And I agree with her. But let us both agree that it is our patriotic responsibility to address the problem collectively for the benefit of the nation. [Applause.]
My disappointment with the hon member of the opposition is that she continues to ask us: Where is the action? If you listened carefully to the Minister's speech, and indeed to all the speakers who spoke from this side of the House, they were outlining the actions that this government is taking. [Applause.]
I am indeed disappointed with her approach because she is looking at a chicken with a broken leg lying in the road, and instead of fixing the leg she is taking the chicken by its throat and throttling it. [Laughter.] And she thinks that is the way to resolve the problem. In his state of the nation address delivered in 2009, President Zuma reaffirmed that the South African government's commitment is the vision of an inclusive society, a South Africa that belongs to all, a nation united in its diversity, and a people working together for the greater good of all.
The SA Constitution emphasises that the priority of the state is to advance human rights and freedom within a nonracial and nonsexist society in which the supremacy of the Constitution and the Rule of Law must prevail. Guided by the principles of the Freedom Charter, we drew up this Constitution. The Constitution states that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, and it promotes a democratic government based on the will of the people. Government committed itself to building a developmental state to address the socioeconomic challenges in the eradication of poverty and the need to create a better life for all.
The developmental state is thus an effort by government to build the nation, eradicate poverty, promote literacy, provide health and decent education, and grow the economy in a manner that must ensure that people are not left out but are participating fully and are becoming part of the solution to their problems.
Six days from today we will celebrate South Africa's Freedom Day. This is a day we shall always remember as the glorious achievement of the first stage of our revolutionary transformation which guaranteed for ourselves the idea that South Africa shall be a nonracial and free country in which the people shall govern.
In the state of the nation address, President Zuma reminded us that our message and theme for 2010 - hon Dreyer - is working together to speed up effective service delivery to our people. In this regard, 2010 is a year of action reminding us that there is no time for cynicism, no time for excuses, and no time for complacency and the lackadaisical delivery of services-reminding us all that there shall also be no time to claim easy victories and tell any lies.
In the same address we made a commitment that this government will be more caring, more responsive and interactive. We committed ourselves to the building of a people-centered developmental state, which puts people first and is geared towards faster implementation of services.
Hon Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, South Africa's next revolution must be to get the democratic state working more effectively.
An efficient and effective Public Service is essential for government to accomplish the outcomes that we desire. It is in this regard, that the Department for the Public Service and Administration is tasked under the leadership of myself as Deputy Minister and Minister Baloyi to lead the transformation of the state in this period.
As we lead the Department for the Public Service and Administration, the Ministry is responsible for providing the institutional governance framework for an efficient and effective Public Service, by, amongst other things, ensuring that its people, processes and technologies are aligned to support the fundamental requirement of good government; ensuring the continual improvement in the cost of quality, access, responsiveness and speed of service delivery to citizens; and addressing the challenges faced by a developmental state.
In trying to analyse the challenges and develop recommendations for an effectively changed programme, there are some who are placing great emphasis on public services and especially its people.
There is a view that we have failed to build a cadre of competent and patriotic civil servants. As a nation, our people are undoubtedly the most important resource we have and are central not only to good public administration but also to the competitiveness of the South African economy.
The Department for the Public Service and Administration, DPSA, is the custodian of human resources in the Public Service, creating a framework for recruiting, retaining and training the people who are central to the high performance that we require from the Public Service. To affect this outcome, the Ministry for the Public Service and Administration has a number of levers at its disposal. Within the DPSA there are two dedicated branches: Labour Relations and Remuneration Management, and Human Resource Management and Development, which focus on people issues. Labour Relations Management focuses on remuneration and conditions of service.
Chairperson, one of the priority interventions that the Minister has assigned to me in this domain is the cleanup of Persal, the payroll system of government. The integrity of Persal data, over the years, has been poor and therefore could not be relied upon for government decision-making processes. In response to this challenge the DPSA has decided to be more proactive by putting in place measures that will ensure the integrity of Persal data.
These measures will include establishing an effective and high-powered intervention task team on Persal, which will be tasked with the cleaning of the Persal data ensuring that information found in Persal is of good quality and can be relied upon for management decision-making processes. The task team will be made up of officials from the DPSA; Sita; the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama; and National Treasury.
The Human Resource Development branch oversees human resource development issues of diversity, disability, and employment wellness. The Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy, Palama, which was known as Samdi, is one of the institutions through which we co-ordinate and seek to improve the training.
The Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority, PSETA, is another such institution. The Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority has assisted 2 578 learners to enter adult basic education and training programmes against a target of 2 500. It has helped 2 000 learners and 573 unemployed learners. The Public Service Sector Education and Training Authority will, during the 2010-11 financial year, provide support to at least 80% of government departments so that they spend at least 1% of their personnel budget on training.
The Government Employees Medical Scheme, Gems, is an important institution within the Ministry for the Public Service and Administration portfolio. And it has had a huge impact on employee wellness matters and the quality and productivity of public servants. The Government Employees Medical Scheme is one of the institutions that has made a significant impact on the government employee landscape.
By 30 March 2010, Gems has had more than 460 000 principal members and had served more than 1,2 million beneficiaries. It had made significant progress in 2009 towards meeting its mandate. Over 34% of all eligible Public Service employees were enrolled on Gems by 31 December.
A key priority for Gems in 2010-11 will be to expand the scheme's membership and reduce the number of uncovered employees in the Public Service. Batho Pele, which means People First, is a programme designed to inculcate a customer-focused and citizen-centric culture.
As our mandate is to transform the Public Service, we are working towards inculcating the principle of service to the people in all public servants. The new public service culture will seek to ensure that our services become the services of choice. I must, however, indicate that to achieve this we need public servants who have values, and principle-driven public servants who are also customer-focused and people-centered.
Apartheid's spatial legacies have resulted in remote and rural areas being densely populated with little or no services infrastructure, public or private. The profile of citizens living in rural and remote areas tends to be black, poor, female and typically very old and very young. The lack of access or onerous access to services impacts severely on the quality of citizens' lives.
Perhaps what is less well known, but no less important in bringing the connectivity with government, is the community development worker programme, which was established to assist in bringing government services closer to communities, especially the urban and rural poor. It is, however, important to mention that, until now, the community development workers, CDW, programme has been implemented through guiding documents which have been inconsistently interpreted and not legally binding in terms of implementation.
Chairperson, in the past six months we have been working effectively to transform and invigorate the CDW programme. And after consultation throughout the country, in all nine provinces, this department is about to propose a policy framework for the CDW programmes.
In conclusion, there is no silver lining to the challenges that we face, but we do need to demonstrate mature and responsible leadership, making the right decisions for the right reasons, building an efficient and effective Public Administration that contributes to making South Africa a safe and nurturing place for all.
In this regard, let me close by announcing that this department will take three important initiatives in the current year: Firstly, we will enter into partnerships with the Development Bank of South Africa to initiate a project and to improve public sector proposals ... [Interjections.] And secondly, we will also ensure that the CDW programme is indeed refocused. [Time expired.]