KZN Treasury wins gold
The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Treasury has walked away with prestigious awards and cash during highly-acclaimed National Batho Pele Awards hosted by National Minister for the Department of Public Service and Administration, Collins Chabane at the Emperors Palace on Friday last week.
KZN Treasury scooped a gold award, a cheque of R10 000 and crowned as the best functioning provincial department of the year while its head of department won a bronze award and R2000 for being the best Provincial Head of Department.
This Gold Award is conferred to the outstandingly performing provincial department that has demonstrated a holistic implementation of Batho Pele Principles, implementation of the departmental strategic goals and considered the best in human resources management and financial management practices.
The award to the Head of Department is given to those that have demonstrated exceptional leadership skills and expertise, with a proven track record of leading transformation and change management in the department, a visionary leader who has impacted positively on teams and programmes to achieve the overall strategic goals of the department. At a provincial level, Magagula was awarded for being the Best Head of Department, and then had to represent the province at a national level.
These awards commenced at the provincial level on 24 July 2014 wherein KZN Treasury came first and had to represent the KZN Province at the national level. This gold award conferred on KZN Treasury is for being the best functioning provincial department in South Africa.
In keeping with its vision, “the centre of excellence in the financial and fiscal management in the country”, KZN Treasury is well on its way to achieve their vision.
MEC for Finance, Belinda Scott, said she was proud of this achievement and that it is testimony to the good work and commitment that the department is demonstrating to ensure good governance.
“We want to build on this. We want to demonstrate that even under a stringent financial situation, government can still demonstrate good governance. I am proud of my staff and the HOD, Simiso Magagula has done a wonderful job,” she said.
Magagula said the award is not just about management, but about the entire staff of the department who have made KZN Treasury to be what it is.“This is the best accolade that we will cherish for years to come. But we will seek to achieve more in future,” he said.
More background
The KZN Premier coordinates the Premier's service excellence awards wherein all provincial departments participate. There are 11 categories that the departments can enter into, i.e. the best front line service delivery employee of the year, best implemented programme or project of the year, best functioning provincial department of the year, best Batho Pele team of the year, best provincial head of the year etc.
These are evidence-based awards wherein you first complete a questionnaire and provide evidence on all areas that you have responded on. Based on how you have responded, you then get shortlisted. All shortlisted candidates are adjudicated by teams from other provinces under the leadership of the Office of the Premier's service delivery unit. This is a robust process wherein you need to show case how you have implemented Batho Pele principles and other government legislation. There are 11 principles that you need to respond to and 4 areas of Management performance assessment tools (MPAT) which are strategy development and implementation, governance, human resources management and financial management.
The department won gold at the provincial level during the 2014 Premier's service excellence awards held on 24 July 2014. It then had to represent the province at the national level. We had to submit documents in response to a number of questions and the national team did a desk top assessment. We were again shortlisted and adjudicated on 10 November 2014. The adjudicators came from National Departments and were co-ordinated by the Department of Public Service and Administration. This adjudication process was also robust covering both presentations and evidence to support claims made.
The process was verified by auditors from the Sizwe Ntshaluba Gobodo. The National awards were held on 14 November 2014 at Emperors Palace and were presented by the Minister for Public Service and Administration, Honarable Collins Chabane.
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