistical hub and the Bio fuel project are the main two AsgiSA initiatives. In their pursuit, we have created capacity in the Premier's Office to co-ordinate with all national and provincial departments as well as municipalities and other strategic partners. We are confident that with the capacity at our disposal, we will see through the successful implementation of these initiatives.

Linked to these are a number of anchor projects, which are mainly of an infrastructure nature, for which resources have already been allocated. These include the upgrade of strategic and connecting roads, the construction of a new hospital in Trompsburg, the development of the N8 corridor and the upgrade of the Bloemfontein airport.

Our reflections on the context of the New Medium Term Strategic Framework are that the main programmes of government are still relevant and that the emphasis must therefore be on intensification and implementation. The emphasis for us in the province in particular must be on:

* accelerated infrastructure delivery
* human resources development programmes with immediate interventions to meet current demands
* targeted interventions in the second economy to ensure socio-economic inclusion beyond job creation
* comprehensive social security in terms of expanded coverage, cover for working people and linkages to job creation
* comprehensive anti-poverty strategy based on targeted household initiatives
* combination of initiatives to build social cohesion
* improve state capacity especially in arrears providing economic services and move towards a single public service
* continually enhance state legitimacy including measures to deal with campaigns against the state as well as anarchy and violence in demonstrations
* comprehensive anti crime campaigns including building of popular partnerships.

This conference is therefore challenged to come up with workable solutions of speeding up implementation and delivery of our programmes and integrate the 24 high impact projects identified by the President, in the work of our clusters and departments.

Secondly, the conference must engage in the discussions about the strengthening of our planning capacity in accordance with the framework developed by the Presidency. As senior managers of the Free State Provincial Government, it is absolutely vital, that you participate in and shape the conceptualisations of the various scenarios towards vision 2025 and inform that process with critical and strategic thought processes.

The conference must also engage with the unfolding discussions towards the establishment of a single public service. This is particularly important in testing whether all of us are agreed that the single public service initiative is introduced primarily to provide for administration in all spheres of government, that is better organised and which operates in ways that ensures efficient, qualitative, collaborative and accountable service delivery to promote social and economic development.

It is my view Programme Director, that once we have deepened our understanding on our mandates, responsibilities and priorities, and once we have appreciated our individual and collective contribution and made our solemn declaration to bring our part, we shall have truly distinguished ourselves from those who only perform the basic minimum, to those who go beyond the call of duty, true democrats on whose shoulders lie the success of our national democratic society.

I wish this conference success and may it produces the best plans to take our province forward.

Thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Free State Provincial Government
30 August 2007