18 Feb 2013

The Selebi Phikwe acting deputy district commissioner Ms Ruth Mmereki has urged civil servants to provide quality services to customers.

Addressing civil servants during the Selebi Phikwe Urban Development Committee (UDC) meeting on February 14, Ms Mmereki said civil servants must provide quality services which were accessible and in a timely manner.

She noted that the National Strategy Office has embarked on a ‘mystery shopping’ exercise where officers engaged in the initiative would move around randomly in government departments and institutions in disguise as customers  to check if services rendered by civil servants were up to standard and delivered in a timely manner.

She told officers to always be ready and be up to scratch all the time while pursuing their daily obligation adding that the Vice President Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe and Permanent Secretary to the President Mr Eric Molale would also be conducting un-announced visits to government departments.

 She explained that the move aimed at identifying problems affecting service delivery and finding solutions. This, she said would not victimise public officers.

For his part, Selebi Phikwe Town Clerk, Mr Mompati Seleka said this came after government realised that there was poor work ethic within civil service.

He said poor service delivery impacted negatively on the economy of the country and government’s mandate of providing proper services and improving the lives of Batswana.

He said the ‘shopping mystery’ initiative would help government to identify areas in service delivery that needed upgrading.

“The initiative is aimed at helping government to gather information to make informed decisions to improve service delivery. Authorities have identified that services are rendered to customers poorly and this needs to be rectified so that services are rendered to specific standards,” he said.

On other issues Mr Seleka urged committees that report to the UDC to come up with detailed reports that also include recommendations and solutions to problems encountered when rendering services.

“Instead of making presentations during UDC that only pin point problems encountered when assisting the public, committees should also come up with solutions or ideas to solve the problems or make recommendation on how the problems experienced could be resolved,” he said.

“For instance if primary schools experience shortage of food for pupil, officers should not only make presentations to the UDC stating that there is shortage of food in schools but rather they should explain why there is shortage and also make recommendations on how to solve the problem thus making full and informed presentations to the UDC that could help make improvements,” he said.

He further explained that UDC meetings were of high level meetings for heads of department’s that do not only identify problems in service delivery but come up with solutions to better service delivery. ENDS