Address by the Deputy Minister Buti Manamela, on the occasion of the South African Human Rights Commission's National Forum of Information Officers (NIOF), Kameeldrift, Pretoria
Programme Director,
Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services: Mr John Jeffery,
Deputy Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission: Ms Pregs Govender,
CEO of the South African Human Rights Commission: Ms Lindiwe Khumalo,
Senior government officials,
Invited guests and members of the media.
I am greatly honoured to provide my brief input into this important discussion about 'Opportunities for Improving Effectiveness of Monitoring the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA)'.
Transparency is one of the core values in our Constitution. Our constitution is regarded as one of the most progressive in the world. It emerges from a long struggle by the masses of our people against the apartheid colonialism that sought to ensure that the oppressed majority have no access to information that would empower them to improve their own livelihoods and self-determination.
In fact, the Apartheid regime did not only deny access to information but also embarked on deliberate public disinformation. And, as recorded by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that regime systematically destroyed records of human rights violations and other activities of that government.
As this generation, we dare not repeat the errors of the past. Access to information is fundamental to the realisation of all other rights as well as giving practical expression of the key constitutional values of transparency and accountability.
When the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was passed into law in 2000, it marked a new era in our journey of building a society that respects and champions human rights by giving meaning to Section 32 of the Constitution, which: "provides that everyone has a right of access to any information held by the state and any information held by another person that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights.” This is our heritage and an achievement that we should cherish, nurture and sustain through practical application in terms of our own day to day actions.
We can only know if we are truly implementing PAIA through monitoring the actions of various institutions and use evidence from monitoring systems to continuously improve PAIA implementation. Monitoring is a powerful instrument for measuring and constantly reflecting on the progress and challenges experienced in implementing critical plans, policies and statutes like PAIA.
I commend the South African Human Rights Commission for playing its leadership role, as one of the guardians of our democratic order as per Chapter 9 of our Constitution, in terms of ensuring that PAIA is implemented efficiently and effectively by both public and private sector organisations. Increasingly, PAIA manuals are found on the websites of government departments, municipalities, professional associations, hotels, NGOs, car dealers, and various types of organisations, large and small. Gatherings like these are also tangible actions in terms of ensuring that the principle of transparency is championed more widely in our society. Keep up the good work!
A decade after the adoption of PAIA, our country went through a self-diagnosis and an extensive consultative process which culminated into the National Development Plan and Vision 2030 (the NDP). The NDP calls us to create a transparent, responsive and accountable public service based on the acknowledgement that, I quote:
"Dissatisfaction about lack of access to information on service delivery is prominent in public protests? The Batho Pele principles state that government should inform citizens about the services they are entitled to and government administration must be open and transparent. However in practice, the State has been poor at making information available timeously and in a form accessible to all citizens. Government officials are often reluctant to provide information when it is requested. Requests are routinely ignored, despite the existence of PAIA. There is endemic lack of compliance.”
This diagnosis is a clarion call for us to step up and enhance our efforts in terms of ensuring transparent and accountable public sector institutions. NDP presents new opportunities for us to enhance the implementation of PAIA and use self-monitoring to continuously improve our levels of transparency and accountability.
In fact, this indicates that the work of ensuring effective PAIA implementation through monitoring is not just the duty of the Human Rights Commission and the Department of Justice and Correctional Services, but the role that should be shared by all. As a way of supplementing the efforts of the key custodians of this legislation, our Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) uses the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) to assess the extent to which all 156 government departments comply with PAIA requirements.
MPAT focuses on the basics of public management covering the following key results areas: (1) strategic management (2) governance and accountability (3) human resources management, as well as (4) financial management. It assesses management practice against four progressive levels of performance whereby a department that scores 1 or 2 is non-compliant and performs poorly in that specific area.
Level 3 indicates good compliance and level 4 is about a department that fully complies with legal prescripts and also performs smartly in that specific aspect. In other words, through this tool we are consciously monitoring and encouraging managers in the public service to be compliant and smart in implementing basic policy and legal requirements, including those of PAIA, so as to progressively reach our aspiration of a Developmental State that is capable, effective, efficient and responsive to the needs of our people.
In terms of PAIA implementation, MPAT helps us to self-monitor and be independently assessed against the following key standards, namely:
- Appointment of Deputy Information Officers
- Application of roadmap documents for the implementation of PAIA prescripts
- Translation of the PAIA manuals into at least three official languages
- Timeously reporting to the South African Human Rights Commission
- Publishing of the list of automatically available records so as to enhance easy access
- The quality of management discussions about PAIA implementation in the departments, among other things.
