MEC Paul Mashatile (Gauteng Treasury)
22 June 2006
Comrade Speaker and Deputy Speaker
The Honourable Premier
Colleagues in the Executive Council
Honourable members of the House
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Introduction
It is my pleasure to present before this House the programme of the GSSC and to
map out the road ahead as we continue our effort to build an effective and
caring government.
Comrade Speaker, 30 years ago, the youth, starting in Soweto and spreading
to other parts of our country, declared that the discriminatory apartheid
education system was unacceptable and they took a conscious decision to render
it unworkable. Through their heroic actions and sacrifices they changed the
course of history.
As we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the adoption of our country's
Constitution, it is appropriate that we acknowledge the heroic efforts of the
scores of our young lions who dared to challenge the military might of an
unjust order. In the same breadth, we wish to acknowledge the 50th Anniversary
of the historic women's march to the Union Buildings. Through this march, the
women of our country made a bold statement that they would not be complicit to
the perpetuation of the unjust pass laws.
As the GSSC we are committed to honouring the heroism and steadfastness of
our youth and our women. This we will do through focused interventions
manifested in our procurement, budgeting and recruitment processes. True to the
provincial strategic priority of enabling faster economic growth and job
creation, we have mainstreamed the recently-launched provincial Broad-based
Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) strategy as the overarching strategy into
our procurement processes. In this regard we will pay particular attention to
BBBEE companies as well as small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs)
especially those owned and managed by women, the youth and people with
disabilities.
Furthermore, as part of our concerted effort to give expression to the
political imperative of empowering women, the youth and people with
disabilities, we are developing sourcing strategies and approaches that would
enable us to set aside certain opportunities to these groups.
We will also encourage collaboration and joint ventures with established
business and in the process expose and transfer skills to our women, youth and
people with disabilities.
The GSSC is best placed, indeed uniquely placed, to spearhead the provincial
drive towards achieving the target of ensuring that by 2009 at least 70% of
government procurement is done through BBBEE companies. Pointing to the
seriousness with which we attach to the achievement of this important target,
we at the GSSC have set for ourselves a 60% target for the 2006/07 financial
year.
Strategic Direction
It is my pleasure, Comrade Speaker, to announce that during the 2005/06
financial year we undertook and completed a review of our strategy. This we did
in order to identify and close gaps between our corporate strategic perspective
and our operational environment, to bring about the necessary alignment between
strategy and operations and to ensure that this alignment finds expression in
our budgeting priorities and processes.
Let me state also that the strategy review has necessitated a
reprioritisation of projects and programmes, which will result in a shift of
funds to higher priority projects during the current financial year. We have
outlined a roadmap towards the implementation of our service delivery model and
an action-oriented agenda which by 2010 should help us realise our objective of
being a high-performance organisation and an employer of choice.
It is these and many other developments that indicate to us that indeed the
Age of Hope has also dawned at the GSSC. This hope is grounded on the progress
we continue to make in building an effective and caring government.
Notwithstanding the challenges that continue to beset us, we are confident
that we are now firmly on course towards not only meeting but also going beyond
our customers' expectations. Working together with our sister departments, we
are responding in a comprehensive way to the needs of those we serve: our
ultimate customers, the citizens of Gauteng.
Comrade Speaker, the GSSC budget for the 2006/07 financial year is R751,339
million. I shall now give a breakdown of the allocation of this budget among
the programmes at the GSSC.
Gauteng Audit Services (GAS)
The Gauteng Audit Services provides services in corporate governance,
integrated risk management processes and forensic and fraud investigations.
These services are essential to our objective of maintaining an efficient and
effective internal control environment within the public sector.
GAS established a transversal audits unit and administers the National Fraud
Hotline on behalf of the provincial government. It also rolled out a Control
Risk Self-Assessment tool across all Gauteng Provincial Government entities.
During the current financial year, GAS will, amongst others, embark on the
following initiatives:
* Performance audits of departmental programmes.
* Finalise the implementation of quality assurance reviews.
* Conduct fraud prevention and awareness campaigns, targeting GPG
employees.
An amount of R50,125-million has been allocated to Gauteng Audit Services
for the current financial year.
Human Resources Services
The Human Resource Services will continue on its quest for service delivery
improvement. Primary focus will be on the consolidation and/or implementation
of the following key initiatives:
* Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation: The focus is on the
consolidation and full implementation of an ERP system for human resource
services.
* Improving business intelligence and reporting: This initiative should enable
Human Resource Services to provide more value-add human resource management
information services to provincial departments for better human resource
planning and management.
