PREMIER'S ADDRESS
Programme Director
Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi
Delegates from various provinces
Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
I feel greatly honoured to have been invited to address the gala evening of the first national Learning Academy for Service Delivery.
In welcoming you all to this beautiful province, let me say that I do not consider it immodest to once again proclaim that all good things originate from the east.
Like the sun rises from the east, the Learning Academy had to come from the place where the sun rises.
But being trailblazers, especially in service delivery, places an enormous responsibility on our shoulders.
A few years ago we met in almost similar circumstances in order to confront the challenges and demands of transforming the public service.
It was – and still remains – an enormous, yet achievable task. The critical elements of this task were to understand clearly the nature and character of all our priorities.
We needed to understand clearly the nature of the public service we had inherited and what transformation this service needed to undergo if it had to survive.
Both the state and civil society had and still have an obligation to adapt to new tasks and new epochs.
However the State, with its authority and resources, has more responsibility to provide leadership and systems for better governance and consequently a better life for the citizens of this country.
In the past eight years we have made substantial progress in transforming the state and developing a culture of democracy and peace.
But serious challenges remain.
Can we today say we have an open, fair and efficient government, including provincial government?
Can we honestly say that structures of the bureaucracy are no longer hostile to public participation and pressure?
These are difficult questions but they must be answered as honestly as possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, we say these things so we can be honest in the debates and discussions over the next few days.
We appeal to you not to shy away from tackling thorny issues head on. We need to share experiences and network because it will assist us to empower us.
Program Director, I believe it is for the same reasons that we launch the service delivery-learning academy. We are here to share knowledge and experiences so that we can learn from one another. Through these learning networks we must adopt best practices that we can apply to our own situations to the benefit of our communities.
As a nation we have moved beyond exploring gaps and hindrances to our efforts to modernise and enhance service delivery.
One senior manager remarked that we couldn't be eternally locked in the diagnosis stage.
We have a good sense of what and where these blockages and challenges are.
We can cite lack of capacity to implement, lack of relevant and appropriate methodologies, lack of integration and co-ordination.
What has become clear from experience and history is that many of our challenges cannot be tackled through individual effort or even by individual departments.
Operating in silos and in competition with one another has not yielded results but becomes costly as we reinvent what has already been invented in another department or province.
The practice of sharing and exploring solutions together can only benefit all of us.
This is what makes team learning and forming learning networks an absolute necessity.
Most of you believe that if you ask for advice from a colleague, you are in fact belittling yourself, exposing your ignorance.
The truth is, if you ask for advice or opinion of other people your ideas and knowledge become sharpened.
We have to learn from the insights of the citizens, the insights of our partners, other governments, and the private sector NGOs.
That is why it is important that as different provinces we come together to share our experiences so that we can speed up service delivery to the people.
We have enough knowledge to enable us to adopt and implement best approaches to improve service delivery.
Let us share this knowledge.
We must avoid the costly mistake of duplication.
But let me stress that we are proud that while we remain with huge challenges, we have made sure that systems do not collapse.
As operational managers you must be commended for rising to the occasion.
However, we must say that a great deal of work remains undone.
We must display through our work and our debates here that we are a new public service committed to serving all the citizens of this country in the most effective and efficient manner.
"Our Business is Service". We have a duty and mandate to serve our people. Let us not fail them.
Ladies and gentlemen, all our efforts will come to nothing unless we deal urgently and purposefully with the HIV/AIDS emergency in and through our training system.
This is the priority that underlies all priorities, for unless we succeed, we face a future full of suffering and loss, with untold consequences for our communities and the public service.
Let me conclude by inviting those who come from outside Mpumalanga to use your time in the province to boost our economy.
For health reasons and to minimise stress levels, avoid just making this a working visit. Go to the slot machines. We need the revenue.
Finally, let me take this opportunity to introduce one of our greatest daughters of Africa who is a revolutionary, a fighter, a mother, and a comrade who gave part of her life for the struggle of this country instead of enjoying her life.
She is none other than our beloved Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
I thank you.