Governance and Administration Cluster briefing

Q: A journalist asked how many Thusong centres had been established in municipalities and what the monitoring arrangement was regarding them.

A: Minister Baloyi responded that the goal was to have one Thusong centre in every municipality. They had now completed 135 municipalities. They had not yet reached the target of one in each of the 283 municipalities. Government Communication and Information Systems (GCIS) monitored the Thusong centres. GCIS was part of a bigger monitoring structure that included the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Department of Public Service and Administration, to ensure that the Thusong centres delivered to expectations.

Q: A reporter referred to numerous reports of political intimidation of a number of non-ANC civil servants. He asked Minister Baloyi if this had come to his attention and what was being done about it.

A: Minister Baloyi responded that he had not heard of that. There had been no definitive reports, so far. As soon as such information had been received, they would be in a position to respond and called on people experiencing this to report it.

Q: The media referred to reports of councilors who have died of AIDS. She asked if the PSC monitored this and if there were statistics on the death rates due to AIDS in the public service.

A: Minister Baloyi responded that this was tricky question because the nature of a death due to AIDS often meant that the person died of an illness cause by a weakened immune system. That other illness was what was declared as the cause of death. This made it difficult to determine when a person has died of AIDS.

A: Ms Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela, Director-General: Department of Provincial and Local Government, remarked that this was a very relevant question at this time in South Africa. We have to address the scourge of HIV/AIDS with greater momentum. There needed to be a focus on human resource capacity including local government councilors. The Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG), particularly the local government sector, had left the responsibility of addressing HIV/AIDS to the Department of Health. With this in mind, DPLG had decided to work with the Department of Health and civil society to develop a framework to allow all municipalities to respond to this problem on the level of their officials and the local communities. This framework would include institutional support and providing resources. It was important that this framework was supported in its implementation.
A related issue was that of disabilities at a local government level. The DPLG, with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) planned to launch a framework focused on disabilities. This framework recognised that there were other aspects to developing this human resource, additional to that of infrastructure - to support people with disabilities in working for local government.

Q: A journalist asked Minister Mapisa-Nqakula when the disused army base two kilometres from the Musina showgrounds was going to be ready for the Zimbabwean refugees to move in. The showgrounds had been shut down two weeks previously, on the understanding that the refugees would be moved to a safer place.

A: Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Home Affairs, responded that they had not shut down the showgrounds in Musina. They did inform people that the DHA preferred them to relocate to the aforementioned army base. Discussions were under way between the DHA, Department of Defence and the South African Police Service (SAPS) to secure this disused army base. The point that needed to be clarified was that the DHA was responsible for processing refugees and regularising their stay in South Africa. They were not responsible for providing accommodation. The DHA responded when they realised the inhumane conditions that people lived under at the showgrounds and were awaiting discussions with the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) to see if they could find a better place to accommodate people. People had sought to apply for Section 22 permits - which was the mandate of the DHA in light of the fact that there were a number of undocumented migrants who wanted to find jobs or wanted to be able to go home. The DHA was mindful of people moving over to Johannesburg to seek accommodation. The DHA was responsible to and issue whatever permits were required and people would have to find their way afterwards and integrate into communities. The DHA did not have shelters for refugees.

Q: A journalist referred to a report of someone who had to wait 11 years for an ID book. She asked why people still waited 11 years for ID books.

A: Minister Mapisa-Nqakula responded that they had had serious problems in the DHA, as their IT systems had not been up to standard. They had a good system in place now, which included a Track and Trace system. They could assist people who wanted more information about the status of their ID. There had been a number of public awareness programmes that had been conducted to inform people about the improvements. She would expect that person to go to the nearest Home Affairs office to check the status of the application. If the Home Affairs staff could not locate the application, she would advise that person to re-apply. She was certain that if the person re-applied, they would have had an ID by now. She implored people with this problem to make a fresh application and she could provide assurance that they would receive the ID book within 40 days. The turnaround time for an ID book was now 40 days and 21 days for a re-issue.

