Date: 07/11/2003
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Shilowa: Premier's Service Excellence Awards ceremony
ADDRESS BY PREMIER MBHAZIMA SHILOWA AT THE GAUTENG SERVICE EXCELLENCE AWARDS CEREMONY, Gallagher Estate, Midrand, Friday, 7 November 2003
Masters of Ceremony; MECs; Mayors; Heads of Departments; Stannic MD Dipak Patel; PriceWaterhouseCoopers CEO Colin Beggs; Public Servants;
Distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen
Next year marks the end of the first decade of freedom and democracy in our country. South Africans from all walks of lives are preparing themselves for a series of celebrations, with the main one earmarked for Freedom Day next year.
The celebrations will also be an assessment of how as a people we have progressed towards our goal of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
There is general consensus that the quality of life for millions of our people, especially those that were most severely ravaged by many years of apartheid neglect and injustice, has improved. We are proud of the steps we have taken towards the implementation of the five pillars of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), namely:
* Meeting basic needs
* Building the economy
* Democratising the state and society
* Developing human resources
* Nation building.
Taking into account the many years of apartheid rule, the exclusion of the majority from decision-making and economic activity, the first five years focussed on policy formulation, dismantling of the apartheid institutions, and repealing all racist and oppressive laws and introducing new ones to ensure equality and to improve the lives of all the people. We also had to transform the public service from one that was created to serve the minority to one that would serve all the people.
In our province we inherited remnants of the old Transvaal Administration, the House of Representatives, the House of Delegates and parts of KwaNdebele and Bophuthatswana Bantustans. At the time we did not have anything resembling a public service. The institutions that we inherited were formed mainly for the purpose of maintaining the system of apartheid. Their personnel's orientation was inimical to the reconstruction and development objectives of the democratic government. They were neither civil nor service oriented.
Among these groups of government personnel there were those who epitomised old type bureaucrats. They saw themselves only as administrators of state regulations and services based on prescribed procedures. More often these old bureaucrats would look for reasons why things could not be done instead of trying to find solutions to problems and better ways in which things could be done to achieve results.
Transforming the public service was therefore always going to be an immense challenge for us. We had to start from scratch to build the kind of public service that would ensure government became more effective, accountable and responsive, more efficient, more user-friendly and more focussed on spearheading development and service delivery. We needed a public service that understood that the RDP and other government policies were not propaganda but the agenda of the government that they had to implement without fail.
One of the challenges facing us was to make the public service to be more representative of all South Africans especially women and people with disabilities. We now have women in senior positions in all our departments.
Our record for the past nine years shows that we have succeeded in building the public service that can be relied upon to direct and implement our reconstruction and development programme in a co-ordinated and integrated manner across all departments and within departments.
We now have hard working, dedicated, creative and innovative women and men in the employ in the Gauteng Provincial Government. We have true public servants who understand that the primary purpose of public servants is to serve the public.
At every service point - in the hospitals, at clinics, schools, welfare centres, multi-purpose community centres and on our roads - our employees have treated the people of our province with dignity, highest care and consideration. The public can confidently walk into any of our service points knowing very well that their issues will be professionally and efficiently attended to.
Many of our public servants have even gone beyond the call of duty in the quest to serve the people better. The extra mile that they have always covered in their work, the innovation they have introduced to the public service and their total commitment to the Batho Pele ethics have made it possible for our people to say: Gauteng is a better place in which to live.
Last year we introduced the Premier's Service Excellence Awards to recognise and encourage better performance by civil servants within the Gauteng Provincial Government. While it is individuals who have helped make the difference in service delivery, we chose to honour teams so as to encourage teamwork and cohesion in departments or units.
The recipients of the awards have set very high standards for the rest of the Gauteng Provincial Government's employees to follow. The Premier's Service Excellence Awards have thus inspired our public servants to improve service delivery and enhance government efficiency.
There are a number of things that show that we have achieved excellence in our work. The Gauteng Provincial Government is now better able to plan in an integrated manner, implement and monitor the impact of its plans, policies and programmes. There is better co-ordination among the departments with each understanding the interrelation of their programmes underpinned by accountability, communication and responsiveness.
