Governance and Administration Cluster Briefing

Journalist: In the statement it says there were about 1499 public servants charged for misconduct due to alleged corrupt activities and an R110m recovered. I am just trying to figure out, we are not hearing whether there were any criminal charged or convictions in this regard. Is it enough to be charging public servants with misconduct where there is evidence of corruption?

Journalist: Mr Padayachie earlier last week your DG said that three options for a single public service have been presented to yourself. Can you elaborate on what those options are and what the process will be going forward?

Journalist:  The implementation of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act how is this being implemented? I am thinking in particular about the fact that officials that municipal officials can no longer be office bearers in political organisations. Do you have some sort of audit of who is a political office bearer and who is a municipal official or do you have any municipal official or office bearer to sign. Do you have any kind of handle on how that process is being implemented? Secondly on the Local Government Turnaround Strategy, what have been successes so far? You say it will be accelerated but out of the Local Governments that you have been assisting how many have actually been helped onto their feet and can now run on their own?

Journalist: This is for the Minister of Arts and Culture on the South African Languages Bill. I just want to know how do you see this playing out in the Western Cape. There is a choice between three official languages; I just want to know is Afrikaans considered an indigenous language? If not how do you see this thing playing out in the Western Cape?

Journalist: My question is also regarding the South African Languages Bill. It says that the Department is recommending the use of three official languages, two of which must be indigenous. What about the role of sign language in this Bill, how much focus will be given to it? Why isn’t Government pushing or placing a bigger emphasis on sign language because it makes the youth especially feel like the Government doesn’t really care much about our differently abled colleague. So what is the role of sign language in this Bill?

Minister Roy Padayachie: Yes thank you very much. Our DG is here from the Department of Public Service and Administration. I would like to invite him to just elaborate on the three options. I think it is important that we reiterate the principal thrust of the presentation that we made in Parliament. That is that we are quite serious that we must this year set the motion in place for the establishment of the Institutional Infrastructure for the establishment for the single public service. And currently a great amount of work is being done to establish that basic infrastructure. We are implementing the Integrated Financial Management Services Programme. We are also looking at enhancing the coordination within Departments at a national level. And between the different spheres of Government that is the National, Provincial and Local Governments spheres. So we are quite serious in that this year we will advance the work to establish our capacity to deliver on this commitment that we made for the establishment of a Single Public Service System.
Now we have defined a way forward of how we will be doing this particular matter. As you know that initially the matter was introduced to Parliament a couple of years ago. A Management Bill to establish the Single Public Service was initiated in Parliament. That was subsequently withdrawn because at that stage the complexity of establishing the infrastructure was not quite seriously understood. We have not become much wiser on the complexity of this task and clearly the evidence before us is that we must lay the basis for the institution infrastructure for the single public service system. That is what we are focused to deliver on this financial year. I wonder if the DG would just like to explain some of the options.

DG for Department of Public Service and Administration: Thank you very much Minister, at the heart of the initiative for the single public service is the promotion of integration and the harmonization of procedures and processes between national provincial and local government sphere so that service delivery can improve. Now, two of the critical options that we considered - you could have a single legislation which is the draft that was tabled in Parliament and was withdrawn in 2008. The other option is to look at the existing pieces of legislation and effect amendments in those pieces of legislations such as the Public Service Act and the Municipal Systems Act. So that objectives of integration and harmonisation can still be achieved through effecting amendments in those pieces of legislations. So for example if you are looking at what it is dealt with in the Draft Bill at the moment the issue of establishing cadre of senior managers across the three spheres of Government. There is provision already in the Public Service Act for such a cadre to be established. What we may need to look at is whether we can create provision for that at municipal level as well. So that, that way we are able to achieve the same objective through effecting amendments in both pieces of legislations. Those are the two critical options that are being explored at the moment for achieving objectives of integration and harmonisation by so doing improving service delivery.

Minister Roy Padayachie: Thank you very much DG. I think it must also be understood so that we get the message across clearly and correctly, that when it envisaged a constitutional change in the way Government is architecture we are focusing on the mechanisms that we need to put in place to integrate this system so that we can get an easier, swifter movement in the public service. One of the critical deficiencies that we have discovered in the way the system operates is that in areas where there is the greatest need for a higher level of skills we are particularly deficient. For example there is a tendency for in the public service for people to migrate to the national level and yet in other levels in the system like in local government we are suffering from a deficiency of skills. So the ability to move people across these different levels is quite an important integrating mechanism and we need to establish that capacity within the three spheres of Government. But the realisation of cause is that there are lots of complexities to this matter, if you take this question of this harmonisation of integration across the three spheres of Government we have to deal with the conditions of service of employees. Now you might be leaning to something like, I don’t know what the exact number is but something like well over 20 or 30 pension schemes from which employees are members of. So there has to be some basis in which we can integrate that when people are actually moved. So the focus really is to ensure that there is this harmonisation, to ensure that we have the capacity to be able to move people where they are best needed. And secondly also to ensure that we are able to move information across this system a bit more effortlessly especially when it comes to integrating the different levels of Government through the point of view an integrated network of information through connected ICT Systems. There is a great amount of effort to be done, so we are talking about establishing the institution framework of connected Government across the Departments and across the different levels. So programmes on E-Government and what we are now defining as M-Government which is mobility in Government being able to take Government to people where they are quite critical to the dispensation of services. In that regard it is important to also recall the establishment of Thusong Centres all over the country. And in terms of the information before me there are not 171 operational Thusong Service Centres across the country. By the end of December 2011 our audits revealed that over 5 million people have been served through these Thusong Service Centres. The State Information Technology (SITA) has succeeded in connecting 96 of the 123 Thusong Centres across the country. And we are planning to expand this particular network. So you can see the thrust will be to lay the institutional foundations for connective Government and to enable us to move much more swiftly and decisively in the signal public service. It is something that we are committed to achieving this year.

