A Motsoaledi: Batho Pele Day Celebrations

11 November 2007

Programme director
Members of Executive Council here present
Executive Mayor and Mayors
MPLs
Councillors
Traditional leaders
Members of the Senior Management Service
Media representatives
Ladies and gentlemen

Batho Pele is a people's driven public service improvement programme which
is anchored on eight principles, which are: consultation, service standards,
access to services, courtesy, information, openness and transparency, redress,
and value for money.

Public service delivery improvement is a challenge that requires much more
than the commitment of Executive Council members, as it also demands skills and
the availability of public servants to perform their designated functions and
duties from time to time. For Batho Pele to happen, this will obviously require
every public servant to put his or her shoulder on the wheel, so that our
people are given only the best quality of service wherever they are. Public
servants as trustees of the people are expected at all times to act in
accordance with various codes of good practice which governs ethics and good
conduct. If public servants do not understand where government stands on
various issues, this would obviously become even more difficult for ordinary
citizens to understand their expectations and roles.

Therefore, we regard public servants to be the ambassadors of this
government - in other words you are the first people who must offer
clarifications and answers to the challenges which members of the community go
through on a daily basis. Those of us who are mandated to guide and lead the
machinery of the State have an enormous burden to ensure that our public
service understands its role, and is well oiled to tackle the challenges at
hand. The contract we have signed with the people, demands that we selflessly
dedicate ourselves with equal zeal and enthusiasm to the task of building the
kind of South Africa envisioned by our forebears, who laid the first foundation
stone for a free and democratic South Africa.

This citizen's report we present here today, highlights the many
achievements and efforts we continue to make, in delivering essential services
to the millions of our people. It further gives us a chance to critically
examine the challenges that still lie ahead of us, in our journey to become a
winning nation. Thus, we should regard this day as an opportune moment for us
to receive a first hand account of the steps, government has taken to enhance
service delivery to communities in line with our stated Batho Pele principles.
We regard it as a fundamental constitutional right of every citizen to be
afforded an opportunity to participate in their own governance, hence we must
emphasise the point that your responsibility in this democracy is not only
limited to voting after every five years, but also goes to an extent of holding
accountable, those you have elected for their actions. This is why we have
always taken every opportunity available to us, to listen and to report to you
whenever possible and necessary. We bear the moral and political responsibility
as the African National Congress (ANC) government to ensure that our elected
representatives and the provincial executive operate in a manner responsive and
consistent with the needs and aspirations of all our communities.

Therefore, Batho Pele day presents an opportunity for government to provide
a detailed account on what has been done, and what still needs to be done, to
better the lives of all citizens of our province. The report gives an overview
account of the implementation of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative
for South Africa (AsgiSA) projects, progress on Provincial Corridors, Joint
Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) programmes and opportunities
for 2010 Fifa World Cup as well as progress on the development of the
Presidential Nodes.

If we have to start off by presenting a macro-economic picture, one would
say that, on average, the economy of our province grew by 4% between 1995 and
2005 - meaning that we have nominally grown from R31,7 billion in 1995 to
R103,7 billion in 2005. Although the biggest investment to this growth has been
in the mining sector, it is regrettable that this sector has not created the
number of jobs we need, due to the capital-intensive nature of the industry.
Overall, government remains the biggest employer in the province, followed by
the services sector. Agriculture has been relegated to become the third largest
employer due to challenges of drought and water scarcity, which we have been
experiencing in the last three years. However, we have an opportunity through
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) and the
Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) to invest massively in
education and skills, in order to triple the size of agriculture, tourism,
construction and the manufacturing sectors by 2015. The 2010 Fifa World soccer
games also provide us with a rare opportunity to invest massively in
infrastructure that will constantly be needed, in order to grow a developmental
and a competitive economy.