Q: The media pointed out that the National Taxpayers Union had members in towns across South Africa, where they refused to pay taxes to the local municipalities due to a lack of service delivery. This had extended to 200 towns and Minister Trevor Manuel was also intervening. She asked who in government was taking charge of the situation or met with the union, as this was an illegal practice.

A: Mr Harold Maloka, Government and Media Liaison responded that DPLG was not aware of the issue and would follow up with the journalist to clarify the details.

Q: A journalist referred to Minister Baloyi's comments on a single public service. She asked if a formula had been determined to harmonise salaries and terms and conditions of employment, whether the unions had bought into that and when the system was due for implementation.

A: Minister Baloyi replied that Parliament could not finalise that Bill. They had since recognised the need to tighten some areas where public participation was necessary. The Bill would be ready for reintroduction later that year and they would address all areas that needed to be tightened in the interim. The question of harmonising salaries in a single public service was a matter that was raised and was one such an area to be addressed in further engagements with social partners.

Q: A reporter asked what the level of compliance was concerning the signing of performance agreements.

A: Minister Baloyi responded that they currently stood at 83% compliance.

Q: A reporter referred to the punitive visa requirements, the United Kingdom had recently imposed on South Africa and asked if there had been any assessment of the impact on trade relations with the UK as a result of the a problem. He also queried the possibility of reversing the requirement in future, as a result of improvements in passport security.

A: Minister Mapisa-Nqakula replied that the punitive action was not directed exclusively at South Africa. The UK was trying to deal with its own internal security issues and one mechanism they have used has been tighter border control. The DHA had been subject to vigorous testing of its internal systems. The result was that the UK decided to institute the visa requirement. This was a decision that the DHA had accepted. The UK authorities were also aware of the measures taken by the DHA to turn around the situation, especially as they related to passports and IDs. Since the imposition of the visa requirement, the DHA had had meetings with the authorities in the UK and were engaging to ensure that this would not derail some of the programmes in place, such as identifying potential areas of co-operation. This requirement would also not derail programmes in place in the area of trade.

Q: A reporter pointed out that the collection of welfare grants was dependent on production of identity documents. He asked if the DHA had an idea of the number of people who were entitled to welfare grants but did not have an identity document.

A: Minister Mapisa-Nqakula responded that she did not know how many people did not have access to welfare grants due to not being in possession of an identity document. If people came forward to declare that they could not access social welfare grants, they could then be granted the ID book. It was important to note that this extended only to South African citizens, as there were many people who fraudulently accessed social welfare, who were not citizens. The DHA worked very closely with local government and the Department of Social Development to reach South African families experiencing such difficulty and the Department of Social Development would have access to that information.

Q: A journalist asked what the new security features on the passports entailed.

A: Mr Maloka responded that they would not release that information, as it would defeat the purpose of the security features.

The media briefing was concluded.

GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION CLUSTER MEDIA BRIEFING

GOOD MORNING

Welcome to the last briefing of the Governance and Administration Cluster in the current term of government.

INTRODUCTION
Government’s critical focus since 1994 has been to democratize the State and improve its ability to better the lives of all our people. Working together with our people we set ourselves the task of ensuring that we create a state that is responsive to the needs of all the people of the country – A state that would, amongst others, ensure that basic services were available to all regardless of race, colour, gender or creed.

We were under no illusion that this task would need the total overhaul of the system we inherited and the co-operation of all the citizens of South Africa. We knew that unless we transformed the fragmented public service and put in its place new structures, systems and a new way of doing things, all our efforts would be in vain.

The construction of the democratic state is work in progress. The first decade saw major advances in this regard. They included the adoption of a democratic Constitution, unification of the fragmented apartheid state through the merger of separate entities, and restructuring of the Public Service. The policy and legislative framework for reconstruction and development was formalised. A new system of provincial and local government was established. Systems to integrate and coordinate government within and across the three spheres were introduced.

