04 Nov 2015

The Kweneng District Council (KDC) has become the first council in the country to be certified ISO 9001:2008 compliant.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday (October 3), Kweneng council secretary,  Mr Wadza Tema said the council adopted the Quality Management System (QMS), through the ISO 9001:2008 standard to address negative perceptions such as corruption and inefficiency and to ensure quality and reliable service delivery to residents.

Mr Tema said bad publicity against the council was rife forcing management in 2011 to find better ways to serve constituents.

“Complaints were high and when an institution spends 60 per cent of its time attending to complaints, then the situation is bad and must be addressed,” he said.

He said inconsistencies in the delivery of services was due to the lack of standard operating procedures to guide service delivery.

Mr Tema said although the council planned to be certified by August 2013, hiccups along the way did not deter them to achieve their objective of quality service delivery and were finally certified last month.

The council secretary said the QMS’ other focus would enable the council to consistently provide services that meets customer satisfaction and applicable regulatory requirements.

He said the council has planned a ceremony to celebrate the achievement and has invited Vice President, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi to officiate at the event on November 9.

He assured the media that in order to ensure that the council complies with its standards; it has launched the Kweneng citizen/community observatory board to build reliable government and citizen participation through the strengthening of a consistent and sustainable culture of transparency and accountability.

“The board will evaluate how we do things and make reports on where we lack, and this feedback will be used to close gaps and improve areas identified,” he said.

He added that the citizen observatory board would review the council based on 39 indicators that would be distributed in four major categories. The categories define the services that the council should have in order to be reliable in its services rendered to the community.

The media was also briefed on the Mafenyatla service centre/hall, which is expected to facilitate a new approach to service delivery comprising a call centre, government departments and council service cubicles, kiosk and a copy shop under one roof.

Mr Tema said the one stop service centre would also ensure that all basic services that deal directly with the customer such as licensing, matimela, revenue collection, bye-laws and other services were accessed and housed under one roof.

He added that it was envisaged that services such as Omang registration and collection, immigration services, cattle branding registration and renewal, transport license renewal, vehicle registration, library, copy and coffee shop would be on offer.

For his part, the council chairperson, Mr Jeffery Sibisibi said to boast its efficiency and tighten internal controls, the council has intoduced QMS to ensure consistency in operation, reliable service and ultimately improved operational efficiency. Ends