Africa Public Service Day

Speech by Donald Grant, Minister of Transport and Public Works

Good afternoon, Goeie dag, Molweni.

Welcome to our celebration of Africa Public Service Day. Africa Public Service Day (APSD) is celebrated annually on 23 June across the African continent. It is an important date in the African Public Service and is entrenched as a strategic event on the African Union calendar.

The day recognises the values and virtues of service to the community and is celebrated annually by the member states of the African Union.

The theme of this year’s celebration is “Innovating governance for sustainable development and people centred public administration”, with the objectives being to:

1. Reflect on the function of the public service, its mission and objectives, programmes and projects, successes and challenges.
2. Provide recognition to and make known the importance of the public service, its positive contribution and benefits to the public servants, civil society, private sector and government.
3. Motivate and encourage public servants to continue the good work done and to come up with new initiatives and innovations.
4. Obtain feedback from the citizenry on services rendered; and
5. Preparation of the public service and administration for a better future by proposing change for the social wellbeing of the population.

These can be summed up in three words, sharing, collaboration, and innovation.

On this day, we recommit ourselves to:

• Innovate.
• Reward public sector excellence.
• Motivate public servants.
• Enhance public service professionalism.
• Raise the image of public service.
• Enhance trust in government.
• Collect, document and share best practices for possible replication within a country as well as across the African Continent.

Our department has shown, through the great work by all who serve under it, what can be achieved when the values enshrined in our Service Charter, govern the way in which we serve the people of the Western Cape. The accolades that we have received are a testament to this.

Departmental Success in Accolades

The Department of Transport and Public Works continues to be acknowledged for its outstanding performance. Along with receiving an unqualified audit with no findings the year 2012/13 from the Auditor General of South Africa, the department has also been recognised by a series of awards, including:

• Department of Public Service and Administration’s Batho Pele Bronze award for the Best Functioning Component – Provincial Regulatory Entity (PRE) – Vangate – under the leadership of Mark Skriker.
• Department of Transport and Public Works performance management (MPATs) rated in the top 6 nationally by the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation.
• Most productive public entity awarded by Productivity SA to the PRE for backlog elimination.
• Second best Annual Report in SA in 2011/12 awarded by South African Institute of Government Auditors.
• The Provincial Star Enterprise Content Management Trophy awarded to CFO Cedric Ismay for implementation of the Supplier Invoice Tracking System.
• The Construction World’s Best Project for 2011 awarded to Len Fourie and the Roads team.
•  Most outstanding Civil Engineering Project Achievements for 2011/2012 awarded by SAICE to Len Fourie and the Roads team.
• Management Performance Assessment tool (MPAT) awards in the categories of:

• Best Performing Department in Governance and Accountability with a staff complement of more than 2000.
• Best Performing Department in Human Resource Management (including employment equity practices) with a staff complement of more than 2000.
• Best Performing Department with a staff complement of more than 2000.
• A floating trophy for the overall best performing department for MPAT 2013.

What these accolades mean is that we continue to put the people of the Western Cape first in all that we do, and maintain a level of delivery that gives life to the principle of an “Open opportunity society for all”, in which people can live lives that they truly value. Let this Service Charter be the evidence of how committed we remain, to realise fully the goals that we have set for ourselves.