Honourable Premier

Honourable Speaker

Fellow members

Colleagues, Comrades and Friends

Thank you for the opportunity to table the budget vote for what has become known as the Department of Finance.  In his State of the Province address last month, Premier Makhura spoke about the importance of radical transformation of the state and governance and modernisation of the public sector as two important pillars in his ten pillar plan for the development of the Gauteng global city region.

Central to the Premier’s vision for the Modernisation of Gauteng’s Public Sector is innovation associated with the digitisation of government services.  Whether in education, health or transport, the concept of connected government lies at the centre of Gauteng’s current generation of modernisation and transformation. E Governance is the mechanism by which this integration will be achieved.

Honourable members, as I said in the State of the Province Debate, our approach is shaped by an understanding that in the modern age broadband is a utility of the same order as water and electricity. Continued failure by government to invest in this utility, will see increasing marginalisation of our people across the digital divide. 

This approach to broadband and the digitisation of government services is gaining international recognition, and can be found in many of the papers presented at the UN Public Sector Conference in Seoul in June this year.  We can already expect that the revised Millennium Development Goals to be adopted in 2015 will include access to broadband and internet services.

In our Province, the Department of Finance is responsible for leading this innovation drive over the next five years.   Strategic investment in broadband by provincial and local government will result in a fibre optic transmission network of 1600 km across the province. This network will connect all provincial government buildings, including regional satellite offices, all Thusong Centres, hospitals, and schools.

Gauteng’s Broadband Network (GBN) has three key objectives: firstly to improve government efficiency and to save government and citizens time and money; secondly to promote digital inclusion by connecting citizens to high-speed broad band initially, through the Thusong Centres located in townships across the province, and finally to act as an economic enabler by ensuring that priority townships and economic regeneration zones have access to high speed broad band.

Honourable members one is aware that this project has been long in the conceptual stage and some of you have been sceptical as to whether or not it would eventually get off the ground.  I am happy today to assure you that the initial design stage is complete and connectivity has begun.

Before the end of this financial year the six core sites will all be connected. The core sites that will be connected are Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, 75 Fox Street, 82 Grayston Drive, the West Rand District Offices in Randfontein, Teraco, in Kempton Park, for internet, and Telkom for the government Data Centre. The core sites are distribution nodes from which it will be possible to start connection other government buildings.

Voice and data services will be the first applications available to 130 000 GPG employees:  data services by the end of this financial year, and voice in the next financial year.

As I said earlier, one of the criteria for judging the success of this project is cost saving.  At present the current total spend on the telecommunications bill for the Gauteng Provincial Government   is R 215 325 984.20. GBN is expected to yield savings of R162m per annum, once it’s fully rolled out to the provincial government.  This year GDF has budgeted R260m for the broadband project.

A major focus of Premier Makhura’s programme of action for the next five years is the revitalisation and mainstreaming of township economies.  Central to this is the Premier’s vision of ensuring that township enterprises, co-operatives and SMMEs produce goods and services for both local and provincial government consumption.

A first stage is assisting these small entities to register on government service provider data bases and to meet the some- what complex regulatory environment that would enable them to do business with government.

Starting this week our Department together with the Department of Economic Development are conducting roadshows in townships. We see this as an important first step in developing a model to move nascent enterprises along the compliance route so that government can in reality purchase food, furniture, clothing and other consumables that would give these enterprises access to a reliable market for their products.

Registration of these enterprises will also allow the GDF to play an important role in monitoring the spend of the provincial government on township enterprises.

In the previous financial year, the Gauteng provincial government spent R 5, 7 billion of its R 8, 9 billion non capex, non-personnel, discretionary spend on Goods and Services  on Emerging Micro Enterprises (EME) and Qualifying Small Enterprises (QSE).   This amount represents 64,3 % of the total spend on goods and services and involved 5 773 small suppliers. 

Honourable members we will only truly honour the Premier’s commitment to supporting township enterprises and co-operatives if we once more take on the challenge of resolving the payment of service providers within 30 days.

