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6 May 2008

Chairperson: No, thanks, Minister, it was sweet and short and I can see everybody is awake. Shall we now proceed to questions, we're going to take one question per person then we can come back to the next round if there's a need. The floor is yours, ladies and gentlemen.

Journalist: I just wanted to know you've given us the stats on the top posts of your occupancy rate, but how far are you in actually filling the vacancies of top management and senior staff?

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: Well, we actually took a report to Cabinet this morning and in terms of progress on regularising employment and performance agreement at designated levels, at the national level we filled 91 percent of the posts of Director-Generals, so 31 posts have been filled out of a total at the provincial level we filled eight out of the nine provincial Director-General's positions, just one province that has a vacancy.

At the level out of 116 departments at local government level, there are 12 vacancies of Chief Financial Officers, that's 10 percent. And then at a local government level the vacancy rate for municipal manager posts has decreased from 22 percent as at the end of September last year, as I said to 12 percent as at the end of March 2008. So there's quite positive progress and as I've stated earlier that this is one of the apex projects, priority projects, and we've been in consultation with members of the executive across national and provincial government, and there's been communication to local government to ensure that we meet this obligation.

You're also aware that we have resolution one of 2007 which is an agreement that was signed in the Public Sector Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, and as part of that agreement we have made it quite clear that we will try and fill posts within the six month period, and here we're looking at funded vacancies. I think the Director-General (DG) of local government has just indicated to me that there's actually 100 percent appointment of municipal managers in three of the provinces, and that's Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. So that actually helps you with the figures you have, thanks.

Journalist: Then you referred to the local government anti-corruption strategy, but you also talk about and I've lost the reference minimum, minimum anti-corruption capacity learning manual.

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: Yes.

Journalist: What's that all about? What is a minimum anti-corruption capacity and what do you tell them in a learning manual? Don't do it?

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: In a learning manual you actually put in place norms and standards of what's required within the public service. I mean, it's not a issue of saying do not do it, it's saying to you what you can and cannot do in the public service in order to ensure that we do have a ethical environment that complies both with what is in our regulatory environment as well as the code of conduct of public servants and so on. I do not have the exact details of that manual right now but I'll definitely send you a copy thereof.

Unidentified Speaker: (Off mic)

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: I'm sure we can work with you on that one.

Unidentified Speaker: (Off mic)

Chairperson: Okay, thanks. Any follow-up questions?

Journalist: Minister, what is the timeframe for the implementation of a single public service? And has any clarity been reached on the harmonisation of salary levels, how that will be achieved, and whether it's going to mean a greater cost for the state? Thanks.

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: You know we've received the technical report looking at the costing of the single public service. That was received on the 30th of April. We are studying that. It needs to be taken to Cabinet for deliberations, so we'd be able to provide those details at the time. That of course also will deal with the question of harmonisation of remuneration, looking at the broader macro benefits and so on. But we have never taken an approach that says that we're going to take a big bang approach on how we harmonise. I think we're probably going to take an incremental approach to that, but I think that we should leave that to Cabinet discussion and that information should be made available quite soon.

Journalist: I see under local government strategic agenda that from September last year, 40 percent now it's 40 percent municipalities who are receiving assistance from national. I just want to find out, does this mean that more municipalities are unable to run their affairs or are incapacitated, hence the need for intervention from national?

Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela, DG for Provincial and Local Government: Thank you, this is a continuation of hands on support as was identified in Project Consolidate. And you remember that we looked at the capacity of municipalities and we agreed that there was a need to improve that capacity, that we needed to recognise that there was a problem at that sphere of government and there was a need for the provincial and the national sphere to work together with the local government sphere to address those challenges. Currently we have agreed on an agenda that binds all of the three spheres of government to support the local government sphere. As you'll remember, we had identified 139 municipalities and we are saying now out of those 139 municipalities, 109 are actually receiving direct support and in addition to that we are helping those municipalities to have their own internal support programmes that will deal with sustainability over the long term.

Chairperson: Thanks, DG. Any other questions? First, and then you're noted.

Journalist: Minister, two short questions. You mention a single service provider (unclear) and collects IDs to improve efficiency and security. Who is this single service? Do you have a name of the company at all? And then the second one quickly, it says an information and communication technology (ICT) blueprint to improve connectivity at the centres has been developed. Who developed this? Was it State Information Technology Agency (SITA) or who Sentech, is Sentech going to be doing the connectivity? Who's going to be providing that connectivity to these Thusong Centres? Thank you.

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: Let me start with the first one, I think that's a question we'll refer to Home Affairs because I can't provide the detail thereof. On the second one, the ICT blueprint, that's where we have involved the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) (unclear) Council and SITA. Of course Sentech will have a role in the process, but that has developed through a collaborative initiative.

Chairperson: Okay, Cleo Mosana from Home Affairs is in the audience, so can be able to help you with that information.

Journalist: Minister I know you said you couldn't say too much about the policy review process, but could you just elaborate a bit on what you mean by legislation for provinces to give effect to their developmental role and also whether legislation is required for better management and assignment of powers? You know, if you could just explain what that's about.

