Good Morning to all present and all virtual participants
Programme Director, allow me to take this opportunity to recognize the Acting Minister for Public Service and Administration in absentia who will be able to join us tomorrow.
The Director General of the DPSA – Ms Yoliswa Makhasi and heads of the broader MPSA family, the NSG, CPSI and the PSC
Director Generals and Heads of Department present
All our partners including the Public Sector Education and Training Authority (PSETA), Regenesys, Wits, University of the North West, and Tshwane University of Technology.
Researchers, Invited guests and Speakers
All participants including those on the Virtual Platform Ladies and gentleman
In his State of the Nation Address on the 9th February 2023, President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa said:
“A professional public service, staffed by skilled, committed and ethical people, is critical for an effective state and ending corruption, patronage and wastage” He further stated that in line with State Capture Commission response, a framework for professionalization of the public service has been developed with the sole mandate of, integrity assessments as a requirement for recruitment to the public service.
Public Service and Administration in South African has evolved since 1994 with key focus on integration needed for redress of disparities and discriminatory practices of the past. With the dawn of democracy, public service needed to change and adapt to the key values and principles of transparency and inclusivity as spoused in the Constitution of RSA.
It is these values and principles based on the spirit ubuntu together with high powered state capacity that should enable public service to perform effectively and efficiently in delivery of basic services to the people of SA. For government to deliver its mandate of effective and efficient public service, it must be professional, effective and efficient in the use of resources, public service must be development-oriented, impartial in the provision of services, responsive to the needs of the people, accountable, transparent and be representative of the people of South Africa.
The DPSA regulates national norms and standards for public service institutions in line with the National Development Plan 2030 that calls for building a capable, ethical, developmental state. It therefore becomes imperative in our endeavor to achieved these goals, to make an audit of successes and failures to be able to understand what still needs to be done.
The Office of Standards and Compliance is based on:
- The need to agree on a common understanding and definition of norms and standards.
- The creation of the capacity to support the Minister in prescribing uniform minimum norms and standards across public service and administration;
- Availability of technical support, advisory services and intervention support to the public administration, to promote compliance; and
- Ensuring that norms and standards are designed in a way that makes public service to be impactful.
In 2014 Government introduced in Parliament the Public Administration Management Act (PAMA) which was adopted as an implementation mechanism for minimum norms and standards. The Office of Standards and Compliance is established in accordance with Section 17 (1) of PAMA. The key object of the Office is to improve compliance with minimum norms and standards in government institutions. The MPSA monitors compliance to minimum norms and standards in all three spheres of Government noting the distinctive, inter-dependent and interrelated character of government.
THREE frameworks have since been developed to operationalize the Office of Standards and Compliance in line with section 17 of the PAMA. It is hoped that this Colloquium with diverse stakeholders will interrogate these norms and standards and issues of compliance.
Reports of the Auditor General, DPME, Public Service Commission and other institutions show that there is a slow decline in compliance in specific areas across public service and administration. The State of the Public Service Reports and the State of the Municipality Reports also does not paint a good picture.
The Minister for the Public Service & Administration issued PAMA Regulations in October 2022 for the Office of Standards and Compliance to execute its legislative mandate as per section 17 of PAMA. These regulations will, hopefully enrich the interactions in this colloquium.
The Office of Standards & Compliance has developed two Compliance Monitoring reports over the last two years. The findings and recommendations thereof will be shared in the discussions.
I wish you all well on this Three-day Conference which starts with this OSC Colloquium and ends with the focus on Human Resource Management and Development. We are building on the significant improvements that have been made over the last THREE decades, whilst building state capacity to face emerging challenges which require public administration to think and work differently. I implore on you to work together to find solutions to improve policy implementation and look for areas where we can collaborate and come up with implementation plans which can change people’s lives. This is the key objective and focus of this conference.
In conclusion I would like to again remind you of what the President stated in the 2023 SONA “A professional public Service, staffed by skilled, committed and ethical people, is critical to an effective state and ending corruption, patronage and wastage” To put a rider on this statement, I wish send a message of hope to all South Africans that yes for who we are as a people we CAN. The RESILIENCE we had during the dark days of this country still lives on. Our deliberations must ensure we address the challenges we are experiencing and come up with clear strategies of overcoming them.
Kea leboga
