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10 November 2008

Programme director,
Mr Richard Baloyi, Minister of Public Service and Administration,
Ms N Maphazi, Mayor of Nelson Mandela Metro,
Prof Richard Levin, Director-General Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA),
Dr Sibongile Muthwa, Director-General Eastern Cape,
Provincial and National Directors Generals,
Provincial Heads of Departments (HODs),
Officials from all spheres of government,
Our Honoured traditional leaders,
Members of the business community,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

I am humbled to stand here, on behalf of the provincial government of the Eastern Cape and all the people of the province, to extend our heartfelt welcome to all of you. We are honoured to host you in our beautiful province and in the Nelson Mandela Bay in particular. We are particularly privileged to host this very important service delivery occasion. Of course anything and everything about learning takes place in the Eastern Cape.

We are gathered here for the seventh Batho Pele learning network to share and exchange best practice strategies on how we have realised the vision of "Putting People First."

The Batho Pele policy remains government's most important campaign to improve service delivery; transform the hearts and minds of public servants and to put citizens at the centre of planning and operations.

In order to promote the notion of government's intention to adopt a citizen-orientated approach to service delivery, we expect that every person who works in the public service should not only understand and uphold the eight Batho Pele Principles of consultation, service standards, access, courtesy, information, openness and transparency, redress and value for money, but most importantly we should all know how each principle can be applied in the theatre of implementation.

In the State of the Nation Address earlier this year, President Thabo Mbeki directed all of us in the public service to move faster to address the challenges of poverty; underdevelopment and marginalisation confronting those caught within the second economy, and thus ensure that the poor in our country share in our growing prosperity. Certainly, this will best be achieved when the government strongly performs its role in improving service delivery which requires effective implementation of its programmes.

The President went on to say, "we must ensure that the machinery of government, especially the local government sphere, discharges its responsibilities effectively and efficiently, honouring the precepts of Batho Pele" – People first (abantu kuqala).

Hence our drive as government is to establish service delivery partnerships amongst the three spheres of government through promotion of collaboration in the spirit of a single public service to enable us to serve our communities better.

A central component to any strategy to improve service delivery is rigorous service standards, encapsulated in our Service Delivery Charters, which relay to citizens the commitment of the public service to deliver quality services against which government can be measured.

Our Service Delivery Charters therefore act as reference documents for government to account on promises made, thereby emphasising on the notion that "The people shall govern."

One of the key opportunities on the road to service delivery improvement is the ability of the public service to implement policies in the most effective and efficient manner, whilst striving to be innovative in the delivery of services that will meet the needs and expectations of citizens.

This therefore talks to the need to go beyond the eight principles, towards a framework for service delivery improvement strategies to transform the delivery of effective and efficient services to the public, and this is of paramount importance.

Furthermore, the development of monitoring and evaluation systems to measure the resultant service delivery implementation improvement, establishing a feedback mechanism to customers as well as a recognition and reward system for improved systemic performance are cornerstones of Batho Pele.

In order to ensure optimal delivery of services, an effective service delivery programme would need to take into account the gap between expectations that citizens have of government and the planned deliverables of departments at all levels in the system. This would require departments to plan, develop and implement innovative transformation strategies that would support and enhance service delivery improvement in key service delivery areas.

For example, whilst the 2010 Soccer World Cup will make an important contribution to our effort to accelerate our progress towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for our people, the whole world will on the other hand be watching us carefully to judge whether we will be a worthy host for their future investment in this country. And the public service has to be exemplary in this. We therefore need to brand and profile ourselves in a manner that will impart a life-long experience to our visitors.

However, it will not only be through projecting an excellent government image that our tourists and investors will consider coming back to our country, but it will be the kind of service that they actually experience first hand. And I am arguing further that they will also report back home on the extent to which a transformed public service in the democratic South Africa will have been effective in delivering services which meet the basic needs of all citizens, particularly those known throughout the globe to have been the victims of a system of apartheid oppression.

I am convinced that the legislative regime that the democratic government has put in place over the past decade has created favourable conditions for all spheres of government to achieve accelerated service delivery, and thus propel our country along a sustained economic growth path. It is therefore incumbent upon us that we respond to the hopes of the people by doing everything possible to meet their expectations. In that way we will be directly serving the intentions of our vision of creating a better life for all.

The onus therefore rests upon all of us, through our concerted effort, to build a winning nation and crack the walls of poverty. Let us all beat the drum of service delivery in the spirit of 'We belong, we care, we serve.'

I congratulate all those teams and individuals in government who are contributing to this programme through their sustained efforts on their journey towards service delivery excellence.

I hope that the lessons to be shared at this session will be fed back into our service delivery improvement planning and implementation processes; replicated across all spheres of government; truly influence the way we do things for the better; and invigorate public servants to accelerate service delivery.

As I conclude programme director, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Department of the Public Service and Administration and the Office of the Premier in our province, the beautiful Eastern Cape, for championing this very important programme in our development agenda.

Let me once again welcome you in our province and wish you successful deliberations over the coming three days.

I thank you.

Issued by: Eastern Cape Provincial Government
10 November 2008
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecprov.gov.za)