P Mlambo-Ngcuka: Senior Management Service conference

20 September 2006

Minister of Public Service and Administration, Geraldine Fraser
Moleketi,
Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies,
South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Martin
Kuscus,
University of South Africa (Unisa) Vice Chancellor, Professor Barney
Pityana,
Directors-General,
Members of the Senior Management Service Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Congratulations on holding the Fifth Senior Management Conference under the
theme "Age of Hope: Capacity Building for Accelerated Service Delivery". It is
an apt theme that captures the mood in our country, while also acknowledging
the important tasks that face our nation.

You are the most important workers and professionals on whose shoulders the
capacity of the state to build a winning nation rests. It is on your shoulders
that the 2004/05 contribution of 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
comes from.

In any country, the civil servants as the machinery of the state provide the
capacity for the state to fulfil its mandate to the citizens. This government
has promised "A better life for all", which implies incremental and tangible
improved circumstances at a very personal level for citizens. We have promised
that we will accelerate delivery, which implies that we have to adopt a faster
delivery model. We have also admitted that we have room to improve on the pace
at which we deliver services.

Programme Director, senior cadres of our government, perhaps the best way to
begin this address is by drawing from our President's speech on the occasion of
the 2006 State of the Nation Address, when he outlined the programme of action
for the year, for all of us, he said:

"Clearly the masses of our people are convinced that our country has entered
into its Age of Hope. They believe that the country they love, their only
homeland, will not disappoint their expectation of an accelerated advance
towards the day when they will be liberated from the suffocating tentacles of
the legacy of colonialism and apartheid."

We are referring to the hope and trust that the people of South Africa have
put on us because they know what we can deliver. Their trust and hopes are all
pinned upon us. As the Methodists say in one of their popular sung prayers,
"Siyakydumisa - Nkosi ngithembele kuwe mandingaze ndidaniswe."

There is indeed a price to pay in dashed hopes, our legitimacy and the
impact of our past successes are minimised. Our people have always seen us as
bearers of good news. It is a thread that runs through the complex garment of
our country's history. When the legions of freedom fighters went through the
dark valleys of injustice and oppression, the penetrating light of hope carried
them through and showed them the way to the promised land of freedom, which
South Africa has become.

Theirs was hope born out of a belief in the justness of their cause, born
from the realisation that their power lied in the mobilisation of the
collective morality and energies of ordinary South Africans - black and white.
There has always been hope and trust on the inherent goodness of most South
Africans.

Our history is full of examples when the collective hopes were expressed at
times when there were so many odds against us. Statements of hope and unity in
action were demonstrated at great cost.

People proceeded to work hard to realise these dreams such as the Freedom
Charter in 1955, the women in 1956 and the youth in 1976.

It is this same audacity of hope and a yearning for justice, which led the
legions of our women to march to Pretoria 50 years ago and warned, "You touch a
women, you touch the rock, you will be crushed". That has enabled so many of
our people to continue to put their hopes on us and on you. 'Bathembele kithi
mabangadaniswa!'

In the bitter winter of June 1976 the same audacious hope propelled the
schoolchildren of Soweto to face down the barrel of the gun in pursuit of
freedom and human dignity. They hoped that freedom would deliver a new society
for them even if they had to die to make their point. "SO BE IT!" We are the
State they fought for and we carry their hope and trust.

It is this triumphant march of hope over despair, which - amid predictions
of doom and gloom - ushered South Africa into a country alive with possibility
in April of 1994. Now our people need to enjoy the fruit, our youth need not
die but to have their genuine and reasonable needs addressed.

All the sacrifices that made 1994 possible now fall on us to turn into real
achievements. Hopes in 2006 cannot be like the hopes and sacrifices of 1955,
1956 and 1976 because now the cries are not falling on deaf ears. It is the
hope we refer to when we say our country has entered into the Age of Hope. You
are the hope. Our people are not pinning their hope on market outlook but on a
government that cares for them and has the will and a lot of means to help
them.

History has entrusted us with a responsibility to ensure that their hope for
a better life is realised and we dare not disappoint them in that regard. If we
fail them - ithemba labo liyobaphi?