Prof Richard Levin, DG for Public Service and Administration: Thank you, with regard to the policy process on the future of provincial government and local government, the Ministry of Provincial and Local Government presented to an extended meeting of Cabinet and the Provincial Co-ordinating Committee (PCC), a meeting with premiers last week, presented a report on the 25th of April. A report that deals with progress that has been made with regard to this area of work has been made available. We have received responses amongst which deal with proposals from the public as well as from research institutions, and from other individuals in society about the different spheres, particularly even the provincial sphere of government. And there have been recommendations also around the powers and functions that are, that we have already in the Constitution. And some of these relate to a function that deals with housing, some of them relate to other functions, transport in provinces, other functions such as roads and so forth. What was important was that we have been able to look at the role of provinces in terms of economic development, so currently Cabinet has been able to receive this report and will be deliberating on it as we work towards a July cabinet report.

Journalist: I'm looking at the outcome indicators here and two things, one is about people with disabilities. It says here that just about 0,2 percent of the total number of employees in the Public Service is those with disabilities. This is below the 2 percent target that is to be achieved by 2010, and it says here that in terms of the appointment of women to senior management, its now standing at 33 percent and it's below the 50 percent target which must be reached by March 2009. Why do you think government departments are dragging their feet here and what is being done?

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: We have two major interventions on both these areas. The one is a specific intervention in terms of disability that we call 'Job Access', the initiative, and there we've realised that there is a need to develop a database and we are working with the Office in the Presidency, the Office on Disability in the Presidency, to ensure that along with the appropriate stakeholders, we have this disability database. The second issue is that we find that the level of – shall I say indication by public servants of disability that may be of a more – shall I call it an emotional nature – is not reported. And we cannot force people to indicate all disabilities if they don't so wish to do and hence our initiative to ensure that proactively, through creating a more enabling work environment, which we've done a lot of work on for disabled people, as well as the database, that we will be able to improve this.

On the area of gender, I do believe that we will be able to meet that 50 percent target. We will be doing quite expensive work and if you look at a cabinet decision that was taken last year, with August month, there was a very clear decision that this should be included on the performance assessment or shall I call it the performance contracts of DG's that they look at increasing recruitment of women into senior management positions. We acknowledge the fact that there are other environmental factors that probably impede a number of women that serve at that level. Environmental factors such as – and we raised this in a meeting yesterday – that we don't necessarily have conducive breast-feeding facilities for women in workplaces. That's an environmental factor, amongst others, where women of childbearing age may feel that they are not quite ready to take on the senior responsibility because of the implication on families. We are, I think, working towards a gender sensitive society, but parenting is still largely the role of women. We can improve and will look towards improving this. So I think there's a number of factors that we're looking at how, through both policies as well as improved regulatory frameworks, that we can ameliorate this situation. Thanks.

Chairperson: Thanks. Let's take the follow-up question.

Journalist: Well, just back to that single public service. The date when you envisage that it will come into effect and this Bill that we have at the moment, is it going to be supplemented with another bill and what is the division and whereto from her?

Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: Well, I think the aim is still, as has been publicised, to introduce to Parliament by June on the cut-off date for new bills to be introduced, but obviously that process will have to take its course. But it won't be augmented by another bill, but there would be regulations which would be published subsequent to the enactment of the legislation. So I think that's the answer to your question, thank you.

Journalist: Going back to municipalities. Could you please indicate, looking at the performance management system, that now its 105 municipalities that had implemented the system? Could you inform us on when the deadline will be for the rest of the municipalities to implement the system, and also on the local government skills audit, I see that only 14 municipalities were now planning to get the rest of them to do this skills audit.

Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela, DG for Provincial and Local Government: I think it is important when we talk about the nature of this report today, to recognise that the government and administration cluster that is part of the legislature of the Minister has been looking at the competence of monitoring an evaluation of the government system. If we had not done that in the past two years, we would not be able to be at the point where we are now. To be able to – in quantitative and qualitative terms, be able to point to where the nature of the challenges is, even recognising the different spheres within which we operate. So we decided to embark on a programme, which would support municipalities in their performance management system, a function which ordinarily in administrations is a function that should be done anyway, but because of the nature of the challenges after the amalgamation of the new municipalities you actually needed to make sure that you support them. And we would not have known this if we had not embarked on Project Consolidate. So we are at a point now where we have been able to develop guidelines on a performance management system and we've been able to identify a baseline from where we are operating and this baseline is improving, because we are saying we were standing at a mere 9 percent in 2006, where there were municipalities where we could say had an acceptable level of performance management systems that had been implemented effectively within new amalgamated systems, as I said.

And this has now increased with this support to 105. In terms of the context within which we are operating in South Africa, this is an improvement, but we are not happy with this improvement because we would like to ensure that this is business unusual and make sure that each and every municipality is able to meet the target of implementing the system at a100% level, still within the financial year. So that is our focus. In terms of the local government skills audit, which is much more detailed, we are focusing on ensuring that we are more detailed on the nature of the skills that are required. That problem is more long-term, but we have to make sure that at least within this financial year, we are able to support municipalities and in the report we have identified those municipalities and districts that are going to receive this support. Ordinarily, as I close, we would not be providing this support if we had not identified that there is a need to work together in this way. Thank you.

Chairperson: Should I recognise the last hand? Is that the last one?

Journalist: Over the weekend there were reports that public servants are expecting about a 10 percent pay increase, taking into consideration the high food prices and VPIX that's now double-digits. How will you list it if there is such an expectation?

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi: There is an agreement that we've reached which is a multi-term agreement, the resolution one of 2007. And that agreement says that we need to look at an increase which is CPIX plus one percent for this year. This is clearly a matter that we need to consider and we will resolve it accordingly. Thank you.

Chairperson: Thanks very much Minister. Ladies and gentlemen, we will see you on Thursday when we do the economy cluster.

Issued by: Government Communications (GCIS)
6 May 2008