Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Members of the Executive Council,
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature,
Director General and the leadership of the provincial administration,
Officials from various departments and institutions,
Invited guests,
Media representatives,
Ladies and gentlemen.
This week, South Africa – and indeed Africa – made history by hosting the 5th BRICS Summit and, as we know, this is the first to be held on the African soil. We congratulate our President, governments and peoples of the Continent for not only playing host to the world’s fastest growing economies but also for asserting Africa’s credentials as a global trade and economic bloc.
As we participated in the BRICS reception function, it was exhilarating to notice some business entities from our Province networking and in serious engagements with leading global players.
As we table this Policy Speech, we remember the outstanding martyrs who made the supreme sacrifice in Sharpeville, Uitenhage and other places in pursuit of national liberation and economic freedom. That fateful day, the 21st of March 1960, contributed immensely in the attainment of the freedom we enjoy in South Africa today.
This day, adopted by the United Nations as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, is celebrated in our country as the Human Rights Day. For all generations to come, this day must serve as a permanent reminder that the freedom and the human rights we enjoy came at a high price and are thus invaluable.
Today, we commemorate this day in a different context where our struggle is for the attainment of second generation rights. We seek to defeat the challenges of poverty, unemployment and gross inequalities which continue to de-humanise and erode the dignity of our people.
This is the determination that inspires millions of our people, including the masses that gathered at Ngcobo and other parts of the country last week, to intensify the fight for a national democratic society that is free of violence and abuse and in which all can enjoy a great quality of life.
Honourable Speaker, in motivating for the budget allocated to the Office of the Premier for the 2013/14 financial year, I now proceed to deal with the programme performance and plans for the year.
The Office of the Premier plays a critical role in coordinating the work of, and providing strategic leadership to, the provincial government. The anchor programmes in this regard are our home-grown Public Sector Transformation Strategy and Monitoring and Reporting Framework whose implementation will intensify in the coming financial year.
The State of the Province Address (SoPA) alludes to the government-wide Culture Change Programme as being critical in our endeavours to transform the public service and improve service delivery. Having concluded the training of departmental culture change agents, we wish to emphasise that the ‘Must Win’ projects will be implemented in all departments to facilitate attitudinal change on the part of those who render services to the poor and vulnerable.
In support of this drive, we identified leadership development as a catalyst to accelerate public sector transformation of the Provincial Administration. In the coming financial year we will continue with the implementation of our Leadership and Management Development Programme.
To this end, we have appointed the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on a 3-year contract to provide a leadership development programme for various levels of managers in Provincial Government.
To bolster the provincial leadership development programme, we partnered with Dr John Maxwell to coach and mentor middle and senior managers across provincial government departments. The 9 months coaching programme was successfully concluded in March 2013, leaving this exclusive breed of participants with a wealth of knowledge and practical leadership tips empowering them as they navigate change.
We will monitor how departments will take forward this initiative in which some Members of the Executive Council, Heads of Departments and senior public officials participated. This will also include women in leadership development as we are concerned by the continuing gender inequities in the public service.
We will also strengthen dialogue with organised labour to ensure that we all send one message on matters of transformation and service delivery. We have also partnered with various institutions and organisations, within and outside of the Provincial Human Resources Development Council, to enhance the skills profile of the province, particularly scarce skills needed to close the gap between what our academic institutions produce and industry expectations.
During this financial year, a group of unemployed graduates including, among others, mechanical engineers, were trained at Mercedes Benz South Africa, Volkswagen South Africa, Ford, Algoa-Oil, General Motors South Africa and Ikhala FET College. We are particularly pleased that the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), both nationally and provincially, are increasingly coming to the party.
We are currently working with the SETAs for the placement of FET college students in various provincial and national government departments, municipalities and public entities. A proposal, in this regard, has already been put forward by the Services SETA for consideration.
Two years ago, the function on student bursaries or financial aid was transferred to the Department of Education. However, we were alerted to the negative unintended consequences in the efficient management of this programme.
In response to the calls made by Members of this House, the Executive Council reviewed this arrangement, and the bursaries function reverted back to the Office of the Premier. We will therefore continue to work with NSFAS and Higher Education Institutions to support the needy students of this Province for the benefit of Provincial Government and the Provincial Economy.
The implementation of the Provincial Innovation and Knowledge Management Strategy resulted in the province receiving several awards in recognition of identified best practices. Owing to the sterling work the province is doing in the area of innovation, the Minister of Science and Technology will partner with Provincial Government in hosting the Global Forum on Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship, which will take place in East London on 28 to 30 May 2013.
Once again, this is the first time that this forum is coming to Africa and the country in particular and it is an honour for the province to be selected to host this august event. We follow on the footsteps of Finland, Brazil, India and Germany. This Global Forum will go a long way in positioning the province as the centre of Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship and will benefit the Province quite immensely from an economic and skills transfer point of view.
On the anti-corruption front, as part of our province-wide campaign for clean governance, in the coming financial year, Provincial Government will implement the recently approved Policy that will effectively prohibit Government Employees trading with Government. In this regard, we wish to call upon Members of this House and society as a whole to support us by reporting any trade activities by civil servants.
We commit to conduct prompt investigations and, where we find evidence of wrongdoing, we undertake to act without mercy. Using a multi-sectorial approach and the zero tolerance on fraud and corruption, we aim to protect tax-payers’ monies and improve the reputation of provincial government.
Notwithstanding the advances we continue to make in the above areas, we must, however, state that the Executive Council is particularly concerned about the low compliance levels in departments, be it with human resource management prescripts or supply chain and financial management regulations.
