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17 June 2008

Mayibuye Multi-Purpose Centre, Galeshewe, Kimberley, Northern Cape

Programme Director
Members of the Executive Council
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Mayors of District & local municipalities
Councillors
Provincial Public Service Commissioner
Senior Government officials National and Provincial
Members of the Media
Religious Leaders and the public at large

It is my pleasure to address you on this occasion of the launch of the National Public Service Week for the year 2008. This occasion is more special for us as the Northern Cape, as we have been honoured to serve as the national hub for the 2008 Public Service Week.

The theme for the 2008 national Public Service Week is "From policy to results-based implementation." This relevant and most appropriate theme, 14 years into our democracy, attests to the correct observation made by the Honourable Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi in her preface to the Batho Pele Handbook. She remarks that "The early years of the democratic public service have been characterised by challenges of developing progressive and practical policies and frameworks in order to realise meaningful improvement in the delivery of services to the people of our country - especially previously disadvantaged communities. However one of the key challenges in this long road to service delivery improvement, has been the ability of the public service to implement policies in the most effective and efficient manner."

This theme therefore should inspire public servants in all spheres of our government to redouble their effort to translate the policies of the country to effective service delivery, to the expected levels of satisfaction of all our people.

The theme also serves as a clarion call to all of us as public servants to recommit ourselves to the values and ethos of public service as outlined in the Public Service Transformation White Paper.

One of the sub-themes of this year's Public Service Week "Promoting Batho Pele to achieve excellence" challenges all of us to continue seeking innovative ways to progressively improve service delivery. This should include continually striving for the realisation of the other two sub-themes of Public Service Week of "building state capacity for outstanding service delivery" and "strengthening the public service management."

As we move with verve and the necessary urgency "from policy to results-based implementation" we need to remind ourselves of the objectives of the Public Service Week which are:
* to facilitate access to public services by the general public,
* to enhance the quality and efficiency of public service delivery,
* to ensure multi-skilling of public service cadres at all layers,
* to ensure that senior management service (SMS) members are deployed to the coalface to assist, identify and give possible solutions to administrative problems.

These objectives should guide us in our duty to serve all our people with all humility and respect that they deserve.

As we launch the 2008 Public Service Week, we do so against the backdrop of a global rise in food and oil prices. It goes without saying that the impact is more severe for the poor across the African countries including within our own communities.

In South Africa, these trends have impacted directly on the food retail industry, the price of motor vehicle fuel, paraffin and coal. This situation has further been exacerbated by various South African companies that colluded in fixing prices of such commodities like bread. These challenges affect the poor, the majority of whom constitute the recipients of the services that we deliver.

Some of the service that we deliver serves as the only buffer under these poverty-inducing conditions. Our conduct therefore must be such that it ameliorates the lives of our people under these difficult global economic conditions.

Public Service Week has grown in stature over the past six years, integrating with other service delivery improvement programmes such as the actual taking of services to communities through exhibitions, seminars, interaction with communities, unannounced visits by members of the executive and legislature and the deployment senior and middle managers to service delivery points

It is important at this point to indicate that all senior and middle managers in our public service are required to make themselves available for deployment to the coalface of service delivery during a cycle of performance review. Their interaction with the coalface of service delivery should be reflected in their performance agreements as part of improving service delivery. Consideration of performance bonuses for senior and middle managers must therefore be subject to whether they have been deployed to the coalface of service delivery and had an impact.

I'm looking forward to the Khaedu reports that will be emanating from the engagements that senior and middle managers will have had at the coalface of service delivery.

Other programmes for this week included amongst other, the recognition of public servants that goes the extra mile in delivering services to communities and in promoting Batho Pele through the nomination of Batho Pele heroes.

Let me take this opportunity to thank those amongst the public servants, who constitute the majority of our public service, who consistently go the extra mile in serving our people. Here we're talking about the official who refuse to let the government phone ring more than three times before it is answered, who does not send back pensioners and other members of the public because it is four o'clock, the cleaner who ensures that our people are served under clean and healthy conditions. To all these and other public servants who provide outstanding service to our people, may continue the good work.

