the Premier's Service Excellence Awards, Kimberley
27 March 2009
Programme director
Members of Executive Council (MECs), Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of
Provincial Legislatures (MPLs)
Honourable mayors and councillors
Officials of government
Leaders of Faith Based structures
Business representatives
Representatives of community based organisations (CBOs) and Non Governmental
Organisations (NGOs)
Media representatives
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We are gathered here once again to give special recognition and praise to
those of our public servants who remain fully dedicated to their work and
persistently seek creative and innovative ways to meet the challenges facing
them in their daily tasks.
It is with a great sense of pride and joy that we present to the people of
the Northern Cape the teams of our employees whose creativity and commitment to
the Batho Pele principles have contributed towards making our province a better
place.
We look forward to the day when the judges will find it difficult to select
the winners, as all the public servants in the employ of the Northern Cape
government will be deserving winners.
I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to all the teams that have been
nominated for the awards. All of you including those that did not make it to
the final round make the Northern Cape provincial administration proud with the
efforts that you put into your work everyday.
It is indeed very encouraging and heart warming to note that the modest
contribution you make in continuing to build a better South Africa is being
recognised.
Tonight we are here to recognise excellence in how we provide services to
our people beyond the call of duty. We are promoting a culture of service
excellence in the delivering of public services.
As I congratulate the winners tonight I am also excited that I have a team
of women and men in the province who believe that our people deserve a good
service.
What makes your achievements remarkable is the fact that the awards are a
testimony to our commitment to improve efficiency and provide a quality service
to the public and also demonstrate just how far we are able to go to improve
the lives of our people.
Nothing is more exciting than for us to come together to celebrate progress
and achievements.
It is therefore imperative that we should continue to award those who
sacrifice their time and are dedicated to delivering services and ensuring that
we fulfil the promises that we made to our communities. Through these awards we
will be encouraging the culture of dedication and commitment among our public
servants.
The fact that we hold this event every year indicates that each year our
public servants strive to do better, and therefore the way we provide services
to our people improve each year.
These awards are made more meaningful by the fact that your work is being
recognised by the provincial government that you serve so diligently.
We are always in dire need of dedicated, patriotic and action orientated
young intellectuals who will contribute to building the kind of prosperous and
successful society we envisage.
This is a society without poverty and underdevelopment, where men and women,
girls and boys live in dignity, with access to opportunities to make their
lives better and meaningful.
We all need to be aware of the extreme hardships facing our people and
continue to seek ways of assisting where we can.
I am hopeful that the awards we will be bestowing to you tonight will
contribute in earnest to the process of developing our province and its
people.
We have to continually ensure that our public servants are empowered with
the knowledge and skills in various fields and are able to correctly analyse
the challenges that our province face, and suggest workable solutions.
An unknown writer once said 'it is not enough for us to understand and
comment on the challenges facing our country, but that we should use our skills
and knowledge to contribute solutions.'
These should be solutions that are informed by strong Batho Pele
consciousness and supported by time-honoured value systems and ways of doing
things. The solutions we propose to our challenges would be sustainable if they
are informed by this understanding of the African environment we work and live
in.
This is the challenge I would like to leave with you honoured and hard
working public servants.
To our recipients, this award should be a symbol of hope and a spear to
rejuvenate you to continue in your endeavours.
It is also an affirmation that your hard work did not go in vain and is
highly appreciated. It is a symbol of appreciation from our people whom you
have touched and helped, it is a candle which will shine bright giving hope to
the hopeless, it is a diamond which should shine over others and make those
around you to shine with you.
Government should therefore acknowledge the significant contribution to the
cause of service delivery and continue to inspire past, current and future
recipients.
The awards also seek to raise awareness around sustainability and service
excellence and encourage and promote pride amongst our public servants for
their achievements. These awards should create role models and promote sharing
of knowledge and skills for the growth and development of our province.
I also extend my appreciation to our sponsors who made this day a success by
working tirelessly with our team in ensuring that we celebrate this day with
all of you. We are encouraged by the fact that we are supported by the business
community in celebrating this excellence.
Your contribution is highly appreciated and welcomed by our government and
people. Your support of this initiative is an investment in the prosperity of
the future of our country.
The judges, who travelled throughout the province to evaluate our entrants,
thank you for listening to the President's call of volunteerism. Your
strictness and thorough scrutiny of government's service improvement is
welcomed by us. We are told you do not smile, joke and laugh when you are on
your judging errands.
