certificate presentation dinner, President Hotel
10 August 2006
Program Director
Ms Mabitle
Recipients of the long service awards
Ladies and gentlemen
I am privileged to find myself tonight amongst a very select group of
individuals. When I started as an educator in the civil service many years ago,
I never thought I would see the day that I would be requested to do the honours
at an event to honour men and women who have been working loyally and
faithfully to give services for 30 and 40 years to our country and its people.
Tonight, I am honoured to be with you our patriots, our leaders, in your own
right and servants to our people.
In the Free State Department of Health we have taken a firm resolution and
adopted a culture of not only encouraging our personnel to love the principle
of service excellence but also awarding them for doing so, as well as
implementing it to the fullest without reservations. A number of mechanisms and
platforms exist through which we advance this principle of awarding our
personnel for their commitment to service delivery.
One of these platforms is the Performance Development and Management system
which was implemented some years ago. This system rewards performers and this
year 13 822 performers in the department are rewarded through this system.
The Philani Service Excellence Awards is also one of the methods in which
the department rewards service excellence and has become a gala event which
constitutes part of this culture of awarding the followers and implementers of
the principles of service excellence.
Tonight, we gather here to express our gratitude and admiration to those men
and women in our department who have given their service to this department for
a considerable period of time without tiring. The long service certificates
awards constitute an important element in our department of taking time to
appreciate the service that our officials give to us selflessly.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all by now familiar with the Batho Pele
principles, the Patient Rights Charter and the departmental Service Improvement
Programme. These documents serve as the context and the guiding torchlight for
service excellence in the process of service delivery in the public sector.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I want to pay homage to those men and women
whom have taken it upon themselves to respond to the call of duty. Our efforts
to improve service delivery put an emphasis on humane service delivery which
takes into account the fact that those who must benefit from this service
delivery are citizens not subjects.
As we recognise and award our personnel tonight for their dedication to
health service delivery the benchmark is therefore the Batho Pele principles
and the Patient Rights Charter. These two documents are the torchlight in the
journey of quality service delivery, because what we aim for is a humane civil
service that takes into account the fact that it is people we are dealing
with.
Ladies and gentlemen, the kind of personnel we are awarding and recognising
tonight are those who never stopped believing in our dream and vision of a
âself-reliant and healthy Free State communityâ. Men and women who selflessly
given all to their patients, those under their care and in their areas of
responsibility.
Programme director, honoured guests, I have no doubt that these dedicated
colleagues that we are recognising tonight have in their long service to the
department taken various initiatives to improve service delivery to the masses
of our people. What we have come to emphasise in the period since 1994
particularly is the issue of a civil service which aims to take innovative
measures to improve the quality of service to the people, hence the concept of
public service initiatives.
This concept of service delivery initiatives means or refers to activities
or initiatives in the public sector through which we are breaking new grounds
in the process of delivering services to public. This concept challenges us not
to go on with business as usual all the time so that what we do in delivering
services becomes the routine, mundane and casual activity. The concept,
interpreted this way, concretely means that we must proactively and constantly
seek new ways of addressing old challenges. We must not just stick to what we
are used to in such a way that creativity, flexibility and ingenuity suffers.
Yes indeed, we need to be innovative, that is take initiatives or new actions
in addressing long existing challenges in a different way. The ability to seek
alternatives to somewhat ineffective interventions should be our benchmark.
I have no doubt again in my mind that these men and women have exhibited
themselves as such civil servants who took initiatives to do things in a
different way so as to ensure that the people receive the services that they
deserve. Since we are celebrating womenâs month, I want to call on both men and
women of this department and all civil servants not to become mere pen pushers
or guardians of the rubber stamp, coming as late as possible to work, doing as
little as possible while at work and leaving work as early as possible. It is
high time that young civil servants of today take a leaf out of the book of
civil servants of yester-year, like yourselves, and learn about this value of
serving the public selflessly.
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, with these
remarks I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to all of you for
putting the people first in your long service to this department. The
department is where it is now due to your resolve to stay on in the service for
such long periods of time without getting tired, even when the steep was too
sharp to climb, when the going was tough, you kept on going. Your efforts will
not go unnoticed. Please accept our deepest our appreciation of your
contribution, from our government, the people of our country and your
colleagues.
Your contribution over the period of time you served your people cannot be
measured in the ranks, levels and any amount of money you received. Your reward
is in your personal satisfaction in how best you served those who needed you
most at their time of distress and need. May you find satisfaction in knowing
that you served with dedication, honesty and love?
Those who are on retirement or will be going on retirement, South Africa
thanks you.
Issued by: Department of Health, Free State Provincial Government
10 August 2006