I am quite delighted to report that significant improvements have been realised in terms of PAIA implementation in government since we started monitoring through MPAT in 2012, as most departments progressed from levels 1 and 2 in 2012 and 2013 to levels 3 and 4 in 2014. Currently 52% of departments are fully compliant to PAIA. I would like to encourage those departments that are at level 4 on PAIA to maintain this good management practice. To those that are not yet complying, measures must be put in place to ensure that this legislation is implemented.
PAIA implementation is not merely a tick-box exercise, but a significant contribution towards ensuring a transparent government that is accountable to its citizens.
I must also share that my department, DPME, also started at level 1 in terms of its MPAT score on PAIA implementation. We then implemented an improvement plan which resulted in us being consistently part of the level 4 class of departments. We have translated our PAIA manual into all 11 official languages and updated them timeously. We are planning to publish our PAIA manual in braille next year. Most importantly, PAIA requests are attended as they come and referrals made where necessary as per PAIA requirements.
Good record keeping is a key success factor for PAIA implementation - hence I believe that all of us have more work to do in this regard. There is an opportunity for management teams of departments to continuously monitor PAIA implementation through their existing structures and establish PAIA capability where it does not exist.
The SAHRC and the Justice College are always available to provide necessary capacity building in this regard. Use these freely available resources, they assisted DPME.
The monitoring I have just alluded to primarily focuses on the letter of PAIA in terms of ensuring compliance with the basic prescripts. The spirit of PAIA is about open and transparent government that ensures access to information as part of its daily operations.
We have translated the big picture issues presented on the NDP into five year Medium Term Strategic Framework which contains 14 priority outcome of government. Monitoring of the these outcomes seeks to generate information that can be used to improve the quality of life of all our people in key areas such as schooling, health, safety, economy, skills, environment, housing and so forth. We publish progress in this regard on the Government Programme of Action (POA) website and we encourage public bodies to do the same in their various communication platforms.
The StatsSA website is another resource in terms of providing statistical information.
Furthermore, we have recently published the South Africa's Development Indicators that present trends in relation to the key thematic areas of poverty and inequality, economic growth and transformation, social cohesion, good governance, among others. This is an invaluable source of information on both progress made over the past twenty years and problem areas that require our concerted efforts going forward.
We urge all South Africans to use this monitoring information and assess it against their own information and lived experience. The Development Indicators report that: South Africa's corruption perception score has improved from 42 to 44 out of 100 and the ranking improved from 72nd to 67th out of 175 countries in 2014 in terms of the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
This is welcome good news, partly as a result of our own efforts at being transparent about corrupt practices in our society. However, we should not be complacent until we have eradicated this scourge from our society. Working together in implementing PAIA we can move South Africa forward to being the most transparent country in the world!
Ladies and gentlemen,
I spend quite a lot of time visiting the coal-face of service delivery as part of un-announced visits of our Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring Programme. Through this kind of monitoring we assess the quality of service delivery to our people in real-time. We are able to interact with our people, understand their concerns and needs, and make necessary improvements on the government facilities as soon as practical.
This work is complimented by other monitoring activities such as the Presidential Hotline, Local Government Improvement Model (that is similar to MPAT) and Operation Siyahlola.
Our message is that these monitoring practices should be used by all public servants to improve their own performance and service delivery: from Greater Sekhukhune to Khayelitsha, from Mpumalanga to North West, and from the Union Buildings and Parliament to the streets and public toilets of Lusikisiki and Westonaria. Our people our waiting patiently for us to communicate information that will make their tomorrow better than yesterday.
I have been there on the ground, I have listen to the cries of our people, and we can do it together and provide necessary feedback and corrective action - one place at a time, now.
One of the lessons that I have learned through hands-on monitoring is that: sometimes as humans we tend to think that big challenges require big resources; yet by simply improving cleanliness, queue management, complaint management mechanisms, and our attitudes - we are able to make a big difference in improving the experience of citizens in accessing government services.
I do believe that we can go a long way in mitigating big challenges like the 'service delivery protests' if our people are treated with dignity and provided with the correct information at the right time. Transparency and accountability is the little they deserve from us, we must provide it. That is the spirit of PAIA.
Last but not least, a good reading of our Constitution and PAIA reveals that every human right has its own limits. Hence PAIA is not about unlimited access to information, but a more properly guided and responsible process of ensuring realisation of the right of access to information and related second generation human rights enshrined in our Constitution.
The NDP and the Medium Term Strategic Framework propose a Bill of Responsibilities and social compacts as instruments that could be used as an opportunity to champion our constitutional values and galvanise society towards collective action in specific areas of interest.
This presents another opportunity to enhance awareness and effective implementation of PAIA, thereby resulting to a more transparent society - especially if we instil these values to our young people. Together, we can move South Africa forward.
I thank you!