Guest speaker: I am not the DG of Corporative Governance; I fall within the same portfolio. I wouldn’t have the exact answers to the two questions. Thank you.

Mbulelo Musi from COGTA: With regard to the Municipal Systems Amendment Act the media practitioners and the people would know that it was ascended to in July. To begin to implement it we are working with SALGA as a statutory representative of Local Government. We are already now beginning to engage with the provinces to ensure that we streamline the implementation of the Municipal Systems Act. Indeed a process is underway to ensure the professionalisation intend that is inherent in that Act finds expression in so far as one of the areas we are focussing on is making sure that the 5 key posts that are supposed to professionalise Local Government are put in place. Municipalities have been assisted precisely because we have a challenge of CFO’s or many municipalities not having CFO’s, not having municipal managers4, not having communicators, not having town planners etc. And that has been given priority; we are working in partnership with SALGA. So the process is being rolled out, we are hoping from this year it will be accelerated because at phase one was to ensure that municipalities are aware of the Act. The second phase was to begin to implement it and roll it out, and that is the focus for this year.
Second part around the issue of Local Government Turnaround Strategy. You will have recalled that Cabinet adopted a strategy on the 2^nd of December 2009. After that the phase one was to ensure that municipalities begin to integrate the Local Government Turnaround Strategy into the IDP’s which is integrated development plans. We have not been able to get a report in the last meeting that was held last year that 278 municipalities have been able to develop what they call Municipal Turnaround Strategies. Which are beginning to locate the fact that it must now be localised and be able to implement it there, all of them now have streamlined them. The issue is now to roll them out in terms of effective implementation. We are beginning to see if you would recall the report of the Auditor General, for instance the areas that relate to turning around management of finances. Which is a major challenge within local government? We are beginning to see a turnaround emerging in areas like Tatadu(sic) already have a clean audit which was achieved which is a major achievement, which is in the Eastern Cape. We are also seeing in some other provinces municipalities begin to put in place to ensure that the Turnaround Strategy finds expression in matters of Governance, financial management, service delivery. So essentially it is an on-going programme and some significant progress is beginning to manifest. Thank you very much.

Minister Paul Mashatile: Thank you very much, there were two questions. Firstly on let me just clarify that the issue of the three languages is really the list that can be used. In other words we encourage Departments to use as many of the official languages. Official languages are 11 but it is practically impossible for Government Departments and State Enterprises to use all the 11 at the same time, so the Bill say use at least 3. We expect that the provinces in adopting the languages policies will also follow the same approach because it is really from the spirit of the constitution. The many thrust is that all languages should be promoted equitably so there is no discrimination of any language. What Departments and provinces will do is really to take into account the demands where they are providing se4rvices. So we expect that in the Western Cape because many people do speak Afrikaans, IsiXhosa, those primarily will be the languages that they use including English. If you go to other provinces like Limpopo expect that predominantly languages that would be used there will include Sepedi, Sithonga, Tshivenda. And of cause depending on whether there is a demand for English or Afrikaans they will choose either. But the important thing is the practicality of ensuring that citizens can accept services in languages of their choice and therefore Government Departments and provinces take that into account. So it is really for usage but at the same time we accept that as we do so we are promoting multilingualism. There is another body that we have established called the Pan African Language Board (PANSALB) whose duty is to promote languages broadly in society that is beyond Government. So there would be correlation between the work of PANSALB and what Government Departments will be doing. You know that the Bill provides for young language units in Departments to be able to monitor the use of these languages. So there is no language that will be discriminated against, all languages will be promoted as required by the Constitution.
On the issue of sign language, we have included that provision in the bill. So in addition to the 141 official languages we are encouraging Government Departments to make provision for the use of sign language wherever it is necessary. But also PANSALB has the responsibility to promote sign language including other languages that are used in our communities in South Africa that may not be necessarily official languages. So all that is included in the Bill and we do hope that as discussions are enfolding in Parliament we will be able to tighten those provisions. Let me explain briefly that the emphasis in the Bill on indigenous languages you will see that it also say that those that have been diminishing in usage. In other words when Departments choose the three we are encouraging a lot that they don’t stick to the languages that have been used a lot. They must always look at languages that have been diminishing in usage. I think that is really what we are encouraging. At the end of the day in terms of the constitutions there will also be parity of esteem as we promote languages.

