Gauteng Provincial Report on Affirmative Action

PUBLIC SERVICE & ADMINISTRATION PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
19 March 1998
PROVINCIAL REPORT: GAUTENG

The report of the Director-General from Gauteng raised the following points:

1 Political interference
There is still a fair amount of confusion with regard to the respective roles of the political and administrative heads of departments. Most powers are in the hands of the political heads and should be decentralised to the administrative heads. This creates confusion in respect of accountability and responsibility. If heads of departments must be held accountable, there is no way that one can account without powers. Gauteng has moved a step further by clarifying roles and responsibilities in terms of the political and administrative heads.

2 The Need To Link The Budget And The Organisational Structure
Gauteng has designed a departmental planing format and Personnel Performance Management System which link the service delivery objectives to the provincial vision and priorities. In the past departments had their own plan format which made it very difficult for the government to monitor , so they had to come up with a common plan with the same vision. The Personnel Performance Management System makes provision for all employees to be evaluated in terms of the same system.

Gauteng is currently in its second year of using the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF). This year has show a great improvement in the linking of activities/priorities to the budget, feedback to the Provincial Standing Committee on Finance is based on achievement of a department's priorities where departments are accountable for the planned achievements or lack thereof. The Gauteng Treasury has also in the past two years fine-tuned and streamlined provincial budgeting

3 Lack Of Human Resources Development Policy
A provincial human resource policy does exist and has been in place since June 1997.
The policy was developed in consultation with departments through the Human Resources Development Committee (HRDC) and employee organisations in the provincial bargaining council.

Amendments about to be made in the HRDC:
- the recognition of new structures such as the training &development advisory units
- further aligning the policy to the White Paper On Training & Education
- the requirement for department to budget for training & development
- further definition on roles and responsibilities in the light of decentralisation.

Due to budgetary constraints the decentralisation of the other HR functions is being reviewed
Gauteng is in the process of training line department in labour relations management, transformation and management development on a grade scale. This is an effort to create capacity within the line departments to manage their human resources.

4 Large Backlog Of Misconduct Cases
The government has employed special measures to eradicate this backlog. For example they have contracted the service of non-governmental organisations to hear and dispose of the cases and currently they do not have any backlogs. Their strategy has been to train many presiding officers and investigating officers as possible as the lack thereof was identified as the major cause of delays

5 Centralised Financial Management And Lack Of Skills
Gauteng has adopted a decentralised model of financial management . Section 16(1) of the Exchequer Act (act 1of 1994) provides for the appointment of an accounting officer for each vote. The administrative head of each department is listed as the accounting officer of his /her vote. This implies that the responsibilities associated with the role of accounting officer are devolved to each head of department. Each head of department is then required to appoint a financial manager.

Departments have struggled to appoint high-level financial professionals due to the limitations of the personnel administrative standards (PAS). However some departments have managed to appoint adequately qualified people at director level. Certain aspects ie payment of salaries, creditors and suppliers and the keeping of sets of books are still centralised in the MEC of Finance, because of the lack of people who can manage finance.

In answer to the question about who exactly is the accounting officer, the Director-General replied that there was a structural arrangement that made the Director-General the accounting officer of the province. Then there is the constitution which gives the MECs grounds to see themselves as accounting officer. The Exchequer Act also creates a problem.

One needs to make the heads of departments full accounting officers; the Director-General is just the link. The Director-General co-ordinates and leads in areas which need him/her, for example, transformation, change management and affirmative action.

With decentralisation, one gets greater efficiency and effectiveness in the department as it is not something that is fixed so one can change it depending on the time and the environment.

Corruption - there is a toll free line to report corruption which is publicised in the
newspaper.

Down-sizing - the voluntary package policy was implemented but it has been stopped because it cost the government so much in terms of finance and skills.

Capacity building - outside organisations have been hired to help in this regard.