delivers the annual Budget Vote
29 March 2006
The Minister of Public Works, Ms Stella Sigcau,
The Chairperson of the Public Works Portfolio Committee, Mr Fezile
Bhengu,
All the MECs for Public Works from various provinces,
Honourable members,
Senior management from the Department of Public Works,
Senior leadership and management of our statutory entities,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
As part of the Department of Public Worksâ Budget Vote it is with pleasure
and honour today that I highlight some of the achievements that we as a
Department have accomplished with regard to Prestige Accommodation over the
past year.
As part of its core functions, the Department of Public Works provides
physical accommodation as well as maintenance and other facilities management
services to the national legislature and the executive branches of our
government including The Presidency.
We were able to provide adequate accommodation to the new members of the
executive following the reshuffling of Cabinet. This is in relation to the
appointment of two new Deputy Ministers of Trade and Industry for who we had to
find contingency accommodation in the Pretoria/Tshwane area. We have now
managed to acquire suitable residences in Waterkloof, which we are busy
refurbishing to Ministerial standards. We also managed to house the new Deputy
Minister of Correctional Services as part of our responsibility. Over the past
year we also conducted refurbishments at the following residences: The Gardens,
Laeveld and Newlands house to the value of R970 000, R1,53 million and R1,4
million respectively.
We allocated an amount of R44 million to Prestige Accommodation to carry out
functions such as the interior decoration of Ministerial and Presidential
houses and the implementation of the repair and maintenance programme (RAMP).
This amount also included the costs of maintaining gardens and cleaning
services all of which are meant to improve the comfort of our most valued
clientsâ residences.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to report that Prestige Accommodation also
successfully organised, coordinated and managed high profile state events such
as the Cabinet Lekgotla; the Presidential Youth Working Group; State visits by
international dignitaries and similar events. With the assistance of our most
committed staff and skilled contractors we managed to host these events at the
highest standards possible.
Together with the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Prestige Accommodation
team assisted in the identification and procurement of the building which will
become the home of the President of the Pan African Parliament. We registered
the said house in the name of the state on 2 February 2004 in Waterkloof, an
area that is designated a Ministerial and Ambassadorial area.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that over the past year we
upgraded committee rooms for both the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and
the National Assembly to the value of R20 million. To ensure the comfort of
members as they carry out their responsibilities we upgraded air conditioning
in the National Assembly to the value of R5.4 million. We also upgraded the
Cabinet and green rooms at Tuynhuys and provided media facilities and a radio
studio at 120 Plein Street building, all to the value of R30.5 million. We also
made the Parliamentary Precinct more user friendly to the physically challenged
at a cost of R5.2 million.
In addition to all this it is important to report that there has been a
smooth implementation of the new facilities management contract for public
works in the Cape Town regional office. The current contract commenced on 1
March 2006. This allowed for a transition period of six weeks following the
lapsing of the previous contract with Working Skills Plan (WSP)/Sidibene on 28
February 2006. The current contract is valued at approximately R310 million
over three years and entails a more comprehensive maintenance management plan
than the previous one.
While we are pleased with our progress so far, we still have a few
challenges ahead. As you probably are aware we are required by the National
Strategic Intelligence Act (Act 39 of 1994) to contribute towards the counter
intelligence responsibility of the government. This includes the conducting the
security screening (vetting) of any person and companies who render or intend
to render a service in Prestige Accommodation structures and offices classified
as national key points. The aim of this process is to ensure the integrity and
loyalty of those who are working in our clientsâ residences and offices.
However, the security clearance process has sometimes proven to be a lengthy
process taking longer than most of our clients can wait. As a result this has
resulted in project delays and often low expenditure of budget on major
projects. This naturally has resulted in unhappiness among our clients and they
have vented their anger at us due to what they consider to be unreasonable
delays. We would like to take this opportunity to assure our clients today that
we are working closely with the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to expedite
the security clearance process. We will also review our procurement procedures
in the hope of speeding up the project delivery process.
With your permission I would like to list some of the challenges facing us
all going forward. These include inadequate communication between us and our
clientsâ insufficient funds to address maintenance; the need to update the
Ministerial handbook to reflect current policy and the implementation of a
furniture policy.
As we move forward into the new fiscal year we will together ensure that we
create positive milestones from the challenges we faced in the previous year.
We will pave the way forward for a more efficient management of Prestige
Accommodation.
Among other things we intend to do the following:
*We will implement a moveable asset policy and a movable assets register.
*We will construct seven new residences in order to bring all Ministers and
Deputy Ministers to equitable residential status.
*We will compile integrated management and conservation plans for the Grootte
Schuur Estate, Fernwood and the Parliamentary Precinct.
As we look ahead to the future we believe that improving service delivery is
a key to achieving lasting customer satisfaction. To this end I am pleased with
the introduction of the Infrastructure Delivery Improvement Programme (IDIP) in
the Department of Public Works (DPW). As a result DPW has seen the introduction
of a number of initiatives geared towards improving the quality of services
provided to our clients.
We will identify and fill all critical positions in line with the
Infrastructure Delivery Improvement Programme Capacitation Plan (IDIPCP) to
ensure full capacity within our unit. We have created and filled the post of
Estate Manager who we anticipate will be of great assistance in facilitating
service delivery to our clients.
We have also planned a major upgrade of the Presidential golf course for
2006/07. We have appointed a specialist company Golf Data to upgrade and
improve the Presidential golf course and this project is expected to be
completed early in 2007. We are currently busy with the upgrading of the
Presidentâs residence in Tshwane.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the new financial year we aim to improve the
quality of event management services provided to our clients. This includes
purchasing our own furniture including conference sound systems, tables,
chairs, etc. Our Cape Town office has made tremendous improvement in attending
to Prestige clientsâ needs, especially maintenance related issues and
emergencies. The appointment of the Facilities Management Company in that
office provided a major impetus to service delivery and improved client
satisfaction. It is our plan to appoint a similar contractor in our Pretoria
office to ensure similar results.
As a Department we believe that we can achieve client satisfaction through
continuous engagements with them and/or their representatives. As a result we
have established a client liaison forum with all prestige clients, which will
meet every quarter to discuss among other things issues pertinent to the
portfolio and service delivery. With these arrangements I am positive that we
will make client satisfaction a reality.
As DPW we will contribute to Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) through the
maintenance, acquiring and management of state property of which we are
custodians. Subsequently through the provision of Prestige Accommodation we
will contribute immensely towards governmentâs objective of BEE and poverty
alleviation. This we will do through the procurement of goods and services from
Affirmable Black Enterprises (ABE) as well as small and medium enterprises
(SMEs). Together with the Emerging Contractor Development Programme (ECDP) the
Prestige Accommodation unit in Tshwane managed to spend 79 percent of its
allocated budget on such enterprises in the previous year.
We remain committed to excellence in standards and the efficient delivery of
services to our clients while meeting the socio economic challenges of our
country today and into the future.
I thank you.
Issued by: Deputy Ministry for Public Works
29 March 2006
