14 Mar 2016

Ministry of Lands and Housing held its inaugural corporate Services Awards where  deserving officers were awarded certificates and prize money of P500 and P1 000. 

Speaking at the event, director of Town and Regional Planning Mr Peter Moalafi said the ceremony is to celebrate the very best of employees and honour those whose work embodies the ideals and values that draw the admiration, salute and respect from their colleagues and the public.

Mr Moalafi said although it may sound rhetoric, it is common knowledge that employees must be at the epitome of any organisation irrespective of the unit, division or department they are assigned as they are united for a common, purpose, goal and vision.

He said corporate service provides the breath and life of the ministry at large, wind beneath their wings and gives a sense and purpose to all adding that it exists to motivate and improve staff morale through developing, implementing and monitoring strategies to address the needs of every employee of the ministry.

Mr Moalafi said the ministry is entrusted with provision of sustainable human settlements the ministry’s mandate dictates adding that staff create conducive medium of interaction with a wide range of stakeholders daily to meet the expectations through various progressive strategies for the benefit of the organisation in service delivery.

“The organisation that recognises its employees encourage staff to perform well while rewarding them is an icing on the cake,” citing that top performers should be recognised and rewarded for their contribution which will in turn encourage others to perform better.

While not everyone will be recognised, he said he believes that they all have their morale boosted and encouraged them to achieve a healthy competition going forward.

The director also noted that awarding staff carries a potential to retain employees whilst promoting the organisation’s values and goals as the outcome of rewarding employees carries improved customer satisfaction through committed, dedicated and engaged employees who are proud of the organisation they serve.

He urged them to be agile, responsive to the needs of their customers and harness the opportunities of technologies and global trends to improve service delivery as they are living in the ever changing environment.

“This will allow us to effectively respond to the ever emerging challenges to delivery of services by the public Service as well as the need to keep up with social, economic and technological developments that impact us and our customers,” he said.

He urged them to recognise the limited resources that government has and the need to rationalise such resources by doing more with less than doing less with more resources and pray for work to match their strength and ability instead of praying strength and ability to match their work.

For her part, senior manager Ms Thabologo Ndzinge said her ministry boast of 9 departments, 12 land boards and a staff complement of over 2 700 employees.

Ms Ndzinge encouraged all to do their best and perform to the best of their ability because when they underperform, other departments fail.

She said although there are only 38 recipients, this was a starting point that they could use to measure staff performance with reference to feedback from stakeholders. ENDS