Welcome speech by Honourable Mr Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and Chairperson of the National Planning Commission on the occasion of the benchmarking visit by a high-level delegation from the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho, Sheraton Hotel, Pretoria
Honourable Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Lesotho, Mr Mothetjoa Metsing
Honourable Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr Kimetso Mathaba
Honourable Minister of Development Planning, Mr Mokoto Hloalele
Honourable Minister of Public Service, Mr Tsukutlane Au
Honourable Minister of Local Government, Dr Pontŝo Sekatle
Honourable Minister of Cooperative governance of the Republic of South Africa, Mr Pravin Gordhan
Ms Ayanda Dlodlo, the Deputy Minister for Public Service and Administration
High Commissioner of Kingdom of Lesotho, HE Ms E Letoone
Esteemed members of the delegation from the Government of Lesotho
Acting Director-General of DPME, Mr Tshediso Matona and his team
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Background and introduction
Honourable Deputy Prime Minister, on behalf of His Excellency President Jacob Zuma and the Government of the Republic of South Africa, it gives me great honour to welcome you and your esteemed delegation to our country. I hope your visit will be worthwhile. Our two countries have strong longstanding historical ties.
As neighbours, not only do we share the natural environment and resources; but we have common destinies, which are inseparable. During our struggle for liberation, the Kingdom of Lesotho provided an important base to the ANC. You sheltered and supported our exiled freedom fighters in countless ways.
Your sacrifices towards the freedom and democracy we enjoy today remain indelible in our memories, and underpin our bond of friendship and cooperation. Since 1994, our democratic dispensation ushered our two countries into deeper partnership, and trade and investment cooperation that will strengthen even further in generations to come.
It is against this background that I view this benchmarking visit as one of the many windows of opportunity for ongoing interaction between our two countries, at strategic and technical levels. The knowledge-sharing exercise are undertaking with your visit should broaden and strengthen the foundation of our mutual cooperation towards the development of our region, and the African continent.
Our Government believes that we in South Africa stand to learn a lot from your rich heritage, not least your experience with the challenges of development, and in this context managing the State and government bureaucracy in a fast changing global environment.
In our programme for sharing with you what we do in my Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation portfolio, we will focus on how National Planning is undertaken in our government, on how Monitoring and Evaluation is conducted, particularly in the context of our National Development Plan: Vision 2030.
As part of this portfolio, I also have responsibility to oversee the work of two important agencies of government, namely: Statistics South Africa and the National Youth Development Agency.
Furthermore, I chair a number of Inter-Ministerial Committees (IMCs) that are established by President Zuma to address key areas that require special political intervention from time to time.
The National Planning Commission and the National Development Plan
In 2009, President Zuma established the National Planning Commission (NPC) to facilitate the development of the first long-term vision and plan for the South Africa. Informed by extensive diagnosis research and public consultations, the previous NPC produced the National Development Plan and Vision 2030 (NDP). The NDP embodies a set of ideas, policy options, development goals and aspirations towards the elimination of the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality in our country.
Recently we inaugurated the new NPC that will build on the work of the previous one, but now focusing on facilitating the implementation of the NDP. The NPC is made up of women and men drawn from different sectors of society who bring in expertise and unique skills to advise government about how to take forward the NDP, and in a manner that has real impact on people on the ground.
The President has given the new NPC the following mandates, among other responsibilities:
- To promote and advance the implementation of the National Development Plan across different sectors of society;
- To undertake detailed planning in a selected number of sectors to be determined from time to time;
- To conduct regular engagements with various sectors of society on all matters pertaining to the long-term development of the country;
- To facilitate stakeholder engagements aimed at forging a social compact towards more effective implementation of the National Development Plan;
- To take a cross-cutting view, undertake research into long-term trends, analyse implementation of short to medium term plans with a view to recommend improvements to Government as well as produce reports to inform policy and planning; and
- To contribute to development of international partnerships and networks on national planning.
Whilst we are excited and optimistic about this demanding task, it is not without its own challenges and risks. Our immediate concern is that as a fairly new portfolio, we do not yet have adequate human resources and other technical capacity to support this work. The need to build the capacity is a matter our government gives much emphasis, and is major theme in the NDP, which talks of the need for a State with the requisite capacity to lead society towards the achievement of our developmental goals.
In relation to planning per se, we have identified the critical challenge of building a planning system that is state-led but is also truly societal, bringing together the different segments of society in a genuinely participatory and collaborative process. Some of the issues we are addressing are:
- The lack of alignment of various plans of government to the NDP, sometimes with only formal rhetorical reference to the NDP.
