Ri perile ... [Good evening.] ... Chairperson, the Deputy Minister for the Public Service and Administration, chairperson of the portfolio committee, hon members of the portfolio committee, hon Cabinet colleagues and Members of Parliament, the chairperson of the Public Service Commission, chairpersons of boards of institutions associated with the Ministry, senior leadership of our institutions, leaders of the trade union movement present here, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, we present to this august House the Budget Vote for the Ministry of Public Service and Administration for the 2011-12 financial year, in respect of which we are giving an account of the performance of the following: the Ministry itself, the Department of Public Service and Administration, DPSA; the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama; the State Information Technology Agency, Sita; the Public Service Commission, PSC; the Centre for Public Service Innovation, CPSI; the Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority, PSETA; and the Government Employees Medical Scheme, Gems.
In financial terms, the budget we are presenting today for the entire Ministry stands at R690,1 million, with R384,8 million allocated to the DPSA, R118 million to Palama, and R151 million to the PSC. A share of R14,8 million of the DPSA allocation is for the CPSI, and R21 million is for PSETA operational activities. Both Sita and Gems are self-sustaining and do not require allocations from the Ministry.
The PSETA's funding, under our control, is limited to operational activities, while they draw assistance from the National Skills Fund, NSF, to cater for skills development programmes.
Our work is focused on the minimum of having to realise one of the 12 outcomes in our outcomes-based performance approach, which is Outcome 12. It instructs us to work under the theme: An efficient, effective and development-oriented Public Service, and an empowered, fair and inclusive citizenship.
The maximum focus of this portfolio has to deal with all those issues that will ensure the total consolidation, stabilisation and activation of the state machinery around the sustenance of the values of our administration, as enshrined in our Constitution and affecting all three spheres of government, as well as the state-owned entities.
Let me mention that we are talking about the following: promoting and maintaining a high standard of professional ethics; promoting efficient, economic and effective use of resources; ensuring a developmental administration and responding to the needs of the people; maintaining an accountable public administration; and enforcing a public administration representative of the people of this country. The PSC continues to monitor compliance with these values through annual reports on the state of the Public Service.
We know that we still have departments that find it optional to respond to the findings of the PSC. As we indicated through the reports of the PSC in our debate last year, our Deputy Minister is representing us in leading compliance in this regard. This constitutes the mandate of the Ministry of Public Service and Administration, lest we forget, and this is for those who only know us as a Ministry of salaries, hiring and firing.
In order to realise these values, we set ourselves to embark on the following activities: improving service delivery quality and accessibility; maintaining effective systems, structures and processes; leveraging information technology as a strategic resource enabler; eliminating barriers of entry into the Public Service and facilitate effective entry and cadre development; encouraging effective human resource management practices through norms and standards; promoting a healthy and safe working environment for all public servants; ensuring appropriate governance structures, citizen engagements and public participation; fighting corruption effectively; and contributing to improved public service and administration in Africa and in the international arena.
The Ministry continues to deal with issues across the Public Service in discharging our mandate. One of the examples in this regard includes reviewing the Ministerial Handbook. This handbook is an instrument that is providing guidelines on dealing with matters regarding benefits and privileges to which the following categories of public officials and their families are entitled: Ministers; Deputy Ministers; Premiers; Members of Executive Councils, Presiding Officers and Deputy Presiding Officers of Parliament, including yourself, hon Chairperson.
The main focus of the review is to standardise the interpretation of the handbook, amend sections thereof, and give more space to concentrate resources in the area of service delivery. It is also aimed at providing for those categories of officials and their families who are not taken care of in the current dispensation, such as officials with disabilities.
We have a draft amended version of the handbook, after having thoroughly consulted all interested parties, and after benchmarking with several countries on the continent and in the world. We referred the draft amended version to Cabinet for authorisation, and will further engage with this matter. We want to indicate that we will take on board and engage Parliament in as far as dealing with all these issues is concerned. If all progresses according to our plans, we will go public on the issues raised in the review document during the Public Service Week that we are going to have next month.
