Issued by African National Congress - Parliament
11 June 2003
Madame Speaker,
Minister Fraser-Moleketi;
Management of the DPSA, PSC, SAMDI and SITA;
Leadership of the trade unions present here;
Members of the public at the Gallery;
Honourable Members
It is the time for a reflection.
As I make my own reflection at this time, I am guided by the budget votes debates that have already taken place for the past few weeks, to conclude that we have made positive strides in the provision of services to millions of our people.
This confirms that our resolve to turn the tide so as to push back the frontiers of poverty remains a goal attainable, more so if we have the right mix of public Service personnel with their jobs, their skills, their location, their tools, and their other resources.
We committed ourselves to form a Public Service with a culture to serve the people in a responsive manner.
As we sought and seek to sharpen this instrument, we were aware, and we are still aware, of the historical legacies of the Apartheid-based Public service policies and cultures that we would not inherit and perpetuate in the current dispensation, nor can we reform the past to suit the present, because the past and the present are irreconcilable.
And as we are reflecting on the developments in this regard today, we are saying as the ANC, that, yes, there are serious challenges in our endevour to build a Public Service with a culture to provide a better service for all, and my colleagues will allude to some of the challenges.
But, what I want to put on record, Madame Speaker, is the fact that the prevalence of challenges is no way an indication that we have failed.
Rather, as we look at the seriousness of those challenges, we have more areas where we deserve to be credited for leading a public service reform process in the manner as we did.
We managed to come out with a White paper on the Transformation of the public Service, with a vision to establish a Public Service that is representative, coherent, transparent, efficient, effective, accountable and responsive to the needs of all. This is a fact.
We managed to come out with a White paper on Service delivery, which is a policy framework and a practical implementation strategy for the service delivery culture that prescribes commandments for putting people first. This is a fact.
We successfully negotiated the multi-year salary structure for the Public Service personnel, which seek to deal with issues of salaries in keeping with the general trend of economic developments in the country. This a fact.
We came out with a Public Finance Management Act, which introduces professionalism in dealing with matters of financial accountability as opposed to the then Exchequer and Audit Act. This is a fact.
We developed a Medium-term expenditure framework, in terms of which we give room for the management of Public Service budgets within a three-year cycle. This is a fact.
We established the Public Service Coordination Bargaining Council, so as to provide for a forum for negotiating issues related to Public Service, and in a manner to ensure the absence of unilateralism in dealing with public service issues. This is a fact.
We established structures of the three-tier system of Government, and put a mechanism for cooperative governance. This is another fact.
The list is long.
To this end, I want to commend the Ministry of Public Service and Administration, and the Government in general, for a sterling work done, and also to thank all the parties involved in the PSCBC processes.
But, Madame Speaker, as we are making reflections today, we do not want to claim complacency that all is well.
The reality is that there is still a gap between policy and implementation, and this is the area that I want to challenge all of us to internalize the obligation to turn around.
Notwithstanding the high-flyers in service delivery, as the Minister has alluded to, there are areas where we need to improve.
We cannot tolerate a situation where Government Departments will fail to spend their budgets while the people are dying for the services that those budgets were meant to provide for.
If we do not tighten our efforts as Parliament in the area of spending, and making timeous interventions, we make a mockery of ourselves when every year we debate budget votes that we will not constantly monitor as to their implementation
I want to thank the Ministry for making interventions such as the one in the Eastern Cape, for it is in doing some of these things that we will manage to get our public service delivery machinery in a proper gear to service the people according to the policies of our Public Service.
We hope that sooner rather than later, the situation will be turned around there, and that those who contributed to the prevalence of such an unfortunate state of affairs will face the harshest of our intervention.
But, Madame Speaker, if we listen to people in such forums as Honourable Mthembu will reflect on as he comes into this debate later on, we will come to the realization that the situation as in the Eastern Cape is generally applicable in some other Provinces, with only a difference of a degree of manifestation, and, unless something is done, and it is done now, we may be heading for a collapse of the service. I want to say: "Mayihlome ihlasele" as we confront the realities of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and corruption.
We hope that the current Public Service restructuring process will also add value to our achievements so far, as it seeks to place public service personnel with the right mix as to their jobs, their skills, their location, their tools and their other resources.
We support the process, for we know that, contrary to the views of those who will seek to draw congruence between restructuring and retrenchments due to the limitations of their understanding of the process, we stand to gain more in this venture.
In conclusion, I want to thank Madame Speaker for sharing her insight with the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, during our Planning Session earlier this year, as that shared light as to the centrality of this Portfolio Committee in leading Parliament to play a meaningful role in ensuring accountability by the Executive on matters of public service, and I want to assure her that we are going on with the implementation of that Planning Session's recommendations.
The ANC supports the Budget vote.