Chairperson Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: Well I think all the Ministers can answer. I would like to say that in my understanding we do both where it is relevant. You would have seen even in some cases the people get arrested at work by the police because in investigating serious corruption we tend to work with the law enforcement and so we do both. But of cause the matter of criminal charged have gone to the police it is out of our hands. What is within the hands of this Cluster is to then make sure that there is disciplinary action within Government as well.

Journalist: Minister Padayachie I think my question, you will be the first target, it is on the issue of induction programme for newly appointed public servants. I just want to know what does this programme entail, I can only assume that it is for the first time if it is not then you can give an explanation. How will it enhance the effective public service that you seem to look at?

Journalist: Just a follow up to Mbulelo Musi. Mbulelo you mentioned that many municipalities don’t have municipal managers and CFO’s, could you say how many?

PMP Youth Ambassador: I want to find out more on the issues of the 14 new libraries especially in terms of the geographical spread and the method that was used to look at those libraries. Currently where I come from I need to travel about, actually I pay about R30 to access a library. So I am looking for one out of those 14 libraries to come close.

Journalist: You said that PALAMA. You said that PALAMA is in partnership with the NYDA, trained a total of 2443 unemployed youth to prepare them for public service employment. Can you just give us an indication as to when that took place as to how many have actually been employed so far. Then just clarify on the 18 660 public servants that underwent the Junior and Middle Management Induction Programme. Just give us the impact that it has made.

Journalist: This is a question to Mbulelo Musi. Just on the amendment on the Municipal Rates Act, when are you envisioning this to be tabled in Parliament? Do you know if any of the problems or interpretation problems that some commentators saw with this legislation about making sort of a second tax on second properties and so forth has been looked at.

Chairperson Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: I think the Ministers should answer. Mbulelo will take the COGTA related questions; he seems to be the only person from COGTA. I think the Public Administration Minister Padayachie will take the questions around, or I heard that there is a PALAMA senior official there. DG maybe the PALAMA DG may take the specific PALAMA related questions. The Minister may talk about the impact because I don’t think PALAMA will know what happened to those when they have gone back to the Departments.

Minister Roy Padayachie: Thank you very much Minister, we are seriously missing you here, it is unfortunate that you are not here with the panel. There are a number of issues that have risen through the questions that have been put to us. I want to take this opportunity of just reminding us the comments of the President. In his comments he seemed to knit very nicely some of these questions that are raised specifically when he said that all the work we do as Government relies on having the cadre of dedicated skills and hardworking public servants. Who are responsive, innovative, and willing to go beyond the call of duty to help realize Government’s objectives? Now the current perception of the public service is that it is not as skilled as we need it to be. We do not have the level of management capacity that we require to deliver on our mandate. We have an absence over performance culture as there is little or no reward or sanction for good or bad performance. We indeed have a severe problem of corruption, low levels of efficiency and we simply do not get value for the money we pay in salaries.
Now if we consider that the single biggest expenditure we have is salaries and a significant improvement in productivity would increase the overall return on our public service. Now what the statement does in fact do is that it calls on us in the public service to focus on our attention on improving our productivity in the public service. But the question of how do we do that relates to a number of “maligies” that are present in the public service. In the first of one of these is to ensure that we recruit sufficiently talented young people who can join the public service with the right kind of ethos and values. I think the programme in PALAMA is aimed at doing precisely that, to break the barriers for young graduates and to create an opportunity for young graduates to get exposed to the public service through an induction programme. And to shift them out so that they can then come into the public service and get the correct approaches and the correct values. Essentially we want to create and reinforce the ethos of public spiritual values that must in fact underpin public service in the country. And the programmes in PALAMA are geared towards that.
Secondly, the perception of corruption - we are convinced that by enlarge the majority of public servants are not really responsible for this kind of conduct. We believe that there is a small core of public officials that are responsible for this kind of perception that the public service generally is driven by values which are not sound. We are determined to deal with this particular problem, you will realise that that as part of building the Anti-Corruption Capacity within the public service we will this year translate the Public Service Anti-Corruption Unit into a separate signal Government component which would have dedicated investigative capacity. It is our analysis that there is insufficient capacity within Departments to conduct the proper kind of investigation once we receive complaints of corrupt activity amongst public servants. And PISACO (sic) as the unit is geared towards that. This year we shall accelerate establishment as an independent Government component with focused and dedicated capacity to speed up investigations that are required to accelerate disciplinary processes against officials that are guilty of wrongdoing. I think it is important here that we convey the message as we have indeed been doing so that we are determined to root this out in the public service. We will complement the Anti-Corruption Capacity that is being built across Government. We will work with all the agencies and create a multi focussed, multi-agency kind of system that would root, attempt to minimize and root out.
Vetting of officials which are involved in the supply chain I think is an important step in the process., As you know the President has decided that this must be implemented and we shall be together with National Treasury be implementing that mechanism immediately. Let me stop there.