Minister of Finance, Honourable Trevor Manuel, said when addressing this
very gathering of senior civil servants:

"You (as senior managers gathered here) carry the hopes and dreams of a
nation. You stand at the coalface of a struggle that is immense, challenging
and fraught with difficulties. For this reason, the responsibility you bear
goes far beyond what senior civil servants in most countries have to contend
with".

For we are at a crossroads, either to ascend to be a winning nation and
fulfil the aspirations of our people; or if we fail to rise up to the
challenge, our country will deteriorate into the state of underdevelopment and
we will loose our competitive advantage.

Let us remember that every decision committed or omitted helps to contribute
or compromise the attainment of our collective goals. Indeed, we ought to be
proud of the strides we have collectively made since the dawn of freedom 12
years ago:

* For instance, beneficiaries of social grants increased from 2,6 million in
1994 to 9,7 million in June 2005.
* Housing beneficiaries increased from 325 086 between 1994 and 1998 to 1,6
million beneficiaries in 2005.
* As of March 2004, 42,7 million people out of an estimated 47,1 million
population (or 91% of population) had access to basic water supply
infrastructure or a higher level of service such as water in-house or in a
yard.
* The electrification programme must rate as one of the most significant
achievements by this country and unprecedented internationally, as 3,5 million
homes have been electrified since 1994. This translates into over 435 000 homes
per annum. By May 2005, access to electricity was estimated at 71%.

These are record achievements by any standards, which are unparalleled in
the history of this nation and many developing nations in the world. It is
these achievements that have given rise to the Age of Hope. People know we can
do it. However, those who still wait for their turn are impatient and
desperate; for some our delivery, may already be too little too late.

In that regard, universal access to basic services has to be achieved in
targeted time. The first decade of freedom was about breaking the back of mass
access to services; the second decade has to be about universal access to these
critical services.

Universal access must mean all South Africans must access basic predictable
and reliable service levels in the key areas we have already committed, to
namely: universal access to water, sanitation and energy. This country can
close this same gap for all of our people. Let us remember this is the least we
can do to share the benefits of democracy in a growing economy. For people
without water, sanitation and reliable energy sources are those who have no one
to turn to but us. What use is growth to these people? They need and deserve,
"Dignity! Life! Opportunities!" Sanitation is dignity, water is life and energy
brings opportunities.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Again, hope must not be in vain. Mabangaze badaniswe!

We know that despite many positive changes too many of our people are
trapped in gripping poverty, in a prospering society. Our response has been to
provide a safety net - through free basic services and grants, which are
Government's biggest poverty alleviation initiative although it is not
sustainable.

In the context of a developmental state as against a welfare state, we need
to find a concrete path to make grant recipients who are healthy and of
economically active age to convert grants to 'starter packs' for self
development, to move on to a guided and enforced path of skills acquisition,
self improvement and self reliance. In every family that has been classified as
extremely poor we need to see if it is possible to invest in at least one
family member who can redefine the socio-economic path of that family through
meaningful work or education.

Developmental State

The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) has
to be seen in that context of building a developmental state - a state that is
seized with redistributing the benefits of growth.

AsgiSA is also about:

* pace of delivery
* size of intervention i.e. mass delivery as against pilots
* taking advantage of low hanging fruits/ easy but sustainable victories
* efficiency and optimisation of use of state machinery
* partnerships.

AsgiSA is meant to take corrective actions in those areas where we have
stopped or slowed down the country from realising higher levels of growth. In a
do-nothing scenario and at the pace at which we currently work, and at the
level of leakage of value from the state and uneven degrees of dedication to
service, the age of hope could be a fuss. Our contribution to growth as the
state was 15 percent of the GDP in 2004/05, can we improve it? Through AsgiSA
we must practically increase our contribution to GDP and reduce leakage. We
have chosen the interventions that we will make through AsgiSA to respond to
the identified binding constraints to shared growth. I must also hurry to
restate that AsgiSA is not about new policies but implementing existing
policies better.

