Teamwork, collective commitment and discipline are key ingredients to transform good service into excellent service, Parliament’s new Secretary, Mr Gengezi Mgidlana, told the institution’s management team yesterday.
In an inaugural address at a strategic planning session, Mr Mgidlana told the meeting that leadership was not an “individual thing.” If there was an expectation that one person could pull things together and make things happen, that would be a serious fallacy.
“We are all important. Organisations are about individuals working together and structured in a particular way to achieve a defined and shared purpose,” he said.
It was deja vu for Mr Mgidlana on his first day at work as the institution’s top official. He reminisced about his induction in 1994 “as a young man” into the legislative sector by the first Secretary to the first democratic Parliament, Mr Sindiso Mfenyana.
He reminded managers of the reason for existence of the administration - as a vehicle to serve Members of Parliament. “The administration does not exist for itself,” Mr Mgidlana said. “And in our space the feedback chain is shortened when the Members are not happy. Feedback is immediate and phone call away.”
That was why, he said, Parliament needed a strong and capable administration which worked to achieve the desired societal outcomes. If the administration divorced itself from the desired societal outcomes then it is irrelevant.
“Our work is cut out for us. We cannot continuously discuss implementation. At some point we just have to do things.”
Mr Mgidlana emphasised the importance of involving everybody in the institution in the process of developing its five-year strategic plan.
“It cannot be an elitist exercise. Our commitments in the (strategic plan) document, which should result from this exercise, should be framed in simple and accessible language which all of us understand.
“The values which should underpin our (five-year) strategy have to be simple and understandable and must live through our daily actions and decisions in the service of Parliament and Members,” he said.
The National Assembly and National Council of Provinces appointed Mr Mgidlana as the new Secretary to Parliament on 20 November. His five-year performance based contract started on 1 December.