This not only damages the reputation of our Provincial Government but it also frustrates our collective efforts, including the oversight work of this House, to improve service delivery. On this matter, we have also adopted a zero tolerance approach and, in our view, it borders on non-performance, and responsible officials will be reprimanded.
Turning to the Monitoring and Reporting Framework, in support of the Premier’s one-on-one sessions with Members of the Executive Council and their Heads of Departments, the coordinating departments in provincial government also conduct quarterly performance reviews with departmental management teams.
As a result of these close monitoring arrangements, the matric pass rate improved marginally; the Strategic Projects of the province are on track; resolution of cases and concerns logged with the Presidential Hotline has improved remarkably; and early indications are that our province’s infrastructure spend this year will be much better compared to the previous years.
In partnership with the Presidency, as part of our on-going monitoring work, we have also placed the payment of service providers under scrutiny. Treasury draws and consolidates monthly reports, and the same does not only serve in the meetings of the Executive Council, but it also forms part of the agenda of the President’s Coordinating Council. With respect to the Office of the Premier, we are pleased to report that now we are able to track the processing of invoices to the required level of detail.
In November 2012, only one invoice was not paid within 30 days; in December 2012, all invoices were paid within 30 days; in January 2013, only one invoice was not paid within 30 days; and in February 2013, all invoices were paid within 30 days.
Honourable Members, without blowing our own horn, it is these achievements that the people of this province and beyond need to know. For this reason, in the coming financial year, we will build on the Home of Legends campaign which we launched last year to intensify the implementation of the Provincial Communication Strategy.
Similarly, the implementation of the Executive Council Outreach Programme will be extended to cover all District and Metropolitan Municipalities. In anticipation of the capacity needed to effectively implement the programmes I have referred to, the Office of the Premier has made significant progress in repositioning itself as a strategic centre of coordination in line with its service delivery model.
Following the approval of the department’s new organisational structure in 2011, a great deal of work has been done to fill the critical vacancies as well as in moving the existing personnel from the old to the new structure. Functional areas such as risk management, human resource management, transversal organisational development support, monitoring and evaluation as well as intergovernmental and stakeholders relations management have begun to take shape.
Honourable Speaker, I now wish to turn to the budget allocations for the 2013/14 financial year. R458.1 million is shared among the four programmes of the Office of the Premier, R114.3 million of which is largely for internal operations and R343.8 million will support transversal work.
Programme 1: Administration is allocated R114.3 million, the main purpose being to provide effective and efficient support to the Executing Authority, the Accounting Officer and the operations of the department as a whole.
This budget will be deployed in support of leadership endeavours in our campaign for clean governance and positive audit outcomes. We will continue to strengthen our service delivery improvement planning, performance monitoring and reporting capabilities.
We will also strengthen our assurance structures, notably risk management and internal audit, and the execution of their plans, as well as improve both the operational and strategic capacity of the department’s human resources management unit to ensure effectiveness thereof. In reducing over-reliance on the transversal systems, the department will strengthen its wellness programme and also venture into building its own capacity in Information and Communication Technology and Special Programmes.
We will also implement our own departmental culture change programme as part of the provincial drive to transform attitudes, behaviour and the way we do things. Also significant in the allocation is the Premier’s Discretionary Fund which functions as a direct intervention on citizens and groups that require immediate relief.
Programme 2: Institutional Development and Organisational Support is allocated a total budget of R184.2 million, the main purpose of which is to ensure that the Provincial Government is a people centred organisation that has sufficient capacity to effectively and efficiently deliver on its mandate. This programme is also charged with effective coordination and capacity building of the public sector towards social and institutional transformation.
This will be done through improving human resource management effectiveness in the provincial departments including strengthening performance management particularly at Executive and Senior Management level, ensuring implementation of employee wellness programmes and facilitating sound employment relations; coordinating delivery of transversal, management and leadership development as well as external skills development programmes; strengthening organisational development and implementation of service delivery excellence programmes such as culture change and Batho Pele.
The programme is also responsible for the coordination of Information and Communication Technology services in the province. To this end, this programme will also focus on monitoring provision of quality service by SITA, strengthening implementation of ICT governance across departments, spatial referencing of government information through the provision of Geographic Information Systems services as well as provisioning and maintenance of the necessary ICT Network infrastructure to ensure connectivity of government buildings for operational efficiencies.
Programme 3: Policy and Governance is allocated R83.5 million which will be utilized to improve integrated planning, monitoring and the coordination of service delivery of service delivery across government. In the coming financial year, the Office of the Premier will conduct on-site service delivery verification of departmental programmes across government.
The transfer payment to the Public Entity of the Office of the Premier, ECSECC, amounts to R38.7 million, and this will be utilized to support the implementation of key strategies for job creation in the Province. ECSECC will also provide support to the Eastern Cape Planning Commission in the development of the Provincial Chapter of Vision 2030.
Programme 4: Executive Support Services is allocated R76 million to render support services to the Premier, Executive Council and Provincial Government as a whole. These include the management of intergovernmental and stakeholder relations and the provision of communications, cabinet secretariat, protocol and legal services.
In conclusion, Honourable Speaker, once more, I wish to acknowledge the cooperation and support we continue to receive from Members of the Portfolio Committee for the Office of the Premier and various stakeholders, including the ECSECC Board.
I also wish to take this opportunity to wish those who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ a blessed Easter weekend. I now table the Policy Speech, the Annual Performance Plans and Service Delivery Improvement Plan of the OTP and ECSECC.
I thank you!