DG of PALAMA: The question here is the relationship or the partnership between the National Youth Development Agency and PALAMA. Yes indeed the partnership was developed 2yrs ago with the realisation that there are scare skills in the public service and we have a number of young graduates out there who cannot enter any work environment because they do not have experience. The break in barriers or entry course that was developed with the Youth Development Agency was to tap number one into the database of the National Youth Development Agency of those graduates that are out there and unemployed. We bring them into the public service; inculcate values and issues so that we create a pool of recruitable future public servants. We have done this not only with partnership with the National Youth Development Agency but also with a pool of many other Departments where we drew in volunteers of trainers so that we can expose the youth to skills in the public service. Indeed to date we have trained 2443 in the coming financial year the aim is to train about 1780 youth graduates. As to how many have been employed into the public service. It is individual Departments that recruit from the pool of this youth because those individual Departments participate in the training the youth.
The other question relates to the issue, and this question of breaking barriers to entry is also related to the issue of induction in the public service. We have two forms of induction; we have induction of middle managers. The figure that you referred to of the 18 660, in the next financial year we are aiming to train 17 575, that is induction in the public service. But for senior managers we have another induction called Wuwamkele (sic) into the public service. An induction obviously is a very continuous process, there is no way you will come in for 5 days in the public service and think you will be inducted. It is a continuous process and we have even introduced an E-Learning process so that the induction and orientation is very continuous in that regard. And the process is simple, is that even if you might be a qualified engineer or public servant with a degree in public service you do not have the ethos and the culture of the service. So once you come in the induction is to inculcate those value systems and ethos of the public servants so that you can better understanding service delivery. Thank you.

Minister Paul Mashatile: Thank you very much. The Language Programme is very massive as you can see it has been rolled out throughout the country. We are targeting specifically rural areas because in the past the focus has been a lot in urban areas. This programme is roll out in provinces, what we do we provide funding to provinces. So the MEC’s of Culture in provinces are the once who prioritise where. So the area that you are referring to is in Limpopo so it would be MEC Joyce Mabuda-Fhasi who will them say whether they can put the library there. So I would encourage that you interface with here, but they do have the resources. We provide the resources, obvious if that area is one of those areas where we really don’t have any libraries I would support that we put one there.

Mbulelo Musi from COGTA: Maybe I should have started by saying apologies on behalf of my Minister; he is on engagement in Mpumalanga around the issues to disasters. I will be quick on these ones; the first one is municipal managers. It is very difficult to quantify and give figures now immediately. Suffice to say that the report that was issued by the National Treasure as well as the office of the Auditor General was indicating that we are sitting at almost 50% vacancy rate. They will differ from post to post; it is not only about municipal managers. I think I will verify that data and be able to tell you the status quo immediately after this. My number is 082 338 3890. Suffice to say that the posts are being filled at the moment as we speak; it is on-going work. So you may find that some other posts like CFO’s are being filled. I want to be accurate when I give figures. The second one is around the Municipal Property Rates Act. Our timelines were that it was going to be tabled between May and June this year if things go well. So that is still our target and we hope that also the due process of consultation with regard to the various stakeholders who are making input will be accommodated. Suffice to say that our basic intention there is to say we develop common norms and standards because of the way the Property Rates At is being managed is quite differentiated and complicated. So we are going to make sure it is simplified, transparent and therefore there is uniformity in the implementation by all 278 municipalities in the country.

Chairperson Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: I think there was a question also on the impact of training, I think it is very clear that when people leave university or school or come even from the private sector. When they come into Government they come into a new environment that is different and therefore the induction is very important. But also if you look at the frontline officers it is very unfair to put somebody who just walked out of university to a frontline office and that person has to deal with the public without proper induction, without proper skilling specific for what they are going to be doing. That is part of the reason you find sometimes the frontline officers are a bit defensive because if you don’t know you become very defensive. We have found that the impact is really great because it also gives the person confidence, self-esteems and gives them confidence with deal with the public. And the public also finds a willing and a corporative frontline officer. So I think we should not underestimate the value of these inductions and other training courses that we give in the public service.

Minister Roy Padayachie: Minister if I may just come in here also. Looking at the fact sheet and it is interesting to note that in the fact sheet we say that the Department in fact was successful in conducting the Population Census during October. The remarkable think is that during the census the Department visited more than 14 million households. I wonder if the DG would want to say something about the census.

Pali Lehohla, Statician General: Yes indeed we must thank the media for providing; we had a concentrated attention on the census in the period that we conducted the census. We visited 14.9 million dwellings or units from which we hoped to get responses, at the moment we are processing the data in Pretoria West. The date as it appears on our programme for release of results is November. There are reviews as to whether we cannot release the data earlier, we are working on that, and in due course we should be able to come out with a specific date that will be earlier than November. The second issue is about the Quarter Labour Force Survey, we note with a bit of enthusiasm or regret that there are commentators about the release that they are aimed at making the State of The Nation be what it is because there are 365 000 jobs. The role of the Statistician General and the appointment is that he is appointed without and the delivery of the mandate of the Statistician General is to be without fear or favour. The dates are released a year in advance; we do not know when the State of the Nation will be. We do not know what the level of employment will be at that point in time and we release the data as we cover it. So the statements by Terry Bell and Stephen Grootes are quite regrettable that we release this data in order to meet the requirements of the State of the Nation. Indeed we are in service of the State to inform but we are not in service of the State to inform with fear or favour. That is the role and should be of the Statistician General that is what I wanted to bring to the attention of the media and those who tend to suggest that we serve with favour or fear.

