The countdown to the much-awaited 2018/19 National Batho Pele Excellence Awards (NBPEA) has begun.
The Public Servant can reveal that hard-working and dedicated public servants who are going an extra mile to make the country a better place over the last 26 years of democracy will be given their time to shine at the 6th NBPEA awards ceremony to be held at the Sandton Convention Centre on Friday, 27 March 2020.
The purpose of the annual NBPEA is to entrench the transformation and professionalism in the public service. Rewarding excellent service delivery and recognising the contribution by public servants across Government, will add to the drive towards service delivery improvement.
The objective is to promote a new culture of dedication, integrity and effective servitude by encouraging collaboration in effective delivery mechanisms, instilling knowledge management within the public service, and sharing best practices based on tested experiences.
The awards further promotes sharing of best practices, learning, rewarding good performance and gauging citizen satisfaction towards government performance.
According to DPSA Director: Service Delivery Branch, Mr Vincent Mabunda, the adjudication process that covers the wider performance elements in the application of Batho Pele principles within service delivery continuum has been concluded.
He said the process started towards the end of last year where South Africans were asked to submit nominations of hard-working public servants accompanied by motivations.
Mr Mabunda said there are two streams of categories, one of those that were open for public nominations and those not open for public nominations.
“Those not open for the public nominations are the Best National Director General of the Year, Best Provincial Government Head of Department of the Year, Best Provincial Director-General of the Year, Best Functioning Provincial Department of the Year and Best Functioning National Department of the Year.
“Those open for public nominations are Best Performing Senior Management Service (SMS) member of the Year (level 13-15), Best Front-Line Service Delivery Employee of the Year, Best General Worker of the Year (Level 1-5), Best Operational Employee of the Year (L6-12), Best Batho Pele Team of the Year and Best Implemented Programme or Project of the Year.
“It is our view that these awards will reinforce the diligence of public servants and the compassion they show to people,” he said.
The first prize, as per tradition will go to the Outstanding Batho Pele Winner of the Year pulled out of 4 individual categories such as the Best Performing Senior Management Service (SMS) member of the Year (level 13-15), Best Front-Line Service Delivery Employee of the Year, Best General Worker of the Year (Level 1-5) and the Best Operational Employee of the Year (L6-12).
Each category will have three prizes, a bronze for third price, a silver for second price and a gold for first price. Under the Life-Time Achiever in the public service area, the category is divided between the Dr Nelson Mandela Life Time Achiever and the Albertina Sisulu Life Time Achiever Awards.