To this end measures are being taken to improve the capacity of our Further
Education and Training (FET) colleges as well as investing in learnerships and
internship programmes, to bridge the skills gaps that the province still has.
During this financial year, we are pleased that we have increased the number of
bursaries awarded externally to 559, with special focus on engineering,
agriculture, medical, social and health, tourism, auditing and accounting.
These are the kinds of skills our economy needs in order to remain competitive
globally and nationally, and to create the number of jobs necessary to fight
underdevelopment and poverty. Our conviction is that our society can never
develop, if we do not invest sufficiently in human capital and skills.

Programme director

Although, our Grade 12 performance has been worrisome for the past two
years, government understands the scale of the problem and has initiated
strategies to gradually improve performance. On top of the structural changes
that has been initiated, this year for instance, we continued with saturday
classes and winter enrichment classes whereby teachers who are high performing,
including curriculum specialists and lecturers from higher education
institutions, were deployed to help learners out. The matric pass rate is
currently at 36% on Mathematics, 51% on Physical Science and 43% on Economic
Science. Our aim is to increase overall performance on these subjects to 50% by
2009. We still hope that when matric results are announced late this year or
early next year, our province would have faired much better compared to last
year.

Programme director

In an endeavour to bring government closer to the people, our province is
implementing the Community Development Worker (CDW) Programme in line with the
National CDW Framework. In 2006, 376 trained Community Development Workers were
deployed in all municipalities in the province in order to attend to community
problems to achieve better service delivery. We are highly pleased to report
that, in 2006 alone, 12 719 cases of liaison work was done and 13 308 service
delivery cases were resolved through CDWs intervention. In addition, we have
also seen the number of Thusong Service Centres increasing to 16 in 10 local
municipalities, and there are plans in place to reach the target of one Thusong
Service Centre per Local Municipality by 2014. We are further pleased that our
Department of Local Government and Housing has established a Housing Consumer
Call Centre (0800 Ntshebele or 0800 487 432) which is a toll-free number aimed
at promoting broader interaction with communities on housing related enquiries.
The department has also started an initiative called 'My Councillor and I,' an
innovative, vibrant programme which is aimed at fostering good relations
between Councillors and citizens. The feedback that we are getting, points to
the fact that, this programme is working well and needs to be intensified in
all our municipalities.

Consistent with Batho Pele principles, the province has further ensured that
95% of government buildings and service points and their offices are
identifiable by all our customers and citizens as a whole. In addition to
these, departments have provided their employees with nametags and in some
cases, the nametags are used for access control in order to improve security.
This we believe will go a long way towards ensuring that officials are
identifiable by members of the public, and that service delivery institutions
are easily accessible.

Programme director

One of Batho Pele's principles requires us to maintain constant and dynamic
contact between government and the people it serves. In the main, government
has mostly relied on such programmes as 'Exco meets the people' and various
imbizo programmes which are intended to empower people in outlying areas. It is
our stated intention as government to see to it that, these gatherings do not
just end up as meaningless talk shows, but are instead used productively as
solution driven platforms, where citizens also get solutions to some of their
problems.

Programme director

One also needs to take this opportunity to highlight some of the
achievements that are being registered in the field of health and social
development of our province. One of these achievements relates to the routine
immunisation of children under the age of five which is proceeding well as
planned. It is highly encouraging that routine immunisation coverage has now
reached 89% in 2006/7 and this has exceeded the National target of 80%.

In addition to these, we have also seen good progress in the management of
Priority Diseases such as HIV/AIDS which are showing signs of stabilising.
At-least we can be able to say, with confidence, that universal access to HIV
and AIDS prevention and treatment has been increased to levels which are higher
than before. For instance, in all the districts, 36 hospitals or 90% of
hospitals are implementing comprehensive programme on HIV/AIDS. Eight thousand
nine hundred and seven patients are treated and prevalence is at 21,5% compared
to the 30,2% nationally. The Comprehensive Care, Treatment and Management Plan
remains on track with treatment sites having increased from 24 to 36 in
2006/07. While the province is the lowest in the country in terms of prevalence
rate, this does not mean we should be complacent. It is still important for
everyone to heed the HIV and AIDS message so that we do not get infected.

