17 May 2017

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MFED) on May 16 hosted the Northern and North West branch awards ceremony in Francistown to recognise and appreciate hardworking officers.

The awards were held under the theme: Fostering a culture of excellence: 'Fifty years and beyond.'

Giving key note address, Senior policy advisor from the ministry, Dr Wilfred Mandlebe said apart from celebrating excellence and networking, the awards were aimed at improving service delivery to clients.

He further added that this year’s awards had introduced new categories such as ‘change agent award’ and the ‘most customer centric officer award.’

Dr Wilfred highlighted the selection process for awarding officers, noting that some of the qualities they looked into were initiative creativity, public spirit, responsibility, confidence and vision.

“We celebrate with you on your achievements, being recognized as best performers come with challenges of high expectations of proving to everyone that you deserve the awards,” Dr Mandlebe said. He advised recipients of awards to continue rendering good service to the nation, adding that hard work and teamwork were crucial in the department.

Giving his welcome remarks, the deputy accountant general Mr Othusitse Lebuletswe applauded the department, saying it has grown remarkably from being a small revenue office to an organisation that has branches across the country.

“We need to be distinct and to be distinct we have to have the culture of being compliant. We have transformed because we asked ourselves clear questions; that is why we are here to award ourselves for a job well done,” Mr Lebuletswe said.

Ms Grace Sekwababe, a senior assistant accountant general said the end of the awards marked a dawn for a new challenge to make the next awards bigger and better adding that what was left was for them to go back to their offices to do better in their profession.

She further encouraged stakeholders not to hesitate but to apply themselves to the best of their abilities in order to keep the department afloat. ENDS