S Moloto: Batho Pele Day celebrations

11 November 2006

Programme director
Members of the Executive Committee (MECs) here present
Traditional leaders, Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs),
Councillors
Our Director-General
Heads of various departments
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

This year's celebration takes place under the theme "Age of Hope: Addressing
service delivery challenges together for an improved quality of life."

In an endeavour to transform the public service and to promote the notion of
"putting people first", government adopted way-back in 1997, a citizen-oriented
approach to service delivery, known as Batho Pele. Batho Pele is a people's
driven customer satisfaction programme which is informed by eight principles
of: consultation, service standards, access to services, courtesy, information,
openness and transparency, redress, and value for money. Since then, the
Limpopo Provincial Administration has been doing everything possible to uphold
these principles and to see to it that they get internalised and implemented in
the public service as a whole.

We have always maintained that Public service delivery improvement is a
challenge that requires the commitment not only of the Executive Council
members but also of all public servants to strive towards, in their daily
functions and responsibilities. For this to happen, we have acknowledged the
fact that, everyone serving in the public service, needs to make a selfless
contribution with a high degree of commitment and a sense of duty, so that we
all realise a better life that we have set for ourselves.

Programme director,

In tabulating this year's citizens' report, we are delighted about efforts
that are being made to bring government services closer to the people. In this
instance, we are pleased that the number of functional Multi-Purpose Community
Centres (MPCCs) has increased from 8 to 15 during this current financial year.
Efforts to increase the number of MPCCs are in line with the set presidential
target of having one MPCC per local Municipality by 2010. Furthermore, the
Departments of Health and Social development, South African Police Services
(SAPS), and Home Affairs are implementing mobile services in areas that are far
from the main service delivery points. We are encouraged that these efforts are
continuously improving access and utilization of government services by the
community.

In addition to these measures, the Department of Safety, Security and
Liaison has introduced an auto�attendant voice message device, in five
provincial languages i.e. (Sepedi, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, Afrikaans and English)
to enable all members of the public to access services of the department.

As part of our ongoing efforts to increase access to government services,
about 392 Community Development Workers (CDWs) have completed their learnership
training and have been deployed in all the municipalities to bring government
closer to the people. We are pleased that, out of this number 71 CDWs have
already been permanently appointed in the Public service and a further 310
learner Community Development Workers are being trained by the University of
Venda for further deployment to all the municipalities in the province.

Programme director,

In line with the Batho Pele principle of courtesy, almost all government
buildings, offices and service points in our province are identifiable through
signage, both internally and externally. Departments have provided their
employees with nametags to improve corporate identity and in some cases
nametags are used for access control in order to improve security.

In seeking to uphold the principle of openness and transparency, the
province implemented various measures and strategies to promote consultation
and dialogue with the people. In this regard, we have many a times, used
various platforms such as Executive Committee (EXCO) meets the people, Imbizos,
both electronic and print media in order to try and interact with citizens as
part of creating openness and transparency in the work of government. Most of
these interactions were successful as they succeeded in giving our people a
clearer account of the challenges and responsibilities that government is
committed to carrying out.

Consistent with the principle of redress and complaints' mechanisms, we are
pleased to report that various departments within our Provincial Administration
have put systems in place in order to address complaints about non-adherence to
service standards and dissatisfaction with the quality of services being
provided through the use of suggestion boxes available at various government
buildings and service points. Some of you might be familiar with our toll free
number of reporting complaints which is 080 000 2383. The toll free number and
suggestion boxes are some of the mechanisms we are using to correct the
ill-treatment that some of you may maybe coming across in some of our
government departments and service points. In this regard, we are nonetheless
proud that for this financial year, 104 service delivery complaints were
received and all of them were resolved accordingly.

Programme director,

The importance of stronger municipal councils, capable of delivering
services cannot be overemphasised. Since Project Consolidate was initiated,
most of our municipalities have shown signs of better capacity and performance
in delivering services to our people. In this regard, we are delighted to
report that all our departments are implementing the Preferential Procurement
Policy Framework Act; Public Finance Management Act, Municipal Finance
Management Act and are doing their best to reduce audit queries by ensuring
compliance to regulations and procedures.

In addition, about 75% of municipalities have prepared their Multi-year
Budget within the stipulated timeframes as compared to only 50% in the previous
financial year. 68% submitted their annual financial statements to the Office
of the Auditor�General as compared to only 31% in the previous financial year
and 61% of our Municipalities compiled their annual financial statements
in-house compared to 31% in the previous year. This is to ensure that
government derives value for money as required by the Batho Pele framework.
This indeed confirms the 62% approval rating given to Limpopo councillors in
the June 2006 Afro-barometer survey, which rates our Municipalities as top
performers in the country.

In order to strengthen this capacity, we established the Provincial
Anti-Corruption Forum in 2005 to address the problem of fraud and corruption in
partnership with the business sector and civil society. Since then a total of
176 fraud and corruption investigations were completed within government
departments; and 70% of provincial departments have created minimum
anti-corruption capacity in line with the Public Service Anti-corruption
Strategy.

To support and promote this strategy, Operation Head Count of employees on
the payroll of government was conducted to strengthen our institutional
effectiveness and efficiencies in September 2005. In total the operation has
saved government no less than R30 million per year as a result of a total of
over 200 cheques that remain uncollected.