AsgiSA interventions are in the following areas:
* macro-economics
* infrastructure
* delivery and governance
* impact of the second economy
* skills development
* sectoral development
* provincial interventions.

We now face challenges of implementing these responses to the binding
constraints; as public servants we have to deal with responses that speak to us
directly as members of the Senior Management Service and public
representatives:

* on the Macro Economic-Budget Planning and Financial Management
(skills)
* on infrastructure - processing of contracts, on time and within the budget
and with jobs and the management of consultants (skills)
* delivery and governance - corruption and dedication to service (skills)
* second economy - policy vacuum, dedication to servicing the poor, our
interventions are still very limited
* skills development through Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition
(JIPSA), South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) and other means
which impact on potential for sustainable job creation
* sectoral development and the implications for jobs.

Other challenges that we face in AsgiSA which are inhibiting greater success
that need us in government to be honest about include:
* lack of sense of sense of urgency, a business as usual approach vs
acceleration;
* resistance to integration and co-ordination
* disregard for Batho Pele principles in pockets of the service
* limited interventions which lack massive impact
* greater need to target especially youth and women
* effective monitoring and evaluation and working in agreed timeframes.

If we do not overcome these challenges we become a binding constraint to
AsgiSA, but I am hopeful that together we will over come. This government has
set a core objective of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014.

We can create more opportunities also in the public service especially for
young people. In our internship and learnership programme, we can do more that
is a low hanging fruit.

Does performance evaluation ask the right questions?

As senior managers you have to take performance management and evaluation
seriously and ask the right questions so as to intervene and make corrective
action or the challenge to reduce unemployment and poverty in half by 2014 will
not be achieved, not without effective socio-economic leadership. We also need
effective partnerships between government and other key stakeholders such as
organised labour and business. A lot of ground has been laid for the needed
partnerships.

Further, we must address the skills challenge in society and within the
state. While there are many skills requirements, the following have been
identified as priorities for economic growth and development in the short to
medium term. They include the acquisition of intermediate artisan and technical
skills for the infrastructure development programme; the development of
information and communications technology (ICT) skills, which is a
cross-cutting need, in AsgiSA but also for the Business Process Outsourcing
(BPO); the recruitment, training and employment of unemployed graduates for
some of these shortages and training at higher levels. The skills needed for
the sector e.g. tourism, BPO, bio-fuels, agro metals and chemicals as well as
small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) development.

In the short to medium term, we also seek high-level, world class
engineering and planning skills for the transport, communications and energy
industries; city, urban and regional planning and engineering skills;
management capacity in education and health; teachers of mathematics, science,
technology and language competence all in the public schooling system. SMME
development as a component of the second economy is a make or break for AsgiSA,
including access to finance and building productive capacity of the SMMEs. How
we use preferential procurement and how we pay SMMEs are all sharing issues for
us. If we get it right we will be better positioned to challenge the private
sector when they under perform.

Senior management in the public service together with educational
institutions have an important contribution to make to achieving AsgiSA, in
several respects for instance:
* contributing critically in guiding and steering skills acquisition in the
country
* ensuring that the educational institutions are capable of effectively
carrying out their duties in order to promote the National Strategic objectives
of the country - producing people with the ability to be productive beyond
being educated.

While actual growth may not be our biggest challenge, "sharing and
accelerating" it is.

I'd like to highlight some of the potential high impact government led
initiatives that can make a big difference while upholding a developmental
state:
* Extended Public Works
* universal access,
* human resource development,
* Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises,
* national youth service development,
* support for the growth sectors
* targeted support to women.

We should, however, always keep in mind that there is no substitute to
mobilising our people to work together to meet these challenges. The best place
to start with this mobilization is in motivating at our own work places and
promoting Batho Pele. Let us make sure that people who work with us come to
work in time, do their work diligently, and treat the public with respect and
humility.

Let all of us pledge that from now on we would never tolerate the abuse of
resources and office for private gain. Our people's hope must not be shuttered.
If we do that, we would have taken our collective effort to halve poverty and
employment by 2014 a great leap forward in our right as a state.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
20 September 2006
Source: SAPA