The experience of the past five years, has brought to the fore limitations of, but also the potential to enhance, state capacity to advance the goals of reconstruction and development.

Today South Africa boosts of a Constitutional democracy. We have strong representative institutions and an independent judiciary.

Democratic transformation and public participation
Successive policies and laws have helped deepen participatory democracy, while ensuring that we plant the seeds of a new and developmental public servant. Through our mechanisms, which include izimbizo, ward committees, Thusong Service Centres and community development workers, we ensured that we broaden community participation.

Since 2001 we have regularly held Izimbizo, gone on provincial executive outreach programmes and increased the number of Thusong Centres to 135.
We also have well over 3 000 CDW’s and have Ward committees in 98% of our municipal wards.

Traditional leadership
The Constitution provides for recognition of traditional leadership in the democratic dispensation. Several pieces of national and provincial legislation give effect to this provision, establishing a house of traditional leaders, defining the relationship to local government and specifying powers in the allocation of communal land.


Following Cabinet’s approval of the establishment of the Department of Traditional Leadership last year, work has been done to ensure that the department starts functioning from 1 April 2009. The establishment of the Department will ensure that matters of traditional leadership are dealt with at the highest level of management within government.  

Promoting good governance
We have gone a long way in promoting good governance. Today our people have access to information in the State’s possession.

The guiding principle in dealing with the people is that the people come first. The Batho Pele  principles have ensured that the way public servants interact with the public improves.

Fighting public-sector corruption
Fighting corruption has preoccupied successive democratic governments. Government has steadily strengthened its hand to deal with corruption through the special investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act, 1996, Public Service Anti-Corruption Strategy (2002) and the combating of Corrupt Activities Act, 2004

Three anti-corruption summits between 2001 and 2008 have extended the fight against corruption to all of society.

As part of the rollout of the Local Government Anti-Corruption Strategy, 227 municipalities now have fraud prevention plans or anti-corruption strategies in place.  The DPSA has developed a Conflict of Interest Framework for officials in the public service to deal with issues of corruption.

Public Service and Local government capacity
The first 10 years saw remarkable progress in unifying separate civil services into an integrated public service.  The Public Service is now also more representative of society. Planning, monitoring and evaluation are being strengthened and we are continuously strengthening the management capacity of the public service.

IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY

The Department of Home Affairs is improving operational management at Civic Services.  The processing of enabling documents, including identity documents, birth, marriage and death certificates, has improved, and the turnaround times reduced drastically.  Management of information statistics from the ID Track & Trace system is being used on an ongoing basis to monitor provincial and head office performance.  The monitoring of Service Level Agreements and regular meetings with XPS Courier services has resulted in improved turn-around times in relation to the delivery IDs between the various DHA centers.

Public Participation
The Department has launched a communication programme to inform citizens to collect their IDs. Home Affairs is currently producing an average of 120 000 IDs a month. There are currently 344 501 uncollected IDs at offices countrywide. 

People who have lost their IDs are also being encouraged to apply for a replacement ID.
Once an applicant has applied for a reissue they can request a Temporary Identity Certificate to use while waiting for their ID to be produced. Registered voters may make use of a valid temporary identity certificate (TIC) for voting purposes if they do not have their green bar-coded identity document. However the department requests that people do not apply for a second ID if they still have their first ID in their possession. Recent research indicated that 67% of applicants did not bother to fetch their IDs because they still had another in their possession

Despite the uncollected/unclaimed IDs, the HSRC reports that 97% of people on the voters roll  have IDs to vote while IEC has managed to reach 23 million voter registration entry on the roll.

Fraudulent Deaths
DHA stepped up systems and called on people who found that they were fraudulently declared dead while they are indeed alive to to visit Home Affairs offices. People can still make use of the call centre (0800 60 11 90 tollfree) to confirm their “Live” status. New programming is being put on the Track&Trace System, as an additional self-help facility for people to check “Live” status via SMS and internet

Office Refurbishment

 The Department has refurbished 13 offices and is in the process of refurbishing 31 other offices countrywide.


