By Shaun Benton
Big changes are ahead in South Africa's public service. In order to speed up the delivery of services the government is moving full steam ahead with creating a unified public administration. That was the message from the Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi in her budget address to Parliament yesterday.
Within the next year, government will come up with a shared public service management and administration framework."While speeding up delivery we are expected to radically overhaul the entire machinery of the state," Ms Fraser-Moleketi said today.
"Unifying the public administration under a common set of employment and management conditions, gearing it for working and delivering services in an integrated manner is the last major challenge that remains in the first phase of our public service transformation agenda."
Not content with public servants "passing the buck" in order to avoid responsibility for service delivery, changes are afoot to ensure that they become problem-solvers, rather than obstacles in delivery.
In order to implement this change, the minister said, her ministry had been studying how different local government employment systems were from that in the public service.
More than 10 years into democracy, it is becoming ever more plain - not least to the executive - that local government, for example, municipalities, are at the coalface of delivery.
Efficiency at this level is vital to ensuring that the vast majority of South African citizens actually experience real improvement in their lives, in order to recover from decades of apartheid, and an even longer period living under colonialism
To this end, the constitution, for example, cannot be looked at always as a "holy cow" but as a structure that is geared to achieving the demands of South Africans, the minister told a press briefing earlier.
If change might be required, it would, as the head of government communications Joel Netshitenzhe said recently, not be done recklessly.
"When we wrote the constitution we made provision for the relative independence of the three spheres of government. At that stage did we foresee how difficult it was going to be to coordinate across the government levels?" the minister asked.
As reorganisation of government machinery takes place, "we will ensure that service delivery is not impeded", the minister emphasised.
Already, Community Development Workers (CDWs) - some of whom are being trained in India, which has experienced successful community development initiatives - are at work, solving problems and helping the public to effectively use different institutions of delivery.
The role of CDWs is important, the minister said, "to assist with coordination and integration across government - horizontally and vertically - while directly alleviating the plight of our people on the ground".
Already, people have been helped to gain access to housing; orphaned and abused children have been helped to access services; illiterate people have been helped with applying for documents, such as IDs; and farming groups have been established, boosting local economic development.
In addition, not least, communities have been assisted with legal matters and with getting advice and assistance from lawyers.
An example of success at modernizing work practices, Ms Fraser-Moleketi said, is the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), which has cut the average time it takes to award a tender down from over 200 days to just over 100 days, with a target of 70 days set for the end of this year.
The use of SMS messaging by home affairs is another example of technology being used to streamline services, where people can use SMS to get updated information on various applications, such as for passports.
The minister envisages a situation where, before long, mothers, for example, will be reminded via an SMS message to take a child to a clinic for an inoculation.
Concluding, the minister said: "What the country needs is the careful construction of our road to development, brick by brick, stone by stone".
Source: BuaNews
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