In August we reported that the Gauteng Provincial Government had received a clean bill of health from the Auditor-General. All of our twelve departments as well as the Legislature received unqualified opinion from the Auditor-General on their financial statements for the financial year 2002/2003. This was a remarkable improvement from the previous years when the Auditor-General, due to a variety of reasons, was unable to make an opinion on the financial statements of some of our departments. This is a first in the history of the new South Africa.
Gauteng remains the leading province in implementing the Public Finance Management Act. This has gone a long way in enabling the establishment of measurable objectives and outcomes, with a focus on outputs as opposed to inputs.
Our insistence on proper planning and adherence to the laws governing public finance management has also helped us overcome the problem of bad financial planning which often resulted in overspending and at one point a huge budget deficit. Our finances are in such a healthy state that over the past few years we have been able to make savings.
The savings have made it possible for us to spend money on poverty alleviation, health, human development, education and other programmes that are aimed at developing our province. Our ability to implement the integrated national AIDS programme was made possible in part because of our ability to deploy resources to identified priorities.
Excellence and innovation have made it possible for us to break into new grounds where governments had never treaded before. Two years ago we launched Blue IQ, an initiative in which we invested billions of rands in strategic economic infrastructure to create an environment conducive for more private sector investments in our province. The response of the private sector so far to this initiative has confirmed its appropriateness. We can now with confidence proclaim that Gauteng is now a construction site.
We have also invested money on the urban regeneration projects in Alexandra and Kliptown, and more areas are being identified for inclusion in the urban regeneration programme.
We are currently in discussions with South African Football Association, the Premier Soccer League and football teams in our province on how together we can make Gauteng the home of competitive sports especially football. Working with local government in our province we are committed to invest resources to infrastructure and facilities to make it possible for Gauteng teams to play their home games in the province.
We are also ready to contribute within our means to the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA football world cup.
Another example of public service excellence is our communication programme. In keeping with our commitment to accountability, transparency and partnership, the Gauteng Provincial Government regularly communicates with the people. Our Let's talk campaign, which takes us to communities where they live makes it possible for poor people to influence governance. This is important if we are to avoid the situation where governance is influenced only by the moneyed and the propertied.
We make time to visit the people in their own communities to report to them on what we are doing as their government to improve their lives. Because we understand that communication is a two-way process we also listen to what the people have to say about our work. Where they point to us things that need to our attention we act.
Building an effective and efficient public service requires partnership between management and workers, individually and through their trade unions. Without taking away the right of workers to exercise rights enshrined in the constitution - including the right to strike - we have been able to jointly identify bottlenecks to service delivery.
While we do not have a single public service that includes local government employees we have also been able to integrate services where necessary especially in economic development and planning, poverty eradication programmes, health services and policing.
In a few weeks time we will further strengthen the public service through the introduction of Community Development workers. These workers will not replace the public service workers. Neither will they displace councillors or ward committees. Rather they will complement the work of the government at all levels by pointing to government and communities areas requiring improvement in service delivery.
There are many other things that I have not mentioned which show that indeed we have achieved excellence in the public service. Our challenge now is to maintain the high standard that we have set and continue to seek more innovative ways of service delivery.
All of us have a responsibility to expose the minority of public servants who tarnish the name of the public service through corruption and fraud. We remain committed to act without fear or favour against those who defraud the public purse.
Today we are gathered here to once again give our special recognition and praise to those of our public servants who remain fully dedicated to their work and persistently seek creative and innovative ways to meet the challenges facing them in their daily tasks.
It is with a great sense of pride that, as we mark the second year of the Premier's Service Excellence Awards, we present to the people of Gauteng the teams of our employees whose creativity and commitment to the Batho Pele principles have contributed towards making our province a better place.
The teams that will be receiving the awards today epitomise the kind of public servants our country needs to achieve our reconstruction and development objectives.
We look forward to the day when the judges will find it difficult to select the winners, as all the public servants in the employ of the Gauteng Provincial Government will be deserving winners.
I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to all the teams that have been nominated for the awards. All of you, including those that did not make it to the final round, make the Gauteng Provincial Government proud with the efforts that you put into your work everyday.
Keep up the good work.
