Batho Pele

Know your service rights campaign

The Know Your Service Rights Campaign is one of the four strategic thrusts identified to compliment and strengthen the government's drive to revitilise the promotion and implementation of Batho Pele within the public service as per the Cabinet resolution of the 04th of August 2004.

By and large, citizens have for sometime been deprived the satisfaction of enjoying convenient and seamless services offered by government departments. This can be attributed to amongst other things:

Failure of the public service to advance the values of the peoples' contract
Lack of knowledge by citizens about their rights and entitlement regarding services
Failure of the public service and its officials to promote Batho Pele as a way of life

Although there are pockets of excellence in certain areas, the reality is that more effort needs to be directed towards improving service delivery on the whole, hence the Batho Pele Revitilisation Programme.

Being integral to the Programme the campaign seeks to create a platform that will enable citizens to interact directly with the public service and its services through relevant, but effective mechanisms that promote co-orporation. This drive reinforces the public service's commitment to realising its vision of creating a better life for all by improving the manner in which services are delivered to people of this country.

Key objectives of the campaign are:

To promote awareness on the rights citizens have with regards to the level of services they receive from various government departments as well as educate them on appropriate actions to take when such rights are infringed on;
To exert positive pressure on the public service and its officials with the intention of fostering a people and service-centric culture that elicits requisite behaviour and attitude;
To emphasise the need to strengthen partnerships between the public and government in service delivery, thereby ensuring citizen participation.

The DPSA is partnering with, amongst others, Government Communication and Information Systems (GCIS) and State Information Technology Agency (SITA) to ensure that the campaign employs the necessary capacity and resources.

The campaign is envisaged to run for a two-year period. During this period and beyond the campaign will serve as an anchor to key projects of the Batho Pele Revitilisation Programme by providing a platform that will ensure the programme enjoys the necessary support, reach and coverage.