Journalist: Just a follow up question again Minister Padayachie on the issue of vetting. I just want to know will this cut across public servants is just at a senior level? Second question when is it going to be implemented? Last one is it a once off assessment or is it an on-going monitoring?

Journalist: Minister Paul Mashatile, monuments, and memorials were just announced today. I am assuming a lot of time and to a large extend resources will be spend to roll out this major programme. Apart from highlighting history and heritage what are some of the socio economic benefits that people can look forward to? For instance a small town like Brandwoudt (sic), why should people there care about the refurbishing of mamma Winnie’s home. What are the benefits for the people on the ground?

Journalist: Madam Chair I would just like to enquire if there is any legislation to make it compulsory for municipalities to implement recycling projects and if not why not?

Journalist: I am asking with regard to the National Population Registration Campaign. Can the Minister of Home Affairs please explain how they plan in increasing awareness about the campaign will be done through the cohesion of the Department of Education or through National media and voter response?

Journalist: It is just a clarification question. I want to know from the Ministers the 1499 officials that is being charged with misconduct and corrupt activities is that in the previous financial year? And then maybe if the Minister of Arts and Culture can give me a money value on the amount of money that will be spend on the refurbishing of these heritage sites and things like that, the monuments and museums.

Chairperson Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: I will just answer the last one on the national campaign. This national campaign started actually in 2010, we do work with the Minister of Basic Education because the ID’s children tend to turn 16 when they are at school. So we are working very closely with schools in getting them to get ID’s at 16 because we don’t want them to wait until they are writing matric or until they are looking for a job. We would like every child when they turn 16 to have an ID. In fact in the last year we managed to get kids who turn 16 more than 600 000 of them applied when they were turning 16 which is good progress. Because in the past they would run when they get a job or when they are doing matric so now we want to get away from that. Of cause the media must also assist us and in some instances we have been working with some of the media. Then in the communities we work very closely with what we call Stakeholder Forums which really consist of local people, counsellors, teachers, sometimes other Departments in an area. We formed the Stakeholder Forum; it works in a way as a bridge between us and the communities. They are the ones who assist us to mobilise to identify people who need services if we are coming with a mobile. There is no point in just going there and saying please comes. The Stakeholder Forum mobilises for us, identifies those families that needs those services and make sure they are at the point of the service delivery. They are also our eyes and ears, if there are problems they are experiencing in our offices they let us know, we then deal with those. So we take the Stakeholder Forums very seriously. When there are people who are not fetching their ID’s we have begun to work with them to identify the people and go with us to those areas to deliver the ID’s. So it is an on-going campaign and it has actually assisted us and we hope that it will continue to assist us. The media can play a role and in fact the radios have been playing a very important role, radio stations. Because when we go to an area with mobiles they also announce and let the population know in those areas. We appreciate their corporation and hope that it will even be better this year.

Minister Roy Padayachie: On the question of vetting I think we have to be clear that the responsibility to immediately implement the system falls with National Treasury. We are supporting the immediate implementation as the Department of Public Service because the vetting system really focuses on officials, public servants who are in the procurement chain. To support that immediate implementation the State Information Technology Agency which is responsible for the provision of an integrated ICT system has finalized the establishment of an E-Disclosure System for public servants. That would be placed at the disposal of National Treasure so that this vetting can in fact be done and implemented immediately. Of cause the vetting itself will involve the corporation of the Intelligence Agencies of the State Security System. All officials that are participating in the State Procurement Process will in fact be vetted. It is not a once off operation; there will be continuous vetting of the system, of the public servants who are in it. As you know this has been it’s a strategy to broaden the base of our sort of anti-corrupt capacity within the public service. It is also an integral part of the Public Sector Integrity Management Framework that we are finalizing. An important element of this management framework is to ensure that public servants will not be put in a position where they are able to conduct business with Government Departments that they are deployed in. So we are hoping to bring that to Cabinet and finalise that as a policy position. It works hand in hand with the call by the President or the support given by the President to COSATU and to invite COSATU and civil society organisations to work together with Government in our fight against corruption in the public service.

