Chairperson, hon members of the House, Cabinet colleagues present here, hon chairperson and members of the portfolio committee, the portfolio leadership in the Ministry, the Deputy Minister, trade union leaders, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, King Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible tells us that: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." Among other things, he says "there is a time to speak". Of importance in this instance is: "Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account."
I stand before you with a clear understanding that it is our time to account for the past and commit to the future. We take our guidance from President Zuma when he said the following:
... we want to build an administration that knows where people live, what they think, and which acts fast, efficiently and effectively on the issues they raise. We must keep in touch with our people. We have been here since 1994, presenting various episodes of the same story; and the story is a journey for a better life for all through accelerated and effective service delivery. Our message this year is under the theme Working Differently for an Efficient, Effective and Development-oriented Public Service.
We consulted with some people as we were preparing for this day. What they said reflects the general situation, which I want to sum up as follows: The feeling that was expressed is that our people are expecting more from us. They are saying that there's room for improvement in the quality and speed of the services we deliver. Our people are enraged with the scourge of corruption in the public sector. They expect our public servants to be committed and to change their bad attitudes. They urged us to ensure that we maintain the current sound labour relations. We are presenting the abridged version of these inputs as they were related to us in the budget message booklet, which we are going to give to you. But I want to quote one of them, Ntate Nelson Diale, a Member of Parliament, when he said the following:
Our public servants are not yet fully conscious of what they are supposed to do. For example, at some of these institutions in the Public Service, hospitals and others, you find people waiting for services for a long time ... Something has to be done and I will recommend that there should be a monitoring system. Public servants should be monitored so that they can do their work.
We cannot agree more with Ntate Diale. It is true that public servants should be monitored, and as we do so we welcome the position of the SA National Civic Organisation, Sanco, to partner with us in monitoring.
We give priority to service delivery innovation. To us, service delivery innovation is a vehicle that searches for ideas in delivering tangible services to our people. The Centre for Public Service Innovation, CPSI, is an enabler to the mobility of this vehicle.
Through partnerships with other departments and state-owned entities, SOEs, the CPSI is representing us well on our journey in and for innovation. The one success story worth mentioning is the co-operation with the Department of Education to enhance the productive capacity of blind educators by providing data card devices for them to access teaching materials without the use of Braille.
As we are doing things differently this year, we commit to strengthening our capacity through innovation, and to respond to legitimate calls. To this end, the CPSI will run targeted innovation programmes to support the outcomes of rural development, accelerated service delivery at local government level as well as human settlement.
We will still encourage participation in innovation through award ceremonies. In this regard, the 8th Annual Public Sector Innovation Awards ceremony will be held in November 2010. We have already called for entries, and all public sector institutions and individuals are encouraged to enter.
Our fight against corruption remains a priority. We have since introduced policies and legislation to ensure public service integrity and to fight corruption. The prevalence of corruption in the Public Service pervades all aspects of government activity and affects citizen-state relations. The removal of this cancer requires from government an integrity management intervention that focuses on prevention and yet has punitive measures that are practically deterring would-be "corruptees" and corrupters. Our fight against corruption is aimed at eliminating an enabling environment for such actions from our Public Service. Both our elected and appointed public officials should resist the temptation of using public office for personal material benefit. In this regard, we will introduce a public sector integrity management framework during the Public Service Week to strengthen the existing policies and legislation in order to give effect to accelerated implementation. The framework seeks to address the following: to strengthen and align all measures regulating good governance and probity in the public sector; to strengthen capacity; to prevent and combat corruption; to ensure compliance through monitoring and evaluation; and to ensure enforcement as a deterrent.
Alongside the introduction of the framework will be the launch of the compulsory public sector charter, which will consolidate the following in defining a public servant of note: eight attributes of a public servant; nine commitments of a public servant to the people of South Africa; seven rules of engagement for public servants; twelve commitments of a public servant to the Public Service; and five ethical principles of a public cadre.
We are also in the process of establishing an anticorruption unit that will assist departments in resolving complex corruption-related cases and doing that with speed. We will communicate the details in this regard during the Public Service Week in June 2010. We remain committed to maintaining sound labour relations through collective bargaining and promoting workplace democracy. We know that this is not an easy target to meet, but we are trying our best, and we call on all parties to take a cue from President Mandela's message when he said:
My government is equally committed to ensure that we use this longer period properly fully to bring into the decision-making processes organs of civil society.
This will include the trade union movement and civic organisations, so that at no time should the government become isolated from the people. At the same time, steps will be taken to build the capacity of communities to manage their own affairs...
Both the public and the private sectors will be encouraged to regard labour as a resource and not a cost. Education and training must, therefore, be looked at very closely to ensure that we empower the workers, raise productivity levels and meet the skills needs of a modern economy.
The Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama, is one participant we will use to realise this. Working together with all social partners, we held a Public Service summit in March this year. We have settled the majority of the occupation specification dispensation, OSD, sector implementation resolutions. We are working around the clock to make sure that we have a position in as far as all outstanding agreements of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, PSCBC, Resolution 1 of 2007 are concerned. We want to commit to this House and to the nation that we will soon pronounce on this matter.