To give you hope that we can solve this problem, let me report to you on progress over the last three financial years: In 2011/12 only 27% of GPG suppliers were paid within 30 days.  In 2012/13 the figure progressed to 51% and in 2013/14 this further improved to 82%. 

Of the fifteen Departments, twelve have performed at an average level of 96%.  We are proud of the fact that the so called big spenders, Health and Education, are now averaging 75% compliance and we intend to focus here over the next couple of months to ensure that we meet the Premier’s target.

On Monday this week I met with all those tasked by our two departments to process payments to discuss how we meet the target the Premier had set for us. We agreed on the following actions:

 

1. Firstly we are setting up an electronic platform that can be accessed by all current and prospective GPG suppliers. It can be used to send invoices directly and communicate with us about invoices that have been submitted to Departments and not paid.
2. Secondly we will improve on our existing  invoice and payment tracking system by combining information from treasury, finance and departments so we can follow a range of different submission and approval processes and allow us to identify and elevate problem areas for rapid decision making
3. Thirdly we will work with departments on further simplifying their payment and approval processes including finding ways to fast-track payments for regular expenditure on things like water, lights, rates, rentals and telephones.

Honourable members at our Departmental Strategic Planning session last week, we agreed that the functions of Forensic and Internal Audits are important services with a central role to play in our fight to promote clean and open government and fight corruption.

Accordingly we will ensure that we capacitate these units properly and give them a clear mandate and concrete plans.  In this financial year R81.7 million has been allocated for these services and we intend to make sure it’s used properly.

As part of the Broadband project it will also be the role of the Department of Finance to support the process of digitising back office services.  For three years the Department has offered an e –Recruitment service to the provincial government.

Over the last three years the E-recruitment system has handled 666 056 applications for 5 959 jobs on line.  The benefits to GPG departments of this service include:

 

• Reduction of recruitment advertising costs from R13 693 996, 66 to R2 234 015,48 in the past three years
• Improved turnaround times for processing of applications from 10 working days to 2 working days
• Promoting a paperless environment
• Creating candidate databases for Employment Equity and Scarce Skills including people with disabilities, women and youth
• Electronic management reports; and the
• Availability of candidate records for enquiry and audit purposes

 

The benefits for the job applicant include:

 

• Viewing and applying of GPG vacancies electronically
• SMS notifications-immediate and automated response to job seekers
• Access to GPG job opportunities through the internet, therefore saving candidates time and transport costs
• 17 GPG mobile recruitment campaigns were conducted at community level. During these campaign candidates are assisted to register on the E-Recruitment system, search for vacancies and share information on other government opportunities, including learnerships.

 

In his state of the Province Address, Premier Makhura spoke about the importance of changing the way those of us who are in the public service relate to the public. He emphasised the importance of reasserting the dictum that we are here to serve the people and not the other way round.

One of the ways in which the public can access government information and complain about government services is the Premiers Hotline which is run by the Department of Finance.

Over the last year this service has fielded over 19,789 calls from across the province.  The nature of these calls can be categorised as follows: 69% were for information, 30% were complaints about government services and 1% were compliments on service received from government entities.

While we track referrals and response times for individual calls and issues raised, we are not using the information arising from this system as part of our overall service delivery tracking and early warning system.   It is our intention to reform the collection and management of information from the hotline to improve government’s responsiveness as a whole. 

Honourable members the leadership team in this Department is acutely aware that for some time now they have been ambivalent about their mandate and direction and consequently they admit they have been more concerned with their own survival.

At a strategic planning session we had last week we have agreed that this is going to change. I am now leading a process of role clarification for all staff and I want to assure honourable members that we are going to focus on the service we offer GPG and our citizens and not on ourselves.

I want to conclude by thanking the Premier for his visionary leadership; my colleagues in the executive Council for their support; Honourable Sakhiwe Khumalo and the Portfolio Committee for their oversight role; and the Acting HOD of Finance and the leadership team for their willingness to engage in our turn around project at the Department.