15 Feb 2015

President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama has urged public officers to improve productivity in order to serve customers efficiently and effectively.

Speaking during a meeting with public officers in Mahalapye on February 12, President Khama said government employees should not be seen as people with poor working ethics

Instead, he said, they should compete with the private sector in terms of service delivery to drive the country’s economy forward. “I know there are some officers who outdo themselves in their endeavour to help the public and we have achieved a lot as a country because of them, but we have to do more as a team,” he stressed.

President Khama said government intended to introduce an award and reward system meant to recompense and motivated high performers. Also, he said, promotions should be based on hard work and productivity, but not solely on one’s education and qualifications which was the case in the past.

On the issue of officers placed on half salary during their long term training, President Khama said the matter had to be reviewed, as he felt it was disadvantageous to the concerned employees. 

He concurred that officers on training should be paid full salary as they were acquiring skills intended to benefit the employer upon their completion. As for the issue of shortage of accommodation, President Khama said the problem was worsened by the economic recession.

“We know that struggling or sharing accommodation can disturb productivity but government is on a mission to abate the situation,” he said.  He pointed out that some ministries were given money to either buy or construct houses for their employees during the past financial year, and that would continue in the next financial year.

However, some officers requested government to insure its fleet, but President Khama said the move would be expensive. He said the issue was once looked into, but it was felt that insurance companies would reap government off as the vehicles were many. 

President Khama argued that it was better to buy new fleet with the money that could have been injected into insurance companies.

He further said government was aware that some departments were experiencing shortage of transport, but they were on a mission to buy more vehicles to arrest the situation.

Regarding the problem of vehicle maintenance, he said after realising that Central Transport Organisation (CTO) was overwhelmed, government decided to give ministries permission to engage private garages and brigades. 

Likewise, he said some departments such as that of wildlife and national parks would be allowed to recruit mechanics who would assist in repairing vehicles. Furthermore, President Khama said they had agreed to allow ministries to outsource minor maintenance of their offices while the Department of Building and Engineering Services (DBES) would be responsible for major ones.

Meanwhile the director of the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), Ms Ruth Maphorisa decried lack of information dissemination within government departments. Ms Maphorisa said questions raised by employees were an indication that supervisors failed to communicate important information to their subordinates. 

For instance, Ms Maphorisa said the issue of multiple grading for artisans had long been communicated to ministries. She explained that there was a directive in 2008 demanding ministries multiple grade C-band posts.

At that time, she said a special dispensation was given to the ministries to submit the budget of the posts they intended to multiple grades, but some failed to comply resulting in disgruntled employees complaining about progression. 

The DPSM director said there had been complaints that Remote Area Service Allowance (RASA) was not properly implemented. “I am certain that some employees are not even aware that there are notches in RASA,” she said.

She highlighted that an officer was entitled to move to the next notch every year. This was the information that supervisors failed to pass to their subordinate, she noted. On request by some public officers that Self-Help Housing Agency (SHHA) be extended to officers on D3 to D1 scales, Ms Maphorisa said the move would not be possible as affordability was limiting government.

Also, she said government did not want to be seen as competing with private sector instead of creating a conducive environment for them to thrive. Ms Maphorisa further said DPSM was introducing names tags which would be accompanied by customers’ feedback forms in all government departments. 

That, she said was meant to improve service delivery. Ms Maphorisa implored officers to remind customers to fill in the forms every time they were assisted.

The forms would then be forwarded to ministries for assessment every month. She explained that they had been doing a trial run in some department, but the forms would be rolled out to every office before the end of the month. ENDS