Minister Paul Mashatile: On the Socio Economic Benefits. Firstly let me say monuments, memorial, and museums they tell the history of the nation, they preserve the heritage. As we do so many other people come to know about the history, they visit the museums, they go to memorial sites, and they visit monuments. By the way this is not only foreigners or what you may call tourists coming from other countries, also local people because we do this for future generations. So as they go there they spend money in those areas and that is really what the President in his speech talked about, cultural tourism. So if you talk about the economy of cultural heritage that is really what you mean. That as we build these museums all over the country we are also embarking on economic development in those local areas. We create jobs, as people visit the café’s there they buy memorabilia, and that in itself is a major contribution to our economy. So yes the answer is there are massive benefits as you create these institutions. And it is really in the context of what I call the Mzanzi Golden Economy. Our economy is also driven by cultural industries, by creative industries and that is really the economy of cultural heritage that is what it is. So we expect in all those areas we will be doing this. We are going to revitalise local economies so that people can benefit from their own heritage and that is what we are doing. I think that was the first question. The last one was what the monetary values of what we are doing are. Obviously to build new museums etc. will require massive resources. We are embarking on a major programme called the National Liberation Heritage Route which really requires that we build a lot of new museums. We estimate we will spend more than an R1bn doing this. A lot of work has started, in some areas we are nearly completing some of the centres that we are building. We will announce as we go on monetary values of some of the work that we are doing. But a lot of this is provided for in our budget and I am happy we also have received new resources from National Treasury to be able to do this work which we will announce when we do our budget speech later in the year.

Mbulelo Musi: There is no Legislation on recycling within COGTA. But I think the issues speak to two things, one environmental broader issues of environmental managemehnt4. Secondly issues related to job opportunities that relate to that. Issues of environmental management speaking would fall within the Department of Environmental Affairs. We think the instruments legislative and otherwise residing there are adequate to take care of those issues. With regard to recycling as one of the job creation activities, it falls within earlier days of municipalities, Local Economic Development Programmes but it also manages through the bylaws of municipalities. We think that legislative regime is adequate to be able to take care of some of the challenges relating to encouraging recycling.

Deputy Minister Gert Oosthuizen: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Just to perhaps focus on our preparations of the team going to London. Hopefully we are realising our dream of achieving 12 or more medals. In the background to this we (unclear) with one medial only. And an analysis  that show that a total spend in preparing Team South Africa for the Beijing 2008 Olympics we had spent R90m over a 4yr period preparing the team. Now since then our support to the athletes that comprise Team South Africa has improved tremendously towards achieving this gaol and this dream of 12 medals by 2012. We have from the Lottery Funding allocated over the last 3 financial years R400m to identify federations to the system in preparing Team South Africa. In addition to that SASCOC has made available a total amount of R60m that they are spending. Up to now R36m is being spent from their side, by the time that the team departs to fly the flag in London R60m would have been spent on them. I know there may be criticism to say it is not a lot of money compared to the Olympic or sports powerhouses like Australia and Britain and China but let me just point out that this is really a massive boost for our local stars going towards the Olympics in London. We know that some of our teams are still qualifying, the hockey teams are at the moment qualifying, hopefully they will qualify. The team will be announced towards the end of June, July by SASCOC, those men, and women that will go there to fly the flag of South Africa. Shortly after that the paralympians will be announced and we all know that they always done us very proud as a country, equally we have invested good amounts of money from the Lottery and SASCOC towards the Paralympic team of ours. So let’s hope come 27 July this year with the Olympics that we will go to the 12^th of August we will make this country proud once again like we have done so memorably in the history of this country. And, when the Paralympics starts on the 9^th of September in London, that once again they will also make us very proud. Emphasising exactly what Government is saying, we are normalising society, equal access to people with disability to sport, sports participation and then obviously the development and the harnessing of those skills. Thank you for the opportunity we thought this would be important just to communicate and ask the media for their support in creating the environment as we are going to go to the Magnificent Wednesday Campaign very shortly. Beefing up support throughout the country like we did last year and like we will do going forward mustering support for our team so that we are really not doing it for cricket and rugby and netball on the one hand but also for our abled and disabled athletes. Thank you for the opportunity.

Chairperson Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen of the media. I think the next phase of these briefings will follow the budget debates of the individual ministers from the Cluster. I hope that you will be following that closely and thank you for your support. We look with great expectations to see what you will publish. Thank you. Thank you to the Cape Town team but I felt very lonely here, I missed you too. Next time we will try and correlate better. Thank you.

END OF MEDIA BRIEFING

 

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: Media statement of the Governance And Administration Ministerial Cluster briefing

20 Feb 2012

Chairperson: Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, MP

Deputy Chairperson: Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mr Radhakrishna Padayachie, MP

January 2012 saw the nation commemorating the centenary of the oldest liberation movement on this continent, our governing party. We are presented with a unique opportunity to accelerate the transformation and protection of our national heritage.This comes within the context of honouring the sacrifices our people made in the struggle for democratic elections which laid the foundation for us to work towards building a non-racial and non-sexist society.

A series of monuments and memorials that celebrate our heroes and heroines who led the liberation struggle will be unveiled. This will include the declaration and protection of the Wesleyan Church Hall in Waaihoek, Mangaung as well as the Gugulethu Seven Monument. Work on the sites of the Pondo Revolt on Inquza Hill and the Holy Cross Church, that of the 1913 revolt by African women in the Free State and the 1957 anti-pass revolt by women in Zeerust will also be undertaken.The Bhambatha monument will be completed and unveiled in Greytown, while the Matola Raid Monument and Interpretative Centre are under construction and will be completed in July 2012.

