H Yawa: 2005/06 Inaugural MEC’s Excellence Awards

20 January 2006

Programme Director
Pastor Steven Van Rooyen
Head of the Department - Dr Lydia Sebego
Senior Managers of the Department
Sponsors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

One American writer and preacher, Charles R Swindoll once said “If you are
going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little
matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”

We are assembled here to give recognition and highest honour to those of our
public servants in this Department who have gone beyond the call of duty in the
quest to serve the people better. This is in the interest of Batho Pele
principles. We are here to honour and glorify our public servants for their
exceptional talent and innovation and their total commitment to service
delivery. The individuals and teams that we are honouring tonight have
surpassed the service delivery standards. They are performing at a higher level
than the expected standards.
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These ladies and gentlemen, have aligned themselves with Charles R Swindoll’s
school of thought, that excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing
attitude. Increasingly, our public servants are finding better ways of
providing quality services to the people. High levels of efficiency have been
reached across the Department.

While the early stages of the democratic government were characterised by
many challenges related to the transformation of the public service, our
Department now boasts a truly committed and transformed public service that
comprises men and women who understand that the primary purpose of the public
servants is to serve the public.

These can be attributed to the fact that the African National Congress (ANC)
government has managed to come-up with labour policies that are worker
friendly. These policies together with our Constitution recognise the rights of
the workers. They compel us not only to focus on the production without taking
care of the needs of the workers. We are gathered here at Barolong Boo-Ratshidi
to honour the teams and individuals as evidence of government that is workers
and people centred. The government is now better able to plan in an integrated
manner, implement and monitor the impact of its plans, policies and
programmes.

Recognising and honouring service excellence and innovation within the
public service does not mask some of the challenges that continue to face the
public service. While we have made significant progress over the past decade in
transforming the public service, there is still some work to be done. A very
small minority among the public servants are still not doing enough to improve
the quality of service to the people.

The positive impact of these improvements is felt by the public at the very
point where they interact with public servants and receive government services.
Whereas these awards will definitely result in improved morale and enhance
performance benchmarking for most of you, they are, nonetheless, one method of
influencing service delivery and help identify strengths and areas of
improvement at both regional and head office levels.

More importantly, these awards must deeply nurture the relationship between
the department, local communities, business and other stakeholders. To us as a
department, you are our heroes and heroines who have brought glory upon us, who
have performed great deeds for all of us, who will continue to take us to even
greater heights of fulfilment. Your commitment to excellence in your respective
codes and the maintenance of high standards must serve as a reminder to all
South Africans to work hard, to persevere and to strive to excel in all spheres
of our national life.

One of the challenges we face is moving from pockets of excellence in each
sub-directorate, directorate and chief directorate to excellence in the entire
Department. We need to avoid a situation where the existence of excellence in a
section of a Department masks inefficiency and competence in other parts of the
Department. We must work towards a situation where it is possible to have the
entire Department honoured for excellence. That is a sure way to moving towards
total excellence in the entire Department.

These awards are used to recognise individuals that have demonstrably
excelled in implementing innovative solutions to meet strategic business
objectives of this Department through their various sub-directorates,
directorates and chief directorates. It clearly shows that we abide by the
resolutions we as the Department have taken at our Strategic Retreat where we
said, “We denounce business as usual”. Without your help, support and excellent
performance we could not have gathered here to give these awards out. You have
given the word excellence a completely new meaning by changing the direction
that the Department was taking before. If you remember well, this Department
was taken as the most corrupt and less delivering Department. I can tonight say
with pride and dignity that we are changing for the better through your
concerted efforts without which we could have failed. Let me indicate some of
the achievements that we have made:

The Board of the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa
(COHSASA) has awarded us as a department full accreditation for the excellent
maintenance service run by the Department at the Klerksdorp/Tshepong Hospital
Complex for the period 2005-2008. As a Department, we have received second year
in a row an unqualified audit report from the Auditor-General in the
province.

It is true, let me say, that you are judged by what you have done and not
what you intend doing. We have divided these awards into six categories,
namely:
* Best Overall Performing Employee of the Department
* Best performing Employees within Units, Directorates and Regions
* Best Performing Directorates
* Best Performing Region
* Best Performing Chief Directorates
* Best Performing Sporting Code

Programme Director, allow me also to inform these gathering that we will
also issue long serving awards/certificates. According to our records, we have
more than 400 hundred employees who have been with public service for more than
twenty years and because of the numbers we decided that for this occasion,
certificates will only be issued to employees from Head Office, Central and
Southern region.

We will make time to issue certificates to employees in the Bojanala and
Bophirima regions in due course. Functions of a similar nature will be held to
honour these employees at regional levels. This reminds me of one French
writer, Françoise Bertaut de Motteville who once said, “the true way to render
ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure”.

I believe our long serving employees indeed found pleasure in their work.
However, I would appeal to all of us to add the angle of Batho Pele in our
pleasure and that will surely lead to excellence. I also hope that you, the
recipients of these awards will through your hard work and motivation encourage
many of your colleagues to work even harder so as to improve on the excellent
example that you have set for all of us. Those of you, who could not make it to
any of the categories, let me say to you that your time will come still. You
still have the chance of showing us what you are made of. We have an adage in
Setswana, which goes Letlhogonolo ga se lebelo loosely translates that luck is
not a race to run.

Congratulations to all the nominated individuals, directorates, regions and
chief directorates. The adjudication panel selected the winners. Those teams
that did not win are not losers. It is only that in the opinion of the panel,
other teams have performed way above the normal standards. All of you are
winners. You make the department proud.

Let me also take the opportunity to wish our staff members who are nominated
for the Premier’s Awards good luck for representing the Department. Lastly, we
would like to thank all the sponsors Africon, ABSA, Entourage Event and Travel,
Mr T- Group of Companies Rustenburg Travel and Phenyo Distributors, who made it
possible that these awards and ceremony to materialise.

On a different note, let me announce with great pleasure to this gathering
the financial assistance for the badly injured and impoverished Setlagole girl
Mosetsana Setai. A financial sponsorship to the value of R 24 000.00 per annum
is hereby availed. The sponsorship will provide for her basic necessities
including food, clothing, and her medical expenses. In addition, a Trust will
be established in her name to raise funds for reconstructive surgery to her
face. This will enable her to attend school and socialise with other children
and eventually be integrated into society. This was made possible by one of our
private partners, Maxima Global.

I would also like to urge other private partners to follow suit and pledge
in order to make this endeavour a success. In conclusion, I wish to thank staff
members who participated in organising this function. Your efforts are not in
vain and a big hand to all of you for being here with us.

Ke a leboga.

Issued by: Department of Public Works, North West Provincial
Government
20 January 2006
Source: Free State Provincial Government (http://www.nwpg.gov.za/)