The 13 refurbished offices to date are the following: Limpopo: Musina, Praktiseer; North West: Molopo, Temba; Free State: Botshabelo; Eastern Cape: Mount Frere, Lady Frere;Gauteng: Alexandra, Kempton Park, Soshanguve, Vanderbijlpark; Mpumalanga: Piet Retief, Nelspruit; KZN: Tongaat, Amajuba .

DHA Client Contact Centre
The contact centre continues to perform exceptionally well, currently 98% of calls received at the Client Contact Centre were responded to within 20 seconds against the annual target  of 80%.

ENHANCING SECURITY
Online Fingerprint Verification

As part of the ongoing initiatives to ensure that it provides reliable support to the private sector and other government departments, the Department of Home Affairs met with the Banking sector to look at the optimisation of the online fingerprint verification. 

The online fingerprint verification system has been instrumental in reducing fraudulent access to the ID.

New Passport System

A new passport machine has been installed and is currently being tested. With the arrival of the new technology the Department will be introducing a new passport, with added security features, in April 2009. 

ID Smart Card

Preparations to migrate from the green bar-coded ID book to a smart ID card are well underway. However delays in the awarding, by State Information Technology Agency (SITA) of  the tender to produce the ID smart card, meant that the smart ID card could not be piloted in December 2008 as planned. 

Anti-Corruption
As part of Home Affairs’ programme to eradicate corruption within its ranks, the counter-corruption unit has been working, together with SAPS and NIA, to identify, investigate and criminally charge officials involved in fraud and corruption. Joint investigations are also being undertaken into syndicates using fraudulent South African documents to smuggle people into the country. In December 2008, six other officials were arrested in Pretoria and Springs in one incident involving fraudulent documents. Out of this, three have been discharged from the public service. Another person linked to a fraudulent document syndicate, was arrested in Lebowakgomo, Limpopo on Monday 9 February 2009). This brings to 67 the number of Home Affairs officials that have been arrested in the past 12 months.

Integration of Planning
There is also more integrated planning across all spheres of government. Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) were adopted by all municipalities, which represents a 100% adoption rate.




Targeted groups
Apartheid’s legacy of disadvantage and inequity weighs most heavily on sectors of society least well-placed to take advantage of the opportunities of democracy. For this reason, government has taken measures targeted at redressing inequities and promoting social justice for women, persons with disabilities, children and youth.

The recently launched JobACCESS Strategic Framework on the Recruitment, Employment and Retention of Persons with Disabilities in the Public Service is one example of our determination to serve our people. The framework aims to strengthen compliance on the employment targets for people with disabilities in the Public Service.

QUALITY OF SERVICE DELIVERY
We have very briefly sketched our achievements. And in so doing acknowledge that the quality of service the public receives needs much improvement in many areas, informed by a stronger ethos of public service.

The macro-structure of the state is well established and fairly functional. The experience of working with the new coordinating mechanisms has brought new insights into what is needed to achieve the degree of integration that is necessary to achieve maximum impact.

THE SKILLS CHALLENGE
Understanding the performance of the state over the 15 years requires insight into the environment in which it operates. Much has been done to transform and democratise the state.

The challenges of state capacity are less to do with shortage of financial and other resources than with skills and institutional arrangements efficiently and effectively to deploy these resources. Service-delivery improvements are having some impact, but it is clear that local government faces a twin challenge of resources, and skills and systems, a challenge that is sometimes met by filling posts with people who do not have suitable skills.

Capacity Development Programme
In order to improve skills in the public service we have adopted a number of strategies. The Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) (successor to the South African Management Development Institute SAMDI)) was inaugurated in August 2008, with a programme to bring about a large boost in public-service training in cooperation with other training institutions.

PALAMA recently signed partnership agreements with fifteen universities in three consortia to roll out the Executive Development Programme (EDP). These agreements will see the institutions train 1 000 senior public servants every year in the “hard skills” they need to manage and lead the public service at provincial and national level much more effectively than hitherto.