We will soon commence with negotiations for the 2010-11 salary adjustments, and we are looking forward to robust but peaceful engagements. As we respond to King Solomon's message, for us the difference between what we did, what we are doing and what we will do is defined in terms of quality, speed and taste.
In this year of action, we will strive to ensure that we conclude the negotiations within expected time periods. From this year going forward, we set to conclude synchronising the wage negotiation process with the budget cycle. In the past it has proven to be difficult to negotiate when the budget had already been set.
A swi hi vuyiseli nchumu leswo tshamela ku kombetelana hi tintiho, hi tlimbana mikolo loko swi ta eka nkanerisano hi miholo. Hi fanele hi amukela xiyimo na ku twisisana leswaku vatirhi va na mfanelo yo suriwa nyuku loko va tirhile, hi le tlhelo hi ri karhi hi twisisa leswaku vathori na vona va ta fikelela xikalo ku helela laha vuswikoti bya vona byi va pfumelelaka kona.
Hi nga kamaneni vutomi byi huma onge i maphisa ya kama matomani. A a hi tshameni ehansi hi kanerisana. Tinyangwa ti pfulekile. Na loko swo fika leswaku hi tsandzana hi ku kanerisana, hi nga ntlurhulani ku huma timongolo, hikuva mundzuku wa ha ri kona. Loko a ri mina ndzi na ku tshemba leswaku hi ta hlangana hi marito na varhangeri va vatirhi, kambe hi pfala rin'we ntsena leswaku hi nga siyiwi hi mfutsu yi khotsiwile. Xivuriso xa Xitsonga xi ri: "Lebya nyarhi leyo, u nga ri ndza yi vona, hikuva u ya wela makokweni ya yona." (Translation of Xitsonga paragraphs follows.)
[It does not profit us in any way to point fingers at one another every day, nor to strangle one another when it comes to salary negotiations. On the one hand, we must accept the situation and understand that workers have the right to be remunerated after they have worked, whilst, on the other hand, we must understand that employers will reach a limit which is within their ability.
We must not wring one another's necks like hunters wringing mopani worms. Let's sit down and negotiate. Doors are open. Even when we reach a point where negotiations fail, we must not deal blows to one another so much so that it draws blood from our noses, because we still have tomorrow. I believe that we will find common ground with the labour unions, but we have to take a step forward so that we are not left behind as if we are racing with a turtle. A Xitsonga proverb says: "The wise one hears and increases learning, and the understanding one gets wise counsel."] We are committed to continuing to build a Public Service capable of driving a developmental agenda. On this score, we want to state that a priority transformation issue remains the finalisation of the debate to create a single Public Service.
We want to state upfront that we take our cue and are learning from the Batho Pele principle of redress. It calls on us to do three things. If you were supposed to do something and the time comes but you are not ready at that point, it is expected of you to behave in a particular way. As custodians we have to lead by example.
The following three things are what we are going to do: Firstly, please bear with us. Secondly, we are saying that we would not finalise the government process because the extraparliamentary political process has to be allowed to run its course. Of course, it is running its course and is close to the end. Lastly, we are committing ourselves to report on the progress that has been made during this financial year.
The progress reports will be done in such a way that when we table a Bill, it will not be like the last time where there would still be questions that are hanging. This is an opportunity that we have for extraparliamentary processes and government processes to take place. We avail ourselves to give a detailed status report on this matter, and we will be at your disposal, hon chairperson of the portfolio committee. The training and development of capable leaders and managers will continue to be crucial to this administration. Therefore, Palama will continue with its current programmes, as well as expand them to include programmes on national planning, risk management and innovation. The Executive Development Programme, EDP, a Postgraduate Certificate in Executive Leadership, will be customised for local government leadership and for members of legislatures and Parliament. We are placing Palama at the level where the agency ought to be a preparatory school for entry into public service and for incubation through in-service development interventions. Of course, for Palama to do what we call for, the agency itself has to be transformed.
Thanks to this initiative, we are committing ourselves to finalising this during this financial year. Of course, for Palama to deliver, we need a conducive environment at the public service level. Coincidentally, we are developing a position paper on the architecture of the Public Service, and we commit ourselves to concluding this by the end the financial year.
We took a decision this year to stabilise the situation at the Public Service's leadership level by interpreting the provisions of the Public Service Act to the extent that we are now talking of a contract period of five years for directors-general. What remains is to relate this development to effective service delivery. As we advance with the debate on the architecture thereof, we will also revisit whether or not we want to introduce a contract employment system for deputy directors-general or at the level of the entire senior management service, SMS.
With these programmes and initiatives, we seek to transform the state of the Public Service. The time has now come for us to rise to the occasion and facilitate the speedy delivery of services by strengthening the mechanisms and accelerating monitoring and evaluation. As King Solomon said "there is time for everything", and so our time is now, to work faster and smarter in this year of action. I thank you very much. [Applause.]