Annual Public Service Trainers Forum (PSTF), The Ranch Hotel, Polokwane
4 November 2007
Theme: "The capacity of the state to deliver government's Programme of
Action through human resource development for economic growth and development
in South Africa"
Programme director
Professor DR Thakhathi-Patron of the PSTF
Our Director-General Dr N Manzini
Dr FM Orkin on behalf of South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI)
and Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA)
Heads of Departments and Senior Public service officials
Academics and scholars from various Universities
Human resource practitioners in both public and private sector bodies
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to partake in today's occasion convening under
the theme: "The capacity of the state to deliver government's Programme of
Action (PoA) through human resource development for economic growth and
development in South Africa". Obviously this conference would not have come at
a better moment than now when the entire country is grappling with discussions
around the establishment of a single public service system, and questions
around whether the State has enough capacity, to meet our societal
developmental challenges, given the chronic shortages of skills within our
human resource base. We are almost at the tail end of discussions around the
single public service system, but we hope that your inputs on how the process
should unfold will obviously come in handy. On the other hand, we meet at a
time when our public service has been revolutionarised by such initiatives as
the Community Development Worker's (CDW's) programme, Khaedu project, Thusong
Service Centre's (TSC's) programme and additional human resource opportunities
brought about by legislation in the area of traditional leadership governance
and institutions.
Programme director
Let me further remind you that, we also meet at a time when we had just
witnessed one of the most ravaging public servants strike to indiscriminately
hit our public services recently. Indeed, there are many lessons and
experiences, we can draw from the June public servants strike which we hope you
will use, as case studies, to avoid recurrence of similar possibilities in
future, as well as to reflect on the gravity or seriousness of the questionable
conduct, that some of you demonstrated, which, has been a low point when
measured against the Batho Pele values that we all strive to embody in our work
and conduct as public servants.
Notwithstanding this, it is my belief and trust that the conference will
live up to its expectation of providing the best possible solutions and
lessons, which can be learned in the transformation of our public service. We
eagerly wait to see the resolutions of this conference, which will come out of
your important deliberations.
Programme director
Over the past 13 years of freedom and democracy in our country, the
democratic government has been hard at work to transform society and its
service delivery institutions in the main. On top of the agenda of this
transformation process, was and continues to be the creation of an integrated
and centrally co-ordinated public service that is equal to the challenges of
bettering the lives of our people. Thirteen years into the new democratic order
and ten years since the introduction of the White Paper, we can boldly and
unwaveringly attest to the fact that we have managed to radically change the
public service institutional landscape to such an extent that we are now more
than in the past, better constituted to meet most of the basic needs of our
people.
To a greater extent, we can say that we have managed to alter the racial and
gender disparities at higher echelons of the public service to reflect the
demographics of our country, although much more work still needs to be done in
this regard. On a much more positive note, our province for instance, has about
almost half of all Head of Department (HoDs) being women and 35% women
representation at senior management echelons of our public service, a figure
which we believe is surely going to rise in the coming years. At a more general
level, if the 2007 study by the Businesswomen Association (BWA) is anything to
go by, advances in women representation seem to have improved significantly,
also in State Owned Enterprises (SOE); where women directorships are said to
have increased from 31,3% in 2006 to 35,2% this year. This obviously reflects
the strides which public entities in general, have made in transforming gender
relations within their ranks and their sense of urgency in redressing past
discriminatory practices. However, our challenge as we have already said in the
past, lies in the private sector, where women are still languishing behind at
directorships and management levels.
Programme director
However, we believe that, the true test of a successful transformation in
the public service also lies in our ability to integrate delivery programmes of
all government spheres, departments and related institutions.
We have for many years now, failed to discharge our collective mandates due
to poorly co-ordinated programmes that impacted negatively on the lives of our
people. Unnecessary duplication of efforts and expenditure, and little sharing
of experience and knowledge, are but some of the things which daily
characterise our "modes operandi". We cannot afford to continue with a
situation in which departments aimlessly compete with another when they are
supposed to collaborate on key themes of our service delivery programmes.
Neither can we afford a situation where departmental officials work in silos as
if they are not part and parcel of the same government.
As government we are compelled by the Constitution of our country to
discharge only the highest quality of services to all citizens of South Africa
irrespective of their gender, race, language, creed or geographic location.
This means that our government has got a legal duty to extend public services
to all citizens in every community, village or township in whatever corner of
our province and country without discrimination. This implies that, instead of
us being irritated by the ongoing spate of service delivery protests in some
parts of our country, which are fast becoming a norm, we should perhaps rather
regard these protests as some kind of a wake up call which must make us want to
communicate better to our people.
The report by the Public Protector on an Investigation into the Causes of
Delays in Communication in the Public Service Administration (Special report No
19 of 2002) reveals that: access to services is still a challenge. It further
says that government institutions are not citizen-friendly and that the Batho
Pele principles are far from being implemented. It also indicates that there is
varying degree in terms of the understanding of compliance with the Batho Pele
policy. The report recommends that; we should increase access to government
services using the most convenient channels. The emphasis of this should be on
a bundle of service offerings, rather than which department is responsible for
which service. What this points to in essence, is a No wrong door philosophy
and dispensation of discharging services; which essentially means more and not
less integration of departments and all spheres of government.
It is our hope that the single public service initiative, will ensure that
government departments are seen and functions as one, and resources are
utilised effectively and efficiently by establishing national norms and
standards through appropriate regulatory frameworks. This in our view will also
create a single senior management service cadre, where appointment would be to
the service rather than to the post, facilitating a seamless mobility of any
manager within the Single Public Service.
In order for this to happen, we would obviously need an all-rounded public
servant cadre, who has a comprehensive feel and understanding of government's
main offerings and how to discharge them. We believe that our Human Resource
Development (HRD) strategy and the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills
Acquisition (Jipsa) initiative will, amongst others, help us to retain much
needed skills within the State, so that capacity problems become a thing of the
past. If this does not happen, our private sector and foreign investors may
find it very difficult to invest in our economy and create the necessary jobs
that we need to fight poverty and underdevelopment.
We hope that, your meeting here today and tomorrow, will afford many of you
the opportunity to exchange ideas, as well as reflecting on what needs to be
done to deal with capacity challenges within the State, by celebrating only the
best practice models. Not least important amongst the things which you must
deal with, is the ravaging scourge of HIV and AIDS and its implications within
our human resources. We believe that the body of wisdom gathered here has got
all the capability and experience to tackle these challenges.
I wish you successful deliberations!
Thank you.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Limpopo Provincial Government
4 November 2007