Over and above these milestones, the province succeeded in implementing some
of the programmes that we undertook to follow-up in our statement of Public
Commitment made during last year's Batho Pele Day. The following constitute
some of the achievements we have scored as government in this regard.

Learnership and internship

Departments are implementing learnerships and internships programmes in line
with the mandate of our government. In this regard the number of interns has
increased for this financial year by 676, and it is now 1 712. On the other
hand the number of learners in the learnership programme has risen by 196 to
642 at the end of the financial. This number includes learnerships by Local
Government Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) on CDWs.

Employment equity

The province has achieved 48,8% of women representation in Local Government
Councils. This translates to 49% of female mayors and 82% of female speakers.
On the other hand, the representation of women in senior management level in
the Public Service also marked a noteworthy improvement of 0,5% that is,
improvement from 32,2%, to 32,7%. The Department of Agriculture has improved
from 3,8% to 6,9%. And the Department of Education; and the Department of
Economic Development, Environment and Tourism has also improved their
employment equity figure to a 3% margin.

The challenge has always been that some departments are lagging behind in
terms of meeting the required 30% target. These are departments like Education;
Safety, Security and Liaison; Economic Development; Environment and Tourism.
Once again, we wish to impress upon these departments to follow the good
example being set by others and to start doing the right thing.

However, our quest for transformation and equity for people with
disabilities remains a critical challenge. We continue to be concerned that the
overall employment picture of people with disabilities has not improved much
and remains at 1,8%, which is below the required target of 2%. This financial
year must see us doing something to address this challenge.

Traditional authority and leadership

The province undertook to recognise and start remunerating Headmen in the
province as a way of recognising the important role and effort of Traditional
Leadership within the province.

As reported early this year during the state of the province address almost
1 888 Headmen were appointed in 2005; and there are various skills development
programmes aimed at empowering Headmen and Traditional leaders to enable them
to take part in the development of their people and the Province as a whole.
Some of our Traditional Authority Offices have been refurbished, and these
offices will be provided with facilities and Information Technology (IT)
connectivity that will enable them to link with the provincial head office and
other stakeholders in and around Limpopo, and through out the country.

Like in all other years, government conducted workshops in all districts on
circumcision schools in terms of the initiation schools' legislation. Out of
the 327 permits issued, we discovered only two cases of illegal Traditional
Initiation schools, where immediate intervention was made. Individuals
concerned were arrested and brought to the courts of law. Of importance is that
this year saw a sharp decrease in cases of illegal traditional circumcision
schools compared to most of the previous years; from the 65 uncovered last year
to only two recorded this year. For us this is an encouraging development,
which vindicates the importance of partnership between government and
traditional authorities.

Housing

Government has developed a new housing strategy that reinforces the vision
of promoting the achievement of a non-racial, integrated society through the
development of sustainable human settlements and quality housing. The goal is
to attain a shack-free Limpopo by 2014 by conducting studies on migration
patterns and on spatial trends. A total number of 4 880 houses were built this
financial year while a further 15 055 are under construction. This programme
had benefited approximately 20 000 members of communities with affordable and
safe accommodation.

Provision of classrooms

Classrooms are being constructed to respond to the President's directive to
bring an end to the problem of learning and teaching happening under trees;
about 800 classrooms have been completed, while 573 schools were provided with
electricity and ablution blocks. In addition, 126 mobile classrooms are being
provided as interim accommodation where classroom construction is still under
way. In this respect approximately 40 000 learners benefited from the provision
of 1 332 classrooms across the province which is a positive indicator that will
impact constructively on the quality of teaching and learning and reduce the
number of learners schooling under trees.

Programme director,

No fee schools

In line with our no-fee school policy, all farms school learners have been
exempted from paying school fees, and about 2 310 schools were exempted from
paying school fees in this financial year. We trust that this measure will
augur well in increasing access to schooling by learners from poor
families.

Social security

The provision of social services continues to form an integral part of
providing a social security net to the majority of vulnerable groups in the
province. The process of establishing South African Social Security Agency
(SASSA) is at an advanced stage and we hope the agency will be fully functional
at the beginning of the coming financial year. The good news is that the total
number of beneficiaries who received social grants in the province has improved
to 1,1 million which translates to 300 000 for old age grants, 700 000 for
child support grants and 96 000 for disability grants recipients.

Crime prevention, awareness campaigns and operations

While we acknowledge that the province is confronted with challenges of
ritual killings, moral degeneration, social decay; uncoordinated issuing of
liquor licences, alcohol abuse, drinking and driving related crimes, children
and women abuse and other related socially unacceptable behaviour; recently we
have witnessed an increase in incidences of ritual murders and witchcraft
related killings. This has even led us to appoint a Police Task team to review
all cases related to ritual murders in the province. The Task Team has made
several recommendations which we are acting upon, including that the police
must set up a specialised unit dealing with occult related crimes and the need
to scale up our awareness and crime prevention campaigns. We are hopeful that
the summit on ritual murders that we have convened for the 16 and 17 November
will succeed in helping us to stamp out and defeat these sorts of crimes in the
province.

The success of all these programmes and interventions would not be possible
if citizens are not involved in their monitoring and evaluation. We call on you
to become our ears and eyes to see to it that all of these objectives are
realised sooner, rather than later.

Let us all join hands to build a Limpopo of our dreams!

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Limpopo Provincial Government
11 November 2006