PALAMA is able to make a major contribution towards ensuring that the public service has the skills it needs to meet the economic and social challenges facing us as South Africans during this difficult period globally. Apart from universities, PALAMA has also developed a close partnership with academies and training units within provinces and local governments.

PALAMA has developed a 4-day credit programme on Gender Mainstreaming Programme for managers in the public service. It is being rolled out and attended by managers in the public service at national and provincial levels. The one-day M&E and performance management courses were piloted with senior managers in KZN in Dec-08 and a total of 291 officials have participated in various M&E courses.

A total of 16 000 public servants were trained from April 2008 to January 2009 on the Massified Induction Programme (MIP). This represents a 43% achievement against the 2008/09 target of 37 000. Strategies are in place to help improve the uptake of this programme and this includes a drive by PALAMA to present on MIP in top management meetings across the public service to ensure management endorsement and therefore improvement in participation levels by departments.

Technical deployments
Over 1 283 technical experts had been deployed to 268 municipalities since the commencement of Project Consolidate in 2005 to the end of December 2008.  These have been in the areas of Engineering (Civil), Finance (Billing Systems), Town and Regional Planning (IDPs), Project Management and Human Resources Development. Stakeholders include national sector departments like the dplg, DEAT, DWAF, DTI and National Treasury. Partnering stakeholders include the DBSA (Siyenza Manje Programme), DFID, Ilima Trust, UNDP, GTZ, SAICE, SAACE, IMFO and USAID.

            Skills Audit
As part of the Local Government (LG) Skills Audit, 785 (54.5%) of 1 441 Municipal and Section 57 Managers have completed generic competence assessments in all 283 municipalities.  Further, 8 568 (58.3%) of 14 693 employees in 23 municipalities, and the employees in one Financial Business Unit in a metro below section 57 level  completed competence-based skills audit questionnaires. Information was also gathered from 76 of 91 (83.5%) occupations in 53 of 57 (20%) municipalities targeted for the Organisational Development (OD) work stream.  This is to arrive at baseline information on the proposed number of employees required per occupation, for providing an acceptable level of service in relation to the number of households a municipality is responsible to provide services to. 

Performance Management System
The implementation of the Performance Management Systems (PMS) in municipalities has greatly improved with 223 municipalities having developed or reviewed their PMS frameworks. Of the 223 that have been developed or reviewed, 172 have been adopted by municipal councils. The establishment of Internal Audit Committees has also increased from 65% (184 out of 283) to 78% (220 out of 283.





Filling of posts at senior management
Local Government – Municipal Manager Posts as at January 2009

Provincial and National Government – Senior Management Service Posts as at January 2009

Gauteng Province maintains 100% employment rate.

MAJOR LESSONS
One of the major lesson of the first 15 years of democratic government was the need to improve the performance of the state. While this need was acted on in many ways in the current mandate period, major trends requiring strategic attention have manifested themselves. They relate to matters critical to the capacity of the country to harness the commitment, energy and resources of society in joint action to advance towards the goals of democracy and development.


COMPLETING THE 2004-2009 MANDATE

Tasks to completed:

150 municipalities were identified to be supported in the development of their fraud prevention plans.  10% remain to be supported.
The second National Anti-corruption Programme will be finalised.
The Conflict of Interest Framework for the Public Service will be presented to Cabinet.
The Impact Appraisal on the National Anti-corruption Framework will be presented to Cabinet.
Continuously address the target of employing women in management positions.
Implementation of the Local Government Strategic Agenda (2006-2011) is ongoing.
Implementation of Human Resource Management Strategic Frameworks for the Public Service is ongoing.
Implementation of public service and local government skills audits is ongoing.
The rollout of the Accelerated Development Programme will commence in March 2009.
Work to establish ICT connectivity and general service counters at Thusong Centres is continuing.

That in brief ladies and gentlemen, is our scorecard.

I thank you