Chairperson, in light of the report and the recommendations already submitted to Parliament, the portfolio committee wants to emphasise that the medium-term review of the department and its entities' budget be adopted so that the mandate of the department can be carried through, subject to spending on services and programmes for which the funds have been allocated.
There are some issues that the committee has emphasised as already captured in the recommendations. We are definitely not going to repeat them, but we will just focus on those that we are emphasising. For example, the instability caused by the long delay in filling the vacant position of the director-general has had an impact on the entire structure of the department and the Public Service. This even had an impact on other aspects, such as the signing of performance contracts, the declarations of interests, and many others.
Modulasetulo, ho ye ho thwe ha katse e le siyo ditweba di a hlanaka. Ho mmeng he, ho bohlokwa hore re hatelle ntho ena ha re tla bua ka tlhatlhobo ena ya lefapha. Nnete ke hore re a tseba hore ke letsatsi la pele Molaodi- Kakaretso a le teng, empa ba dutse nako e telele ba hloka hlooho ya lefapha. Ntho e tshwanang le eo ha re batle hore e be teng. Re batla hore ha ho ba le sekgeo se kwalwe ka wona motsotso oo hobane ha se sa kwalwe se re bakela mathata a fetang ao o a bonang.
O tla fumana hore dintho tse kang tumellano ya tshebetso, tsebahatso ya dikgahleho le tse ding tse tlamehang ho etswa, ha di a etswa. Tsena tsohle di ye di fokole ha katse e le siyo. Ha re batle mmuso wa ditweba tse hlanakang. Kahoo, re batla lefapha le tsebe hore, re le komiti, re hlile re a e hatella taba ya hore ntho e kang ena ha re a ka ra e rata. (Translation of Sesotho paragraphs follows.)
[They say when the cat's away, mice will play. Therefore, it is important to emphasise this issue when we talk about the review of the department. The truth is we know that it's the first day for the Director-General, but they have been without a head of department for a long time. We don't want to have that kind of situation. We would like that when there is a vacancy, it should be filled as a matter of urgency, because if it is not filled, it creates a lot of problems such as we now see.
You will find that performance contracts, declarations of interests and many others have not been done. All these things suffer because the cat is not around. We don't want the type of government where mice enjoy "open sesame". Therefore, we want the department to know that, as the committee, we would like to emphasise that we really didn't like this sort of situation.]
Again, the finalisation of the human resource development and management strategy is a critical aspect as it is within this strategy that we'll have a proper integrated financial management system that will bring to an end the inaccurate Persal system and assist government to function efficiently.
As you know, there is always a lull when it comes to Persal. At some point, it just has to be done away with. We need to have a proper system with accurate data and accurate information. The excuse about Persal must come to an end. We no longer want to hear that song anymore.
The department has to improve its public-participation process in order to speed up, among other things, the improvement of the Thusong Centres, particularly those in rural areas, so that people can access services with ease. If we were to consider Batho Pele as one concept that is spearheaded and generated by the department, it has to be reflected wherever people are. For example, if those Thusong Centres work, particularly in rural areas, people can then access services and can then start to experience Batho Pele, etc. Therefore, it is important for us to make sure that the process of correcting all the Thusong Centres that the committee went to in rural areas that were not working is speeded up.
The vetting process appears to be a thorny issue across all government departments. As all committees of Parliament are responsible for oversight, we want to overemphasise to government that the vetting process has to improve drastically, particularly for officials recruited in supply-chain management. This is in order to curb the spread of corrupt practices. We cannot afford to have a weakness in that area. This came up in almost all committees and it is therefore a major concern to us. We definitely have to get a positive response regarding that issue.
The department should provide good leadership on wage negotiations to avoid unnecessary strikes. It should effectively monitor the implementation of the affirmative action programme, particularly for people with disabilities. It is scandalous that we could not meet the targets for employing disabled people. That is so wrong. I think we should really do something beyond just accepting that it did not happen. Something must be done. This is so wrong. It paints a very bad picture. I know we do have the ability to do the right thing.
In conclusion, the Public Service Commission will be of great assistance if it sharpens its monitoring and evaluation system in order to assess and evaluate the impact of government service delivery. This will spearhead achievement and have a positive impact on service delivery in areas that had been identified as weak spots. In other words, we must zoom in on areas identified as weak in governance in order for us to achieve the endeavour of the developmental state we envisage. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Chairperson, we hope that the chairperson and the portfolio committee will assist us by ensuring that the cat is always around so that mice do not dance all the time. Therefore, I move:
That the Report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.