* Training and development: This initiative is central to the success of the
business unit. This training and development programme will be informed by both
the competency assessments and the outcomes of the performance management
system.
An amount of R79,858-million has been allocated to Human Resources Services for
the current financial year.
Procurement Services
The GSSC Procurement business unit aims to be a 'best in class' organisation in
the areas of sourcing, contracting and purchasing whilst proactively
contributing to demand management within the GPG. The unit will focus on, among
others, the following areas in this financial year:
* Streamline, accelerate and obtain visibility over all dimensions of the value
chain of procurement activities.
* Enhance business processes with new capabilities powered by technology
improvements.
* Optimise the utilisation of the current technology platforms through further
automation.
* Translate and facilitate the implementation of imperatives outlined in the
BBBEE Strategy. An amount of R85,817 million has been allocated to Procurement
Services for the current financial year.
Finance Services
The GSSC's finance services unit handles all financial administration and
processing services for GPG departments. The primary aim of this unit is to
bring the GPG's financial administration to optimum levels of efficiency.
The new initiatives that the finance unit will undertake in this year
include:
* Electronic payment advice (e-payments).
* Electronic invoices (e-invoicing):
* Restructuring and refocusing the Accounts Payable unit.
An amount of R58,218-million has been allocated to Finance Services for the
current financial year.
Technology Support Services (TSS)
The Technology Support Services unit is responsible for all transversal
Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in the GPG. It is the
responsibility of this unit to manage this infrastructure to ensure an adequate
ICT-enabled working environment for all departments.
Building on the progress made in the 2005/06 financial year, we will in the
current financial year focus on stabilising the initiatives we started whilst
also enhancing the GPG-wide ICT environment with new initiatives to enable
e-government.
Some of the key focus areas and projects for 2006/07 include:
* An all-encompassing e-government programme building on the initiatives and
pilot projects completed in 2005/06.
* The GPG-wide Portal will continue to be expanded and enhanced with more
online services.
* Rollout of Enterprise Resource Planning and Procure-to-Pay to entities within
GPG.
An amount of R332,563-million has been allocated to Technology Support Services
for the current financial year.
Corporate Services
The Customer Contact Centre continues to offer improved services to our clients
despite the negative media coverage that it has attracted. Together with the
Department of Public Transport, Roads and Works we have established a task team
to evaluate current processes and make recommendations with a view to ensure
further service improvements. The implementation of the first phase of
recommendations is already underway with the Langlaagte licensing unit as a
pilot site.
Furthermore, the Customer Contact Centre is working on rollout plans of the
GPG one-number strategy. The one-number strategy will allow for a single access
point for all GPG-related information queries. Future plans are for this number
to be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The GPG Contact Centre will be expanded to economically depressed parts of
the Province, such as Wynberg, Sedibeng, in the Vaal and the West Rand. Its
capacity will increase from the current 165 to 800 seats when the expansion
process concludes.
An amount of R102,715-million has been allocated to the Corporate Services
unit.
Programme Management Unit (PMU)
This Unit was established to gather and disseminate information through
effective reporting using application systems that house verified data and
monitor project performance.
In the 2006/07 financial year, PMU will undertake the following
initiatives:
* Establishment and rollout of the unit and service lines within the GSSC and
other GPG departments.
* Development of the application systems and management reporting tools.
* Mapping of policies, processes and procedures for all departments, along with
the capturing of key identified projects.
An amount of R42,043 million has been allocated to Programme Management unit
for the current financial year.
Conclusion
Comrade Speaker, the GSSC is at the core of our efforts to build an effective
and caring government. It has come of age and now more than ever before it is
adequately positioned and capacitated to make further progress in promoting
efficiency across GPG departments.
We will continue to rely on the GSSC to ensure that we implement best
practice in the provision of back office support to departments. We also look
up the GSSC to lead efforts aimed at promoting BBBEE and the development of
SMMEs, particularly those owned and managed by youth, women and people with
disabilities.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank the management and staff of the
GSSC for their dedication and hard work. Without your collective effort the
GSSC will not have achieved the many milestones it has thus far achieved.
I urge you not to tire nor give in even when the road may appear long and
winding. Yours is an important task and without you our government machinery is
less efficient.
To all GPG Departments we wish to say: thank you for your continued
co-operation with the GSSC.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Economic Affairs and Tourism, Gauteng Provincial
Government
22 June 2006
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government (www. http://www.gpg.gov.za)