The homes of Dr JL Dube, Maphikela, Mahabane, Lillian Ngoyi, OR Tambo in Nkantolo, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in Brandfort, Dr. Moroka in Thaba Nchu and Bram Fisher in Westdene will be restored.The graves of Robert Sobukwe, Dr. Moroka, Oliver Tambo, Dr. Xuma, Sefako Makgatho, Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, Rahima Moosa, Steven Bantubonke Biko, Josiah Tshangana Gumede, Walter and Albertina Sisulu will be upgraded and declared as heritage sites.

To further heighten awareness of our struggle, the Steve Biko Centre is also under construction and near completion.The second phase of the Ncome museum, the museum at Freedom Park and the seven epochs exhibition will be completed.To further evoke a spirit of nation-building and reconciliation we will declare the Voortrekker Monument as a national heritage site in March 2012 while preparations are underway for the centenary commemoration of the Voortrekker/Msunduzi Museum.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Governance and Administration cluster aims to create an enabling environment for clean and effective governance that leads to economic growth, infrastructure development and a better quality of life for our citizens. Our work is aligned to Outcomes 9 and 12 (a) and (b): A Responsive, Accountable, Effective and Efficient Local Government System; An Efficient, Effective and Development Oriented Public Service; and An Empowered, Fair and Inclusive Citizenship respectively.

We must ensure good governance and financial discipline in all our institutions in line with the recent findings and recommendations of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). We are encouraged by the appointment of the former Deputy President Baleka Mbete to serve on the African Peer Review Panel of Eminent Persons.

For proper planning and service delivery, we need to know, amongst others, the size of our population.Official statistics plays a critical role in evidence-based decision making. Accordingly, Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) conducted the national population and housing census from 10-31 October 2011 during which more than 14 million households were visited. A date for the release of Census 2011 results will be announced.

We also need to know on an ongoing basis how many babies are born so we can plan to meet the needs of our people.This will tell us how many vaccines we need, how many children will be going to school in six years, how many will require tertiary education, how many young adults will require housing, and so on.

While statistics are a credible tool of governance, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) has attracted attention from some members of the media.We are however confident that the methodologies used for the collection of labour statistics are sound and following international best practice.

A responsive, accountable, effective and efficient local government system

In the next financial year there will be the accelerated implementation of the Local Government Turn Around Strategy with a view to building a Responsive, Accountable Efficient and Efficient local government system, capable of deliveringbasic services to all the citizenry. In this regard, we have prioritised infrastructure development that will improve service delivery of water, sanitation, electricity and waste removal while the Siyenza Manje project in partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa has identified 100 municipalities across the country for immediate support.

Working together with SALGA, the provinces and municipalities, we will provide support, monitor and evaluate theimplementation of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act (MSAA) which came into effect in July 2011.As part of streamlining and improving the management of properties and revenue collection in municipalities, the Amendment of the Municipal Property Rates Act will be brought before Parliament.This aims to ensure a simplified, transparent, uniform and user-friendly property rating to guide municipalities.

A national assessment of the state of institutions of traditional leadership has been conducted and completed.The findings indicate the need to improve governance, transparency and accountability within the institution to enable it to play its role in amongst others, economic development.

An efficient, effective and development orientated public service

Capacity building is a key focus area to ensure an efficient, effective and development-orientated public service. This includes an induction programme for newly appointed public servants, the training of unemployed youth graduates, building capacity for public service innovation, and repositioning the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) as a School of Government.

We are pleased that PALAMA has, in partnership with the National Youth Development Agency, trained a total of 2 443 unemployed youth graduates to prepare them for public service employment opportunities.A further 18 660 new public servants last year participated in the Junior and Middle Management induction programme with 17 575 public servants undergoing the same in current financial year.

We have also introduced a graduate financial internship programme in all municipalities to address financial management gaps within the public service.We expect that most of the 1 300 graduates on the programme will be absorbed permanently into these municipalities upon conclusion of the training.

The Department of Home Affairs has, towards ensuring officials are fully trained in civic and immigration management, introduced a unique qualification approved by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). The first group of officials participating in this programme began their practical and theoretical training in January.

Our Integrated Financial Management System will further integrate and modernise information technology systems that currently support financial, supply chain and human resource management in the public service. This is part of a public service wide migration to an e-government with three components - the provision of services from government to government; from government to business and from government to citizens. A pilot project has been implemented in the Free State with plans to increase the rollout.

Government is committed to clean governance to ensure public money is well spent while improving our investment climate. We have therefore taken firm steps towards the establishment of anti-corruption instruments such as the government wide anti-corruption units, the Multi-Agency Working Group and the Anti-corruption Hotline.Since the inception of the National Anti-Corruption Hotline, 1 499 officials have been charged with misconduct for corrupt activities - 685 provincially and 814 nationally.Thorough investigation of alleged incidents of corruption has resulted in the recovery of R110 million from perpetrators by various departments.

We have increased our strategic focus, improved interdepartmental and intergovernmental coordination, and introduced more rigour into our planning, monitoring and evaluation processes.We have completed the first year of quarterly reporting to Cabinet enabling the monitoring of implementation of the delivery agreements and expeditious interventions where required.

