31 Mar 2016

The Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele, has urged senior management in his ministry to be mindful of the ministry’s core mandate as they strategise at the ongoing Ministry of State Presidency retreat. 

Mr Makgalemele stated that the retreat should allow for collective introspection on the best approaches towards providing excellent administrative support within the apex ministry responsible for overall coordination and delivery of the public service as a whole. 

He highlighted that the Ministry of State President was responsible for, among other things, promoting quality life, creating opportunities for self sustenance by citizens, safeguarding and promoting good governance as well as ensuring public administration for effective delivery of national development. 

“To achieve these goals, it requires effective consultative and accountable leadership and coordination of national policies and programmes in order to ensure effective implementation of the policies and programmes,” he noted. 

Mr Makgalemele said with respect to the Presidential agenda, the ministry’s senior team should respond to questions such as what is the relationship between the current programmes and projects with the Presidential Agenda and how to track and communicate progress against the Presidential Agenda and hold role players accountable. 

Mr Makgalemele said this retreat came in the wake of the launch of the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP), whose main objective was to diversify and grow the economy as well as accelerate employment creation. 

The assistant minister noted that ESP was a well thought out programme that had been used successfully by other countries to boost their economies adding that having been used successfully elsewhere, placedthe responsibility on the implementers to make it work for this country. 

He said eleven ministries were implementing the projects along the targeted sectors of development and maintenance of infrastructure,  tourism development, agricultural development; lands and housing, transport and communication, education and skills development; as well as Special Economic Zones.

 More emphasis, he said, should be placed on efficient delivery of projects.

“It is in the light of the above that capacity has been enhanced by the training all district commissioners to augment project monitoring and evaluation structures under the leadership of GICO. Five areas have been identified as major impediments to effective delivery of projects and therefore mitigation measures have been put in place to address them,” he said.

The five areas, he said, were availability of resources such as water and electricity; the needed capacity both within government and the private sector; the necessary reforms in the project cycle such as the time taken to perform Environmental Impact Assessment (EIAs) for projects as well as reduction in the long procurement process; corruption risk management; and the implementation of Doing Business as launched by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. 

He advised the senior management to incorporate these issues in their annual performance plans, to transform project delivery and take efficiencies to the implementation of National Development Plan 11. 

Mr Makgalemele said, “I would be remiss if I failed to take serious note of the fact that our performance as measured by our own performance review tools remains below our own aspirations, as well as the expectations of others,” he said.

“As the apex office of the executive branch of government, our performance must at all-times be second to none and for this to be achieved it will require redoubled effort, as well as a greater degree of teamwork, from all of us,” he said.  

Mr Makgalemele said he expected senior management to fully embrace the need to bring all stakeholders on board to ensure optimal delivery by cascading the revised strategy at all levels to ensure the ministry becomes a shining example for the public service as a whole. 

When presenting on the objectives of the retreat, secretary for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Ms Kebonye Moepeng said the meeting would help the ministry determine their priorities for the 2016/17 financial year. 

She further stated that the meeting would also review performance of various departments and units for 2015/16 financial year. 

The ministry, she said, failed on the performance indicators mostly because they did not device their measures well hence the need to encourage the senior management to improve on that regard. 

Ms Moepeng stated that the ministry needed to define and reflect on the time accorded to different projects and also set targets well to avoid confusing roles. 

“I encourage all of you to ensure customer feedback forms are always available because we all need them to measure ourselves on how we serve our customers,” she said. ENDS