The point we want to stress in this regard is that we are not placing ourselves at the centre of determining the tools of trade and financial support for those officials. We are providing for administrative instruments of control, so that there is no room for such to be used out of context or outside the intention and spirit of the matter for their development. It is important for us to say this, because we know that as a country we created a commission that deals with such issues as determining the tools of trade for our public officials to do their work. Furthermore, we are continuing to intervene in situations where there are disputes between executive authorities and accounting officers at national and provincial levels, so that our resolve on value-laden processes is not compromised at any level. Through these interventions we have managed to influence the transfer of some of these officials who, in the interest of the public and effective service delivery, had to be transferred. We also managed to facilitate the early exit of some of these officials for the same reasons, although informed by different circumstances.
This is not an easy task, as oftentimes we spend more time dealing with one case due to the fact that our first call is to find amicable settlements in such matters. It should not be forgotten that ours is a government subscribing to the rule of law and administrative law, in terms of which there is nothing like an arbitrary application of sanctions, and all have a right to be heard and to seek recourse from the courts of this country.
We are proud that in these difficult situations we have acquitted ourselves so well that we have had more of these cases concluded administratively, and not through the courts of law. The main point in this regard is that we always strive to have a balance between executive authorities and accounting officers, so that the political-administrative interface between them is always in the interests of accelerating service delivery. Where there is a serious and irretrievable breakdown of relationships, the solution should not be counterproductive and compromise values.
I want to state here that the Ministry is including this aspect in our project of repositioning the Public Service, so that we manage this effectively. If it will take the amendment of the Public Service Act to do so, we are prepared to champion that cause. Our Deputy Minister is leading this project in a mission informed by the desire to further position the entire Public Service to deliver in this, our developmental state. We will achieve this by creating a conducive environment for the Public Service to be what we envisage, as well as managing the human resource processes from recruitment to retirement better.
Still on Ministry responsibilities, we are vigilantly taking the fight forward to ensure compliance with the values of our administration at the local sphere of government. In this regard, we will work closely with the relevant departments to ensure that the provision of the Constitution is realised; that the values of administration find expression in whatever we do at the level of all three spheres of government and in state-owned entities. Soon our Deputy Minister will lead us in unveiling a programme of action to deal with this matter.
The idea here is to give effect to the commitment we as the ANC made, which is to build better communities through the delivery of better services to the people at the coalface. As the classic English saying has it, you "strike while the iron is hot". We believe that ours is to make a mark to ensure that what remains in people's minds, after the victory celebrations for the local government elections held recently, is smarter and faster working for accelerated delivery and clean governance.
We are taking seriously the fight against corruption at the Public Service level. We have established the Anticorruption Unit with a view to fighting the scourge, and making every effort to do so.
As we talk about this issue, we should refer to what entomologists would say in characterising the insect, the wasp. They say that a wasp has a lifetime of stinging capability, unlike a bee, which has one sting. It has the capacity of transforming itself and evolving to survive. Once stung by a wasp, you become very scared of it. A wasp only attacks when confronted or when it believes that its nest is threatened. It has the competency of targeting, and never misses. Wasps come in different shapes and sizes, and fit their targets accordingly - we know of wasp-the-elephant, which stings strongly, no matter how big the target is; wasp-the-donkey, which will put even a stubborn target on the run; and wasp-the-juvenile, which attacks at the fastest speed and no one can evade him.
Lava va nga risa tihomu ku fana na mina va ta swi tsundzuka leswaku eka ndhawu leyi u nga tshama u lumiwa hi mimpfi, u nga tlhelela eka yona ntsena loko xolwe a ku sindzisa. Swi ta va tano eka mfumo. Lava vo yiva, lava va tirhisaka swiyimo swa vona ku tifumisa swi nga fambi hi ndlela, lava va rhangelaka hi lunya ro tikisela vanhu hi ndlela yo hlota nseketelo eka ntlangu wa vukungundzwana, va ta titwela.
Ku hambana exikarhi ka mimpfi ya hina na ya ntumbuluko hi leswaku, mimpfi ya hina eka mfumo yi ta luma na vaxolwe, naswona yi na vuswikoti byo landza na hi risema. (Translation of Xitsonga paragraphs follows.)
[Those who have herded cattle, like I have, will remember that you could only return there where you were once bitten by a wasp, when the bully insisted on you going. It will be like that also in government. Those who steal, those who abuse their positions to enrich themselves, those who deceitfully lead others with suppression in order to garner support in the game of corruption, will feel the consequences.
The difference between our wasp and a natural wasp is that our wasp in government will bite even the bully, and it has the ability of following through the stench.]
