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Government to honour top performing public servants

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The Annual Batho Pele Excellence Awards (NBPEA), which cement the values of improving service delivery, will officially be held at Birchwood Hotel & Conference Centre, east of Johannesburg on Thursday, March 24, 2022. 

Public Service and Administration Director-General, Ms Yoliswa Makhasi said that the 7th awards would highlight the strength and resilience of public servants in combating the Covid-19 pandemic hence the theme: “Combating the Covid-19 pandemic through a Batho Pele focus, Putting People First.”

The NBPEA represent a concerted effort by the Ministry for the Public Service and Administration (MPSA) to intensify the creation of a strong and capable state. The Director-General further said the objective of the awards is to motivate the more than 1.2 million public servants, who daily dedicate themselves to selflessly serve the people of South Africa.

“The awards promotes sharing of best practices, learning, rewarding good performance and gauging citizens’ satisfaction towards government performance. The purpose of the NBPEA is to entrench the transformation and professionalisation of the public service by rewarding excellent service delivery and recognising the contribution by public servants.

“The awards are a serious and committed move by the MPSA towards transforming and professionalising the public service, improving service delivery as well as putting into operation the ideas towards building a capable state, as enunciated in the National Development Plan (NDP),” she said. 

According to Ms Makhasi, the idea of rewarding public servants for their excellence was derived from government’s and the MPSA’s resolve that public servants who work hard in making the lives of citizens better should be honoured.

Awards categories (open for public nomination).  

  • Best Doctor of the Year.
  • Best Researcher/ Scientist of the Year.
  • Best Covid-19 Health Worker of the Year.
  • Best Responsive Government Institution of the Year.
  • Best Front-Line Service Delivery Employee of the Year.
  • Best General Worker of the Year (Level 1-5).
  • Outstanding Batho Pele Public Servant of the Year).

Ministerial Special Awards: Life Time Achievers X 2

Minister’s Special Covid-19 Awards-X 4

Ministerial Specialised Fields Awards- X 2

There are two streams of categories, which include those which were open for public nomination, and those not open for public nominations. It is the Minister’s prerogative to pick recipients for the Life Time Achievers award and in picking these achievers; the Minister has the prerogative to decide who will be awarded.

Six categories opened for public nomination:

  • Best Doctor of the Year
  • Best Researcher/ Scientist of the Year
  • Best Covid-19 Health Worker of the Year
  • Best Responsive Government Institution of the Year (Not considered for Outstanding category)
  • Best Front-Line Service Delivery Employee of the Year
  • Best General Worker of the Year (Level 1-5).

The gold (first prize) winners in the five categories was automatically entered into the category Outstanding Batho Pele Public Servant of the Year), but only one winner will be awarded in this category.

Adjudication process

The process of adjudication was conducted in three main stages, starting with the sorting and quality checking stage, followed by the assessment stage and then the National Steering Committee (NSC) stage. According to Director-General Makhasi, the adjudication process took place in December last year until January 2022.

Monetary Prizes

Each category will have three prizes, a bronze for third price, a silver for second price and a gold for first prize. The current cash prizes are determined as follows:

  • Third prizes will carry a cash prize of R4000 each.
  • Second prizes will carry a cash prize of R6000 each.
  • First prizes will carry a cash prize of R10 000 each and;
  • All Ministerial Special Awards, will each receive a cash prize of R25 000.