For more information contact Thabo Masebe on 082 410 8087
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Gauteng Provincial Government
7 November 2003
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Shilowa: Premier's Service Excellence Awards ceremony
ADDRESS BY PREMIER MBHAZIMA SHILOWA AT THE GAUTENG SERVICE EXCELLENCE AWARDS CEREMONY, Gallagher Estate, Midrand, Friday, 7 November 2003
Masters of Ceremony; MECs; Mayors; Heads of Departments; Stannic MD Dipak Patel; PriceWaterhouseCoopers CEO Colin Beggs; Public Servants;
Distinguished guests; Ladies and gentlemen
Next year marks the end of the first decade of freedom and democracy in our country. South Africans from all walks of lives are preparing themselves for a series of celebrations, with the main one earmarked for Freedom Day next year.
The celebrations will also be an assessment of how as a people we have progressed towards our goal of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
There is general consensus that the quality of life for millions of our people, especially those that were most severely ravaged by many years of apartheid neglect and injustice, has improved. We are proud of the steps we have taken towards the implementation of the five pillars of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), namely:
* Meeting basic needs
* Building the economy
* Democratising the state and society
* Developing human resources
* Nation building.
Taking into account the many years of apartheid rule, the exclusion of the majority from decision-making and economic activity, the first five years focussed on policy formulation, dismantling of the apartheid institutions, and repealing all racist and oppressive laws and introducing new ones to ensure equality and to improve the lives of all the people. We also had to transform the public service from one that was created to serve the minority to one that would serve all the people.
In our province we inherited remnants of the old Transvaal Administration, the House of Representatives, the House of Delegates and parts of KwaNdebele and Bophuthatswana Bantustans. At the time we did not have anything resembling a public service. The institutions that we inherited were formed mainly for the purpose of maintaining the system of apartheid. Their personnel's orientation was inimical to the reconstruction and development objectives of the democratic government. They were neither civil nor service oriented.
Among these groups of government personnel there were those who epitomised old type bureaucrats. They saw themselves only as administrators of state regulations and services based on prescribed procedures. More often these old bureaucrats would look for reasons why things could not be done instead of trying to find solutions to problems and better ways in which things could be done to achieve results.
Transforming the public service was therefore always going to be an immense challenge for us. We had to start from scratch to build the kind of public service that would ensure government became more effective, accountable and responsive, more efficient, more user-friendly and more focussed on spearheading development and service delivery. We needed a public service that understood that the RDP and other government policies were not propaganda but the agenda of the government that they had to implement without fail.
One of the challenges facing us was to make the public service to be more representative of all South Africans especially women and people with disabilities. We now have women in senior positions in all our departments.
Our record for the past nine years shows that we have succeeded in building the public service that can be relied upon to direct and implement our reconstruction and development programme in a co-ordinated and integrated manner across all departments and within departments.
We now have hard working, dedicated, creative and innovative women and men in the employ in the Gauteng Provincial Government. We have true public servants who understand that the primary purpose of public servants is to serve the public.
At every service point - in the hospitals, at clinics, schools, welfare centres, multi-purpose community centres and on our roads - our employees have treated the people of our province with dignity, highest care and consideration. The public can confidently walk into any of our service points knowing very well that their issues will be professionally and efficiently attended to.
Many of our public servants have even gone beyond the call of duty in the quest to serve the people better. The extra mile that they have always covered in their work, the innovation they have introduced to the public service and their total commitment to the Batho Pele ethics have made it possible for our people to say: Gauteng is a better place in which to live.
Last year we introduced the Premier's Service Excellence Awards to recognise and encourage better performance by civil servants within the Gauteng Provincial Government. While it is individuals who have helped make the difference in service delivery, we chose to honour teams so as to encourage teamwork and cohesion in departments or units.
The recipients of the awards have set very high standards for the rest of the Gauteng Provincial Government's employees to follow. The Premier's Service Excellence Awards have thus inspired our public servants to improve service delivery and enhance government efficiency.
There are a number of things that show that we have achieved excellence in our work. The Gauteng Provincial Government is now better able to plan in an integrated manner, implement and monitor the impact of its plans, policies and programmes. There is better co-ordination among the departments with each understanding the interrelation of their programmes underpinned by accountability, communication and responsiveness.
