Hon Chairperson, acting Minister and Deputy Minister, Mme Oliphant and Mme Dlodlo respectively, members of the portfolio committee led by the chairperson, hon Joyce Moloi-Moropa, hon Members of Parliament, director-general, Mr M Diphofa, and all officials in the department, chairperson of the Public Service Commission, Mr Mthembu, and all other commissioners present, chairpersons and chief executive officers of all agencies residing within this portfolio, guests, friends and compatriots, I greet you.
We are gathered here just a week after we laid to rest one of our gallant struggle icons, Comrade Roy Padayachie, who sat at the helm of this important department at the time of his death. Like a true protagonist in the struggle for peace, stability and the safeguarding of human rights, he died on duty in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 4 May 2012 whilst attending a meeting of the African Peer Review Mechanism, a crucial African Union programme that promotes good governance and democracy.
Minister Roy Padayachie was a leading proponent of our country and its core values and freedom, democracy and human rights. He was a great patriot who shook the foundation of the colonial empire and exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, proving that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon. In his life he embodied the aspirations of the South African people and helped unleash the tides of history that led to a united, nonracial, nonsexist and democratic South Africa.
As the ANC in the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, we join His Excellency President J G Zuma in extending our deepest condolences to his wife Mrs Sally Padayachie, his two daughters Vindea and Trevana and the rest of his family. May the souls of hon Padayachie, hon Shiceka and hon Nyanda rest in peace.
We debate this Budget Vote during this month of May when we, as the ANC, celebrate the life and times of president Pixley ka Isaka Seme under the theme: Workers and the struggle for liberation. We reflect on the road map of the workers' struggles which led to the attainment of the democracy we rightfully enjoy today. The vision of president Pixley ka Isaka Seme and his generation of creating a united nonracial and nonsexist democratic South Africa found resonance in the ANC's inaugural meeting on 8 January 1912 in Mangaung.
Today, as we reflect and celebrate these historic moments, we are inspired by their vision and, as Parliament, we take pride in the strides we have made since the 1994 democratic breakthrough. But more work still needs to be done to intensify, much more objectively, our oversight over institutions supporting democracy, as envisioned by president Pixley ka Isaka Seme and his generation.
The important role that Chapter 9 and 10 institutions supporting democracy play, specifically the Auditor-General and the Public Service Commission, cannot be overemphasised. These institutions have been central in the transformation, strengthening and continuing development of our Public Service and Administration. It is to their credit that Parliament is able to debate this budget today with a sense of comfort that evidence and objectively verifiable information can be obtained to support and substantiate whatever arguments we might be advancing to assess the Vote before us.
Current international experiences and research on state craft show us that, in the long-term, the survival and maintenance of any democracy is not dependent on individual leaders, no matter how good they might be, but rather on the strength and calibre of its institutions. Our long struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression has always been based on the strength of the collective and recognition of the importance of democratic institutions as a way of building a democratic society.
As the ANC, we recognise the strategic importance of the Public Service Commission and the Auditor-General in the struggle to transform the Public Service so that it can serve the developmental needs of our people with speed and respect. Our priority this year is to monitor whether or not the culture of the Public Service is changing; and whether or not the services are delivered faster, efficiently and in a caring manner.
We will be monitoring whether or not the people are informed about the services that are delivered by the Public Service and how they can access them. These are the changes that the ANC wants to see happening to improve service delivery to our people. As Members of Parliament we cannot play our oversight role and monitor these changing patterns without clear collaboration with both the Public Service Commission and the Auditor- General, within their constitutional mandates.
The Constitution of the Republic has enshrined the establishment of both the Public Service Commission and the Auditor-General to assist us, as public representatives, in playing our role of oversight and seeking public accountability from the executive in a more qualitative manner through research-based information and objective evidence.
In terms of the Constitution of the Republic, the Auditor-General has been established to strengthen our constitutional democracy by auditing all accounts, financial statements and the financial management of national and provincial state departments and administrations. It must submit audit reports to any legislature that has a direct interest in the audit and to any authority prescribed by national legislation and, of course, such reports must be made public.
The Public Service Commission, on the other hand, has been established to work in the interest of the maintenance of effective and efficient public administration and high standards of professional ethics in the Public Service. Its functions are to promote the democratic values and principles enshrined in the Constitution and those articulated in section 195.
The common features between these two institutions are that they are required by the Constitution to be independent, impartial, and must exercise their powers and perform their functions without fear, favour and prejudice. They are accountable to the National Assembly, where they must report on their activities and the performance of their functions. In fulfilment of our mandate, we have interacted with them in recent times and have received their reports and plans within the context of this budget debate. In assessing this budget for Public Service and Administration, we have extensively used the valuable reports they produced in their examination on the state of health of our administrative arm of the state and its capacity to deliver.
These reports gave us an indication of where progress is being made and the areas of continued weaknesses in our system of public service and administration where we need to focus our oversight attention as Parliament. It was clear from these reports that although we have achieved a lot over the years since 1994 in building an integrated Public Service and Administration that is nonracial, when assessed against the priorities of the White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service, we still have a long way to go. Their reports continue to show that we have enormous challenges with regard to financial and human resource, supply chain management, accountability and leadership in the Public Service. But together, hon Du Toit and hon Msimang, we can correct these backlogs in the interest of the people we represent, instead of lamenting.
The Public Service Commission has indeed also provided us with valuable information through their reports which assess the state of the Public Service on an annual basis. Of critical importance, for the purpose of the oversight and accountability, was their profiling and analysis of the most common manifestations of corruption and its related risk in the Public Service. As identified in numerous reports, including that of the National Planning Commission, corruption continues to infest our Public Service to the detriment of service delivery and our ideal of a developmental state. Dealing with these challenges will require, in addition to all government intervention, a strong and robust oversight system on the part of Parliament, in collaboration with these institutions.
Our approach to oversight, as the ANC, is that, in addition to seeking accountability of the executive and Public Administration, we need to inculcate an approach of activism and constructive contribution towards solutions. Our approach is not only based on demanding reports from the executive and critiquing them, but on having a more on-site experience and interaction with those in the front-line coalface of service delivery. We want to ensure that Parliament has the appropriate mechanisms to facilitate public participation in oversight and accountability processes.
We believe that Public Service and Administration is a matter of public interest. Therefore, an emphasis on collaboration and public participation will demystify bureaucracy and make it more accessible and accountable. This approach would also help in the fight against corruption as we speak about it so highly. It is imperative, therefore, to ensure that this portfolio's budget includes an embedded public participation approach to the implementation of all its programmes in terms of processes and systems.
We commend the department for the special priority it has placed in its programmes on building good governance in the Public Service and fighting corruption. This indeed will require a concerted effort by everybody, and I mean everybody. It will require integration of efforts as well as collaboration among all the relevant agencies, including Parliament.
For this to happen effectively though it will require strong capacity on the part of the agencies involved. This strengthening of capacity is particularly urgent and applicable to the Public Service Commission. In this regard, the Ministry ought to also re-examine the budget of the Public Service Commission within the context of its constitutional status as a Chapter 10 institution which will require independence from the executive. However, hon Marais, I think the discussions around the Public Service Commission getting its budget allocation straight from Treasury are ongoing.
In conclusion, and as part of our commitment towards transforming the Public Service and Administration into a system with the appropriate capability for service delivery, based on the ethos of serving our people and promoting good governance, we must, without doubt, support this Budget Vote. I thank you very much for your attention. [Applause.]