Government has also implemented a joint programme of frontline service delivery monitoring. This involves, amongst others, unannounced monitoring visits to selected service delivery sites, such as Home Affairs Offices, South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) offices, police stations, health facilities, drivers license centres, and in some provinces schools and courts. Since June 2011, 120 monitoring visits have been undertaken in five provinces and improvement plans are being developed for these facilities.

Although data continues to be analysed and feedback provided to relevant departments so interventions can be undertaken, common problems include: an absence of internal directional signage; extended waiting times; absence of active queue management as well as the deployment of inappropriately trained security guards as queue managers; the under-utilisation of complaints and compliments systems; a general absence of managers at front-line service facilities as well as wide-spread neglect of basic maintenance and facilities management.

Together with the offices of the Premiers, we are also assessing the state of management practices at national and provincial departments using the Management Performance Assessment Tool (MPAT).To date 13 national departments and 19 provincial departments in Mpumalanga and Limpopo have completed these self assessments and are implementing improvement plans to address identified areas of weakness.

In addition, a national evaluation system, aimed at improving the effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of government programmes has been developed. Initial evaluations have begun in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector. We will soon move to human settlements, child and maternal health, as well as the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme.

An empowered, fair and inclusive citizenship

Citizens must be aware of their rights and responsibilities so they are empowered to participate in government’s programmes and services.We will ensure public servants observe the Batho Pele ethos of being service orientated, committed to continuous service delivery improvement while striving for excellence in service delivery.

Government is committed to empowering citizens with access to services.We have noted vast improvements in the turnaround of services delivery in various departments. The secure and efficient provision of identity documents (IDs) and therefore safeguarding of identity, has been greatly improved through new processes - an SMS service and the online verification of fingerprints, the result of an agreement between the Department of Home Affairs and the South African Banking Risk Information Centre.

Our National Population Registration campaign encourages the registration of babies within 30 days of delivery and all 16 year olds to apply for IDs.The campaign is implemented together with members of the 254 local stakeholder forums throughout the country.

With a view to accelerating efforts to increase our rural footprint to ensure easy access to services. In this regard, and amongst others, immigration and civic services are now rendered at 293 offices in rural areas and 114 offices in urban areas while the Thusong Service Centre programme has resulted in 171 centres across the country. By bringing integrated government information and services within close proximity of most communities, we were able to servejust over 5 million people by the end of December 2011.

We also strive to increase citizen participation in our national life through access to information.In this regard, the gazetting of the South African Languages Bill is a landmark event, serving to regulate and monitor the use of official languages within government, national public entities and public enterprises. The legislation will enforce the promotion of multilingualism so that citizens can access information and assistance in the languages of their choice. It recommends the use of three official languages for use, two of which must be indigenous languages of historically diminished use and status.

Under the Community Library Conditional Grant, R1.6 billion has been earmarked for a major revolution of library services, and to promote a culture of reading and writing, over the next three years. About 700 library staff are maintained on the grant while, 170 libraries have been upgraded and 20 new ones built since 2007. This year, 14 new libraries will be built and 15 upgraded. The first batch of publications under the Indigenous Languages Publishing Programme will be launched in March 2012.

The Centre for Public Service and Innovation has with the South African National Council for the Blind and the Department of Basic Education, piloted a project to test appropriate assistive devices for visually impaired teachers, increasing their independence and efficiency in the classroom.

Our new Mzansi’s Golden Economy (MGE) Strategy, aimed at boosting and enhancing the arts, culture and heritage sectors while creating sustainable jobs is being implemented.Through this, the National Cultural Industries Skills Academy is being developed in a phased manner while the Public Art programme will create Creative Industries business incubators, new enterprises, support existing ones, createtemporary jobs and transfer skills.

We will also in the year ahead see sustained support for theatre productions that will criss-cross the country, while ensuring that artists in these productions are employed throughout the year. In addition, a series of national events have been identified to help create public awareness of the arts.

In pursuit of nurturing social cohesion and nation building within and amongst communities, the National Social Cohesion Strategy will be presented and finalised at a summit to be held in July 2012. We will continue to: educate communities on their rights, empowering them to claim these rights. The Bureau of Heraldry is further embarking on an extensive “National Symbol campaign” using public Radio and community radio stations to popularize our national symbols.

In the area of sport and recreation, the need to bring all schools and sport into one system is paramount.We are therefore prioritising the repositioning of school sport, not only as the talent discovery platform, but also to consciously foster a well stratified, co-ordinated and integrated school sport construction. Efforts to bring youth of all races together at school level, have resulted in a school sport programme that will be rolled out through a structured league system.

The Sport and Recreation Indaba held on 20 and 21 November 2011 gave birth to the first-ever Sport and Recreation Plan that will, going forward, guide the sport and recreation sector in South Africa.Working together with government and other agencies, we are committed to doing all we can to ensure a solid foundation for future international events while ensuring the proper development of our athletes from various codes, towards better representative and performing national sport teams.We will also work together towards supporting a multi-coded Team South Africa, including Banyana Banyana, that will leave our shores to raise our flag at the 2012 London Olympics.

These are come highlights of the work of various Departments within the Cluster. We will now be able to take your questions which we will field as a panel.

I thank you