Mr Deputy President
Minister Francis Maude
Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers
The Premier of Gauteng
The Auditor-General
The Public Protector
Senior public servants
Ladies and gentlemen.
Mr Acting President,
It is a singular pleasure and honour to have you with us today. We have convened this summit to allow you in particular to address the administrative leadership of the entire country about this government’s vision of the pivotal role they play in ensuring that we can all achieve our collective responsibility towards our people. Chapter Ten of our Constitution is dedicated to clearly articulating the basic principles and values of public administration for a state at our level of development.
A public service whose values are undifferentiated by neither sphere nor sector. It is for that reason that we have assembled here today the top leadership of the Public Service from National Government through to Municipal Management to be part of this essential dialogue.
We have also taken the liberty to invite key ministers to share with us from their own purview what they believe we have to do to realise our objectives of creating and driving public service reform and building a capable state.
Oftentimes we articulate our frustration at the dis-functionality of the State to the public. We have created this environment to talk directly to those who need to hear directly what we have to say, to share with them our concerns, our frustrations, our views on how we can do it differently and better and if they are lucky today they might even hear a word of encouragement about what it is they might be doing right. We have allowed some time for this interaction to take the shape of a dialogue where the senior administrators will have time to converse with you, ask questions, make suggestion and if we are lucky even get a word of recognition for the work we do! (I'm an eternal optimist).
We are at that point in our development where we have achieved a second milestone: we have a plan, the National Development Plan and the Minister responsible for that Plan, Minister Trevor Manuel will talk to us about our centrality to the National Development Plan and share with us what the National Planning Commission has diagnosed is our greatest weakness and what reforms, in their view, need to be undertaken.
Some of the suggestions from the National Development Plan are frighteningly new for South Africa, but well tested in other countries such as Britain. And we are extremely fortunate to have with us here the Minister of the Cabinet and the Wage Master General in the United Kingdom. I am glad we don't use such titles in our country! South African Democratic Teacher's Union (SADTU) already thinks of me as nothing more than a Wage Negotiator General.
Minister Francis Maude is a seasoned senior politician and will be able to share with us some ideas on Civil Service Reform in the United Kingdom. We hope these might go to the essence of our own present conjecture. It would be interesting to hear his assessment of our own proposed reforms, in particular the tricky question of how to create a retention strategy for Directors-General.
We will break at this point for coffee and allow Minister Manuel to attend to a prior engagement.
We return thereafter to presentations and a dialogue between the two ministers that form part of what is referred to as centres of government: this commonly refers to Finance Public Administration and now Monitoring and Evaluation. Minister Pravin Gordhan and Minister Collins Chabane will be the two discussants in the session. The session will be chaired by the Minister of Rural Development, Minister Nkwinti, who is very passionate about professionalising public services. He will act as the Chairperson and moderator of the discussion and will open it up for a question and answer session with senior managers.
After a late lunch we will return to a session chaired by Ms Ayanda Dlodlo. Deputy Minister for Public Service and Administration, which will concentrate on those organs of state that have an oversight mandate over government: the Auditor-General, the Public Service Commission and the Public Protector - all of which will bring specific insights on matters arising from their responsibility. We will also take questions and answers during this session, which will be particularly important for our municipal level of government as they seem to be experiencing severe difficulty in most areas.
Mr Deputy President, we hope at the end of this summit we will have common appreciation of key areas that are a significant vulnerability, have understood what are our greatest weaknesses are and how to overcome them. We will take from this gathering a common resolve to do things differently and better so that we can feel positive about ourselves and our role in the lives of our people. This second decade will not close on a disgruntled citizenry and an unmotivated public service. We know you will reignite their commitment to provide professional, timely service with honesty and integrity.
Mr Deputy President I ask that you please take the podium and talk to your people.