However, the small number of public servants who continue to treat our people with disdain, are a blemish on an otherwise improving public service. Here we are talking about those that President Thabo Mbeki, in his 2003 State of the Nation Address referred to as "We must be impatient with those in the public service who see themselves as pen-pushers and guardians of rubber stamps, thieves intent on self-enrichment, bureaucrats who think they have a right to ignore the vision of Batho Pele, who come to work as late as possible, work as little as possible and knock off as early as possible."

In addition, corruption is one challenge that if not dealt with can seriously undermine effective and efficient service delivery in the public service. A corrupt public servant essentially steals from our people, who are in most cases, the most vulnerable in society, and bedevils the moral fibre of our communities.

In order to expose and combat corruption, we must continue to strengthen our partnership with communities and other social partners. We must ensure that our communities utilise the mechanisms that have been put in place to report and expose corruption. Each public institution must make an effort to prominently display and communicate the anti-corruption hotline number so that our people can begin to expose "thieves intent on self-enrichment" as pointed out by our president.

In line with government's objective to work towards a single public service, municipalities have been brought on board and activities are currently planned jointly. The rollout of the Batho Pele Revitalisation programme to the level local government in the province will further enhance efforts the improve services rendered to communities and will go a long way in preparing the ground for the realisation of the aim to have a single public service and in this way accelerate service delivery.

The Public Service Week will culminate in the celebration of the Africa Public Service Week on Monday, 23 June 2008. Africa Public Service Day (APSD) is now an entrenched strategic event on the African Union (AU) calendar. Emanating from the declaration of the first Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Public/Civil Service held in Tangier, Morocco in 1994, the ministers agreed that 23 June every year should be celebrated as Africa Public Service Day to "recognise the value and virtue of service to the community." The ministers' declaration was reaffirmed in the Stellenbosch Declaration adopted at the fourth Pan-African Ministers' Conference held Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2004. The meeting acknowledged the importance of the Africa Public Service Day (APSD) initiative as part of the continental strategy to boost public administration programmes, public sector performance and governance.

The United Nations (UN) has also marked 23 June as Public Service Day and has been celebrating the day since 2002, coinciding with the APSD. The fundamental objective enshrined in the APSD is the provision and delivery of value and quality public service to Africa's citizens, and due recognition of the working conditions and the quality of officials who devote their lives to diligently serve the various publics. The other equally important consideration is the facilitation of positive service outcomes and the quality of interaction between citizens and the public service. Africa Public Service Day serves as a platform for the Public Service to showcase and reward good initiatives and achievements in the public sector, and equally it provides an invaluable opportunity for public servants to promote values such as professionalism, accountability, responsiveness, ethics and performance in the delivery of public service.

The recent criminal acts committed against our fellow African brothers and sisters in some parts of our country are unjustifiable and must be condemned by all peace-loving Africans. In the same vain we do not exclude those that are from Asian origin. As public servants we need to, as we deliver public services to all our people, including to our brothers and sisters from other African countries, contribute towards the ongoing national effort of combating xenophobia. Let me once again thank our public servants who decisively organised our people against xenophobia. This is part of taking the extra mile in defence of our democracy. We will as a province, join our compatriots on the national day of mourning called by our president on 24 June 2008 to remember those who lost their lives during the recent xenophobia attacks.

Our response as public servants must be premised on the international and African protocols of which our country is a signatory. In dealing with this challenge we need to remind our selves of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which states in its preamble that, "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts, which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world, in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people."

"The African Charter, which evolved to become the principal human rights instrument on the continent" also reaffirms the centrality of human rights in the African human family. As South Africans, we have an obligation to ensure that the challenge of xenophobia is understood and confronted by all of us in the country and in our province within the context of the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

When we deliver services to our brothers and sisters from other African countries in our hospitals and government offices, we must do so cognisant of these declaration and charter which places an obligation on us as public servants and citizens to respect the human dignity of all human beings, whether they from within or outside of our borders.

Let us all work to enhance the delivery of public, "from policy to results - based implementation."

I thank you

Issued by: Northern Cape Provincial Government
17 June 2008
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.northern-cape.gov.za)