We are going to elaborate on the success stories of this unit during the Public Service Week next month, in which you are welcome to participate. We warn all those involved, including corruptors, corruptees and environment- manipulators that they had better not find themselves on our list, for it is going to be hot!
The Public Service Induction, PSI, is one of the key mandatory programmes that Palama is currently rolling out. There is the PSI for nonsenior management members, SMS, and Wamkelekile, which is an induction for senior management members. Palama has converted this into a programme of action. Wamkelekile has been converted in order for it to be available on an eLearning platform for those senior managers who cannot attend the classroom phase.
It is critical to note that the induction programme that Palama provides for new entrants into our Public Service, as well as the reinduction programme, is meant to ensure the inculcation and sustenance of the values and attributes of a Public Service cadre.
Notable also is the fact that Palama will soon become a preparatory school for our public servants. To mention a few, 90 gender mainstreaming training sessions have been conducted, with 1 866 officials being trained recently. Furthermore, 20 new Palama courses have been assessed for gender sensitivity and inclusivity.
We created Sita as an agency to achieve cost saving by facilitating the bulk buying of information technology, IT, services; co-ordinating partnerships between government and industry players; and improving IT accessibility by the public. We will give a targeted report on the record of the Sita's performance during the presentation of this same budget at the NCOP in two weeks' time. We are going to do that under the theme: Sita today, Sita tomorrow, Sita into the future. There we will give account of why we embarked on a turnaround strategy, what the strategy entails, what we have achieved through the strategy, and what we are doing to consolidate the gains arising from the strategy. We are doing this simply because of the time constraints today.
On 4 June 2010 we launched the Multi-Media Innovation Centre. It provides a learning platform for the public sector on innovation implementation, in support of government's efforts to entrench the culture and practice of innovation to improve service delivery. It is a walk-through centre that, amongst other things, showcases public sector innovation and provides a safe environment to incubate and test solutions that improve or enhance service delivery.
In our budget debate last year we indicated that the Creative Problem Solving Institute, CPSI, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, DBE, and the SA National Council for the Blind, has developed an appropriate assistive device for visually impaired teachers. It will assist them to function more independently in the education environment. Today, we are reporting that training material was designed and developed, and that training was conducted in four provinces. From October 2010 to February 2011, 20 assistive devices were piloted and tested by visually impaired teachers throughout the country. The project is now ready to be handed over to the DBE.
For this financial year, PSETA has planned four critical projects: the Integrated Rural Youth Project in partnership with the DPSA; North West Unemployed Youth Empowerment; training co-operatives; and the military veterans, which focuses on upskilling military veterans in tour guiding or new venture options.
As Members of Parliament will be aware, government as an employer established the Government Employees Medical Scheme, Gems. It was to address the historic imbalances and inequities in respect of the provision of conditions of service to Public Service employees. These inequities and imbalances were identified in the 1999 Personnel Expenditure Review and by public sector trade unions, as well as the majority of public servants.
We should, of course, not lose sight of Resolution 7 of 2000 of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, PSCBC, where the employer and labour agreed to investigate the restructuring of medical assistance for Public Service employees. The Gems story is a story of success in the partnership between government as the employer and organised labour, and I am proud to announce that we have continued to work together to deal with such important issues as the restructuring of the scheme's administration. Allow me, Chairperson, as I conclude, to introduce a topic to be considered as food for thought for all of us present here. In doing so, I confirm that it is true that wage negotiations are on between the government and labour at the PSCBC. As usual, it is not easy. We continue to work as government and organised labour to conclude the negotiations without any disruptions to services.
The issue for our homework is that we are starting a campaign called My public servant, My future. In terms of this we will accelerate the following: employer-employee contact and information-sharing; reflections on the general issues around the state in which our public servants work and are compensated; services that our public servants are delivering; the role of civil society, academia, traditional institutions, legislative bodies and institutions supporting constitutional democracy; and others. This will be in answering questions related to the state of our public servants, all with a view to finding each other and possibly contributing to finding solutions that conventional wisdom, systems and practices are not providing.
In conclusion, our resolve to deepen good governance transcends our borders, hence our championing of, among others, the following: the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM; post-conflict reconstruction and development in affected countries on the continent; United Nations Convention Against Corruption; and also participation in the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development in dealing with the issue of bribery as a manifestation of corruption by officials at international business level.
Mutshamaxitulu, lexi nga heriki xa hlola. [Chairperson, everything that does not end is a bad omen.]