- The need to clarify roles and responsibilities, underpinned by different government instruments, systems and procedures;
- Incoherence in the spatial planning system that results in confusion in terms of spatial priorities across sectors; and
- The misalignment of planning cycles and planning horizons across the three spheres of government, among other challenges.
We have put together a discussion document that proposes specific reforms in the planning system of our government as a way of addressing these challenges and improve the enabling environment for a truly developmental State that we are aiming for. The presentation from the planning branch of the Department will highlight a range of partnerships, public engagements, flagship research projects and key initiatives that we have embarked upon to ensure that NDP is taken forward.
The Medium-Term Strategic Framework
As the ANC government we also use monitoring and evaluation as instruments for ensuring sound implementation of the NDP and related key programmes of government.
Last year Cabinet adopted the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) as the 5-year strategic agenda initiating implementation of the NDP by Government. This agenda also incorporates the commitments of the ANC’s as the ruling party. In this way, is the MTSF serves to provide the overarching policy direction of the work of government, and identifies the key priorities to be pursued in the period of 2014-2019.
In this context, we ensure that the 5-year strategic plans of all organs of the state are aligned to the MTSF and the NDP.
The MTSF contains 14 outcomes that Government will seek to achieve, including identified priorities in the following areas: education, health, safety, economy, skills, infrastructure, rural development, human settlements, local government, environment, international relations, public service, social protection and nation building.
As will be detailed later in the presentations by various officials and experts, for each outcome the following elements are indicated:
- Summary goals and trajectory pursued, as envisaged in the NDP: Vision 2030
- Constraints identified, and the strategic approach to be taken
- Specific outputs and priorities to achieve the vision; targets and indicators, including impact indicators
- Management of implementation, including allocation of responsibilities to respective leading ministries, and to support ministries
The outcomes-based approach we have adopted allows us to be strategic about what we want to achieve, and focused in terms of how we implement government priorities.
As part of monitoring implementation, each of the identified outcomes is converted into performance agreements that have been signed between the President and each of the Ministers. Whilst these Ministerial Performance Agreements are not treated as strict legal contracts, as the President’s Constitutional prerogative is unaffected, they serve as accountability instruments to guide Cabinet in terms of key roles and responsibilities among the Ministers, and how each should take leadership in terms of implementing the NDP and MTSF.
Each of the priority outcomes is coordinated by a Minister and implementation is overseen by Ministerial Implementation Forums comprising ministers who have a specific contribution to each of the identified MTSF indicators and targets. Cabinet receives quarterly reports from the Outcome Coordinating Ministers, engages with the content and provides feedback and direction to ensure implementation is ongoing and is continuously improved. Performance is then published on the Government Programme of Action website.
Operation Phakisa
As Government, we are continuously exploring improved ways on implementing our policies and programmes. About a two years ago, President Jacob Zuma undertook a State Visit to Malaysia where he learnt about the Malaysian Big Fast Results Methodology which has been applied effectively to address key challenges such as poverty, crime and unemployment in that country. We have since customised that methodology for our context and named it Operation Phakisa, with the objective to ‘hurry up’ the implementation in key areas of priority.
How do we use Operation Phakisa to accelerate implementation? We identify a key catalytical area from the NDP and MTSF outcomes and then subject it to more detailed operational planning, on-going intensive monitoring and problem-solving. We initially used Operation Phakisa to turnaround the ocean economy and more recently clinics in the health sector. On 13 August 2015, President Zuma updated the nation on the progress made in implementing this programme. In September 2015 an Operation Phakisa was launched in the education sector, and one has just been initiated in the mining sector in October 2015.
Socio-economic impact assessment
As the Cabinet we have become increasingly concerned about lack of information regarding the costs and impact of regulations and key policies on the economy. Within the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), we have established a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment System (SEIAS) as a tool-kit to facilitate the assessment of the socio-economic impact of our policies and regulations.
Going forward, we are requiring that departments work with this unit to conduct these impact assessments, the findings of which are included in the decision memoranda routinely submitted to Cabinet. This helps improve the content, quality and impact of Cabinet decisions. The SEIAS tool compliments the work of the National Evaluation System.
The National Evaluation System (NES)
Thorough the NES, we reflect on whether our programmes are achieving what they were intended to achieve, whether we are doing the right things, whether we are being effective, efficient and providing value for money, and how we can improve. In collaboration with government departments, we commission academic institutions and independent evaluators to undertake evaluations which are later tabled to Cabinet and Parliament.