Keep on keeping civil servants on their toes.
These awards are a critical investment in the future of our country. We
salute our recipients for their commitment to our people; your sacrifice does
not go unnoticed by our government and people. This is an indication of your
hard work and determination to make us succeed, for the betterment of our
country.
Ladies and gentlemen, in today's knowledge driven world, the wealth of the
country is not limited to the resources beneath the soil, industries and other
forms of production. Our wealth also depends on the knowledge that we have as a
society. It is for this reason that we celebrate the Premier's Service
Excellence Awards.
With these awards the stage is set to entrench such a culture of
excellence.
Ladies and gentlemen we should always be mindful that economic growth and
sustainable development are dependent on all levels of society engaging in
problem solving and developing innovative solutions. Within government we
encourage innovation among our own employee particularly those innovations that
are people-centred and result in improved service delivery, better government,
and a better life for all.
These awards tally well with our attempts to retain skilled staff and reward
them for work well done. One of our key responsibilities includes the setting
of the macro framework for human resource management, ensuring the building of
the necessary human resource and organisational capacity.
We have to continuously ask ourselves whether the people we employ in the
public service have the capacity to do what we expect from them and can we
adequately monitor what they do to ensure we use their skills and knowledge
effectively.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with desperate levels of hardship of
large sections of our population. One day passing without making progress to a
better life is too long. While speeding up delivery we are expected to
radically overhaul the entire machinery of state. Such challenges are immensely
complex and time consuming.
We therefore cannot overemphasise the importance of your role as public
servants in ensuring that no day passes by without delivering services to our
deserving people. We count on you to do what is right for our people and to do
that in the spirit of Ubuntu.
We strive to keep our democracy in line with the will of the people, giving
direct voice to the people and adjusting our administration in a manner where
the relationship between citizen and official is not one of the powerless to
the all powerful, or ignorant to the know-all expert, but relationships of
empowered citizens who are looking towards public officials to truly serve
their needs and holding them accountable to exactly that.
Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, we function in a public sector landscape that
has changed significantly from where government departments were the only
institutions delivery public services.
Ladies and gentlemen, our people are not concerned as to who is responsible
for providing water and electricity, whether it is the provincial department of
local government department or municipal offices, this is of no concern to them
but that the service is ultimately provided.
I am particularly pleased with the performance of our community development
workers (CDWs). Indeed this is an important initiative to assist with
co-ordination and integration across government while directly alleviating the
plight of our people on the ground.
Our CDW are already active in solving problems and solving and assisting the
public to negotiate the institutional maze of public service delivery
institutions.
Creating and nurturing capacity for development is at the centre of
discussions within government. Declaring ourselves as the 'Employer of Choice',
will facilitate us recruiting the best possible employees, and in turn also
retaining our very best.
Therefore in this event we are once more displaying our sincere appreciation
to our public servants.
There is a general agreement that a strong state is a pre-requisite for
creating and maintaining the space for market and civil society to flourish in,
and to reach their respective full potential. These shifts should help us in
restoring status of public servants.
Nevertheless, the proportion of disabled persons in the public service still
remains unsatisfactory. We have not seen a significant growth in the overall
provincial figures. People with disabilities continue to represent an untapped
resource in the public service and demands urgent attention. We are addressing
this matter more aggressively by pro-actively searching for potential
employees.
We now want to set higher targets for women managers and aspire to meet our
target as far as possible.
The question is how we are going to provide the necessary support to women
and ensure that we remove all obstacles for women to progress.
In conclusion,
I also want to use this opportunity to thank your families, husbands, wives,
children, parents and extended families who continue to give you the support
and courage you need to serve this government. They are the ones who keep you
strong and focused. They are the ones we all draw our energies from when the
levels are low. They are our fiercest supporters but sometimes also the
harshest and most honest critics. They are the ones that perpetually tell you
that quick fixes such as taking sick leave when you are not sick and the urge
to resign when fed-up with a colleagues or your manager are not the route to
go.
I have no doubts that the support you give to this government will ensure
that we succeed relentlessly and creatively, and let our people live and walk
the aspirations of the Freedom Charter.
I wish you all well, keep up the good work.
I thank you.
Issued by: Northern Cape Provincial Government
27 March 2009
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.northern-cape.gov.za)
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