Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Ms Ayanda Dlodlo, said public service and state institutions need to comprehensively improve financial and organisational performance system of state institutions.
Minister Dlodlo was speaking on Thursday at the virtual dialogue aimed at improving the financial and organisational performance systems in the public service and its institutions hosted by the DPSA.
The Minister praised the majority of professional public servants who are moving the country forward with ethical conducts that is exemplary and in the best interest of citizens.
“During this Public Service Month, we celebrate the magnitude and the diversity of our public service, celebrate our individual and collective achievements, and celebrate our challenges by crafting ways forward.
The Minister also called on the media to exercise their role of information and education of communities. She said the stories told by the media about the public service should tell the complete story with its complexities, size, challenges and achievements.
She said recently, both the public and the media have been focusing on the minority public servants whose conducts she described as the betrayal of the public service and a betrayal to South Africans.
The Minister said such unethical conducts should be punished and rejected at all times.
“During this Public Service Month, our media and our people must also put on the spotlight the majority of our public servants, who are principled and who understand the weight of responsibility and what their positions in the public service entail, these are public servants who put our people first.
“There is however, the minority that are unprincipled whose conduct makes them unfit to be public servants.
“As Minister, I respect the independence of our media, I also respect that free, independent media must be balanced and should give credit where it is due, but equally, I believe the media also has the responsibility to educate and give hope to our people.
“Stories about the public service cannot only be narratives that frame the public service as corrupt, uncaring, and unresponsive, and a drain in the fiscus.
“The stories of the public service have to be told in the full complexity of its size, its challenges and its achievements,” Minister Dlodlo said.
Ms Sobongiseni Ngoma, Head of Audit at the National Office of the Auditor-General (AG) spoke on the challenges identified in relation to the financial performance as well as putting forward measures that can assist to improve audit outcomes and performance for public service institutions.
Mr Fani Molefe from National Treasury presentation focused on providing guidelines on how the procurement bill will strengthen the state capacity to stop corruption before it even starts.
Answering the question on why the procurement bill is the solution, Mr Molefe said: “a single statute that provides for reform of the public procurement legal landscape will ensure that all public procurement activities are government in one public procurement statute.”
Public Service Month
In South Africa, September marks Public Service Month, which is an integrated strategic national programme in the calender of the government.
The Public Service Month serves as a reminder of what it means to serve communities and to also look at the impact the government has especially around issues of service delivery.
This year, Public Service Month is celebrated under the theme: “The Year of Charlotte Maxeke-a resilient public service responsive to the coronavirus pandemic”.
