04 Jun 2014

The acting Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Mr Vincent Seretse says service delivery is of concern in the public service.

Giving a keynote address at his ministry’s 2013/14 excellence awards, Mr Seretse said following the release of the 2012 customer satisfaction survey results, “it became abundantly clear that our customers were not happy with the service that we provide as public officers.”

Results of the survey, he said, also showed that public officers did not have a sense of urgency in providing service and that there was lack of re-dressal of grievances, including inconvenience and inaction on reported cases of negligence by officials.

Furthermore, the survey revealed that there was lack of respect for customers and clients, who were often rebuked and ridiculed when they needed service.


Therefore, he said, in an effort to improve service delivery and respond to the ever changing and increasing demanding needs of its clientele, his ministry had been exploring new and innovative ways in which it could better deliver on its mandate.

In pursuit of this goal, he said the ministry had adopted and was implementing a new “shared services” structure. This restructuring exercise, Mr Seretse said was meant to make the organisation deliver in the best way possible and “to achieve a ministry structure that is lean at the top, and that separates policy formulation from implementation, whilst strengthening service delivery on the ground.”

In addition, he said the ministry had also introduced a District Operations Coordinating office where all ministry functions would be performed and coordinated in order to improve resource utilisation, enhance supervision at the local level and achieve economies of scale.

Furthermore, Mr Seretse said the new structure had also decentralized the ministry’s implementation functions to the Office of the District Coordinator- thereby allowing the executive management team to focus on strategy formulation and monitoring activities.

Through this, it is expected that the implementation and service delivery decisions will be made by those who are closer to the action- thereby improving the quality and timelines of decisions.

In her welcome address, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, Ms Ruth Maphorisa, said the awards ceremony was meant to reward those who demonstrated creativity and commitment.

This, she said was the ministry’s second awards ceremony, adding that the events were also intended to encourage and motivate the ministry staff to deliver. 
 She said the ministry improved its rating in the previous financial year by moving from the 67 per cent to 69.9 per cent and were able to maintain position two.

This, she said was commendable and encouraged the ministry staff that “our grading should be reflective of services offered to clients.”Excellent performance was recognised and rewarded to four best performers under the B, C, D scales and to a former industrial class officer.

These awards were scooped by; Ntaoleng Rakgotla, Selebaleng Monkutlwatsi, Thuso Kotswana and Kristian Mmusi. All the four walked away with a P1500 cheque, a certificate and a trophy.

The group awards were scooped by the; best sports team- the ministry’s netball team and best WITS team- Botswana National Library Services’ Kgakgathi team. All team members got a P500 cheque, a certificate and a trophy.

Other awards went to; creativity and innovation award- Mr Omphemetse Ramabokwana, Mr Pitso Mokane, Mr Emmanuel Otukile and Ms Kgadimo Thutlwe and vision 2016 award- Ms Monica Selelo. All these award winners also walked away with a P1500 cheque, a certificate and a trophy.

The minister’s award winner, Ms Seiphimolo Goilatshwene, got a P2500 cheque, a certificate and a trophy. Ends