We are also working hard to improve the response times of Emergency Medical
Services (ambulances) to acceptable times in both rural and urban areas. We
have recently procured 100 ambulances to add to our current fleet, thereby
bringing the total number of ambulances in the province to 330. The Emergency
Medical Services (EMS) response time in urban areas is now 27 minutes vs. the
target of 20 minutes, while the response time in rural areas is 47 minutes
versus the target of 40 minutes. The challenge however has been the poor state
of rural roads which have been found to be inaccessible in some respects.
However, we know that our Department of Roads and Transport is doing all that
it can to work on this challenge.

Programme director

The safety and security of our citizens is a priority for this government.
Our province has recently been declared the safest province in South Africa,
according to a survey done by the South African Institute of Race Relations
(SAIIR). However, sustaining this record would always be a challenge, which
will require joint partnership between communities and the South African Police
Service (SAPS). Nonetheless, we are pleased that a strategy has since been
developed to guide Community Policing Forums in executing their work. The
functionality of these structures has seen a reduction in crime in many parts
of our province, thus ensuring community safety. However, we remain worried
about the high crime prevalence rate, in provincially identified Hotspot areas
such as Mankweng, Seshego, Polokwane and Thohoyandou, which have seen a
resurgence of acts of highjacking, murder, housebreaking and rape. We call on
communities in these areas to join hands with government and the SAPS, to round
up criminals, so that our communities can remain safe and secure.

Programme director

We find it regrettable that the good work being done by this government is
being tainted by few corrupt elements, within the public service which have no
respect for our public resources. We believe that it is the responsibility of
every public servant and members of the public to blow the whistle each time
they see officials abusing resources of the state or acting in self-interest.
All provincial departments have units in place that deal with cases of fraud
and corruption involving members of the public service. We are pleased to
report that so far we have already dealt with 39 or (36,5%) of the 107 cases
reported to us through the National Anti-Corruption Hotline of which the
remaining 68 or (63,5%) are still under investigation. We promise to deal
firmly with those that would have been found involved in corruption or fraud.
We encourage every member of the public to report corruption without fear or
favour.

In order to achieve our Batho Pele goals we have further taken steps to
ensure that our service standards are also incorporated into the performance
management system of managers and public servants in all departments.
Departments also have systems in place to address complaints about
non-adherence to service standards, and the dissatisfaction with the quality of
services which are provided. Members of the public are also encouraged to make
use of suggestion boxes available at various government buildings and service
points, as well as the use of the toll free number: 08 0000 2383. Complaint
with regards to lack of service delivery by both the provincial and national
departments can also be reported by way of physically visiting departments
concerned and by way of writing to those departments.

While we should abhor any miscreant behaviour on the part of any public
servant, we must at the same time find it easy to applaud those deserving
officers or service points, which excel in their work by giving them due
encouragement where the standard of service delivered is of a higher
quality.

Therefore, allow me programme director, to once again, take this opportunity
to congratulate and wish well the winners of the 2006 Premier Service
Excellence Awards, for setting a shining example of what Batho Pele means for
the people of our province. With all humility, we should all pride ourselves,
with the high standards of Batho Pele and service excellence achieved by these
institutions. The institutions I will recognise include the following:

Elim Hospital in the Vhembe District Department of Health and Social
Development, Moshate Hotel School under the Department of Education, Lepelle
Secondary School under the Department of Education, Area Social Crime
prevention - SAPS Vhembe District, Waterberg Home Affairs Office, Trade and
Wildlife regulation Team-under the Department of Economic development,
Environment and Tourism, Mohale Primary School-under the Department of
Education, Waterberg District team-Department of Agriculture, Onane Primary
school under the Department of Education, Vhembe Adult Basic Education and
Training (Abet) team under the Department of Education, Motupa Clinic under the
Department of Health and Social Development, and lastly the Provincial
Department of Agriculture for being the best provincial department in 2006.

I now invite members of the executive council and Heads of Department to
make their statements of commitment.

Thank you

Issued by: Limpopo Provincial Government
11 November 2007