Departments are expected to develop improvement plans that address key issues raised in the evaluations. Since 2012 we have a total of 47 evaluations underway, or completed, covering around R75 billion of government expenditure. As these evaluations are completed and fed into the system we should see improvements in the effectiveness of government’s programmes. Relevant officials will provide your delegation with more details as to how these evaluations are conducted and the difference they are making in the work of our Government.
Besides monitoring, evaluation and assessment of the impact of government priorities, we also monitor other aspects of government’s performance such as organisational performance, management practices, frontline service delivery, citizen-feedback, and special projects.
Planning and reporting by departments
The cross-cutting priorities of government are ultimately implemented by the organs of the state, our social partners and service providers. As I have already outlined, we require all Departments and organs of the state – particularly national and provincial departments and their public entities – to translate the MTSF and NDP into their own five year strategic plans and Annual Performance Plans. A key function of the DPME is to assess whether such plans are fully aligned to the MTSF, and in this regard to provide detailed feedback to the respective departments and entities.
Once completed, these organisational strategic plans are budgeted for and their implementation is monitored on a quarterly basis, with annual reports are produced against them. All organs of the state are required by law to generate this performance information and report to national parliament and provincial legislatures, which then use such information to perform oversight on the Executive. A similar system of Integrated Development Planning and performance reporting is implemented for local government and is supervised by the Ministry of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).
Local Government Management Improvement Model
We have identified local government as a key area requiring concerted effort by all stakeholders in order to improve performance. DPME compliments the work of Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) via implementing a highly specialised and targeted Local Government Improvement Model (LGMIM). LGMIM measures the institutional performance of municipalities across a number of key performance areas.
To date, we have assessed 30 municipalities and have used the results to inform improvements. In 2015-16 financial year, we intend to enroll a further 25 municipalities for assessment, working with the Ministry of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
Monitoring of management practices in national and provincial departments
Building a capable developmental state and forging a disciplined, people-centred and professional public service are one of the key pillars of the NDP and a priority outcome of the MTSF. The Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT) is one of the initiatives that we have introduced to monitor management practices within national and provincial departments. We do this because we understand that without improving management practices in the public service, the delivery of services to our people will fall short of our expectations.
In the past year, 155 national and provincial departments conducted self-assessments on their management practices. A recent evaluation indicates that the MPAT is a sophisticated to for the assessment of public sector management practice, comparable with the best known international models.
Thus far, it has been well-received by departments with high rates of participation. Government departments value this relatively unique assessment tool and find its assessments useful for improvement planning. Going forward we will link MPAT results to the performance assessment of Accounting Officers of other public entities and organs of the state.
Presidential Hotline
The Presidential Hotline provides a platform for our people to lodge queries and complaints about the quality of service they receive from government. To date we have recorded 207 000 complaints and queries through the Hotline, of which 35% are general queries and 65% are complaints about services. I can report that, for all complaints and queries we received, 94% are recorded as resolved and 11 661 (6%) are still to be resolved. The nature of the complaints that we receive mainly involve labour relations and employment, land and housing, local government, basic services and utilities, and crime and justice.
We regularly report to Cabinet and give feedback to departments and provinces on the number of complaints received and resolved. We undertake telephonic satisfaction surveys to ask citizens to rate their experience of the Hotline. To date we have surveyed 23 000 people and the results suggest that on average 70% of people rate the service as good to fair, and 30% rate it as poor.
I am informed there is a plan to take your delegation on a tour of the Presidential Hotline tomorrow.
Citizen-Based Monitoring
The participation of citizens as agents and monitors of the delivery of services is an area of key emphasis in the NDP. Pursuant to this ideal, we have introduced a citizen-based monitoring system, and piloted it in 10 facilities in Gauteng, North West and Limpopo provinces. This financial year, we will roll out this programme to facilities in the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Western Cape and Mpumalanga.
Capacity Development and Knowledge sharing
Capacity building is a NDP imperative. As part of our capacity building and international liaison in the field of planning, monitoring and evaluation, we have partnered with international institutions such as the World Bank, and have co-hosted International Knowledge Sharing Workshops in June 2014 and March 2015.
These international sessions serve as a platform for DPME to share knowledge with peers from fellow African countries about how the various planning, monitoring and evaluation programmes are designed and implemented, the difference they are making, and what is being learned from both success and challenges experienced. Delegations from Lesotho have participated in all of these sessions.
Conclusion
While institutionalising effective planning, monitoring and evaluation is still in formative stage in our Government, we are confident that the initiatives we are undertaking and the tools we have designed are in the right direction. Much more work is required to achieve the desired results. I do hope that you will find some of what we do worthwhile to you, to adapt to the context of Lesotho.
I thank you.