In August we reported that the Gauteng Provincial Government had received a clean bill of health from the Auditor-General. All of our twelve departments as well as the Legislature received unqualified opinion from the Auditor-General on their financial statements for the financial year 2002/2003. This was a remarkable improvement from the previous years when the Auditor-General, due to a variety of reasons, was unable to make an opinion on the financial statements of some of our departments. This is a first in the history of the new South Africa.
Gauteng remains the leading province in implementing the Public Finance Management Act. This has gone a long way in enabling the establishment of measurable objectives and outcomes, with a focus on outputs as opposed to inputs.
Our insistence on proper planning and adherence to the laws governing public finance management has also helped us overcome the problem of bad financial planning which often resulted in overspending and at one point a huge budget deficit. Our finances are in such a healthy state that over the past few years we have been able to make savings.
The savings have made it possible for us to spend money on poverty alleviation, health, human development, education and other programmes that are aimed at developing our province. Our ability to implement the integrated national AIDS programme was made possible in part because of our ability to deploy resources to identified priorities.
Excellence and innovation have made it possible for us to break into new grounds where governments had never treaded before. Two years ago we launched Blue IQ, an initiative in which we invested billions of rands in strategic economic infrastructure to create an environment conducive for more private sector investments in our province. The response of the private sector so far to this initiative has confirmed its appropriateness. We can now with confidence proclaim that Gauteng is now a construction site.
We have also invested money on the urban regeneration projects in Alexandra and Kliptown, and more areas are being identified for inclusion in the urban regeneration programme.
We are currently in discussions with South African Football Association, the Premier Soccer League and football teams in our province on how together we can make Gauteng the home of competitive sports especially football. Working with local government in our province we are committed to invest resources to infrastructure and facilities to make it possible for Gauteng teams to play their home games in the province.
We are also ready to contribute within our means to the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA football world cup.
Another example of public service excellence is our communication programme. In keeping with our commitment to accountability, transparency and partnership, the Gauteng Provincial Government regularly communicates with the people. Our Let's talk campaign, which takes us to communities where they live makes it possible for poor people to influence governance. This is important if we are to avoid the situation where governance is influenced only by the moneyed and the propertied.
We make time to visit the people in their own communities to report to them on what we are doing as their government to improve their lives. Because we understand that communication is a two-way process we also listen to what the people have to say about our work. Where they point to us things that need to our attention we act.
Building an effective and efficient public service requires partnership between management and workers, individually and through their trade unions. Without taking away the right of workers to exercise rights enshrined in the constitution - including the right to strike - we have been able to jointly identify bottlenecks to service delivery.
While we do not have a single public service that includes local government employees we have also been able to integrate services where necessary especially in economic development and planning, poverty eradication programmes, health services and policing.
In a few weeks time we will further strengthen the public service through the introduction of Community Development workers. These workers will not replace the public service workers. Neither will they displace councillors or ward committees. Rather they will complement the work of the government at all levels by pointing to government and communities areas requiring improvement in service delivery.
There are many other things that I have not mentioned which show that indeed we have achieved excellence in the public service. Our challenge now is to maintain the high standard that we have set and continue to seek more innovative ways of service delivery.
All of us have a responsibility to expose the minority of public servants who tarnish the name of the public service through corruption and fraud. We remain committed to act without fear or favour against those who defraud the public purse.
Today we are gathered here to once again give our special recognition and praise to those of our public servants who remain fully dedicated to their work and persistently seek creative and innovative ways to meet the challenges facing them in their daily tasks.
It is with a great sense of pride that, as we mark the second year of the Premier's Service Excellence Awards, we present to the people of Gauteng the teams of our employees whose creativity and commitment to the Batho Pele principles have contributed towards making our province a better place.
The teams that will be receiving the awards today epitomise the kind of public servants our country needs to achieve our reconstruction and development objectives.
We look forward to the day when the judges will find it difficult to select the winners, as all the public servants in the employ of the Gauteng Provincial Government will be deserving winners.
I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to all the teams that have been nominated for the awards. All of you, including those that did not make it to the final round, make the Gauteng Provincial Government proud with the efforts that you put into your work everyday.
Keep up the good work.
For more information contact Thabo Masebe on 082 410 8087
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Gauteng Provincial Government
7 November 2003
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