12 Jun 2017

Top civil servants converged on the University of Botswana indoor sports facility on June 12 to discuss ways to realise efficiecy in service delivery.

The convention comes in the wake of mounting calls for the civil service to innovate in the face dwindling resources as well as growing inclination to technology by the public.

Officially opening the annual meeting, acting Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Thato Kwerepe said there was need to instill a culture of innovation across government, leadership and followership in order to ensure effective service delivery.

Addressing the theme ‘The future is now: Accelerating Innovation for Agenda 2030’ he noted that it was critical to transform the public service to enable it to deliver innovatively at a much higher level “as we look towards 2030.”  

He called for sound application of public service reforms and leveraging on technology, robust human resource capital and opportunities to provide innovative solutions to complex challenges that governments the world over were faced with.  

Minister Kwerepe reiterated that as Botswana moved towards implementation of vision 2036 it envisaged ‘Prosperity for all’ targeted at improving quality of lives for Batswana.

He said Nation Development Plan 11 prioritised private sector -led economy and an internationally competitive human resource as well as a knowledge led economy.

And that called for mindset change in the way government operated.

He noted that there was need for the public sector to be proactive in cascading the benefits of innovations that had been produced through Work Improvement Teams to benefit the public service as a whole rather than application in other segments of government.

Mr Kwerepe explained that improvements were made in the public service which saw entities scooping awards at international platforms.

He, however, expressed worry that Botswana’s work ethic ratings continued to decline according to world competitiveness reports, calling for improvement.

“Poor work ethic and low productivity may render us uncompetitive and hinder the achievement of the national priorities on poverty eradiation, job creation, a corruption free Botswana, education and skills development, health and citizen economic empowerment,” he said.  

For the challenge to be dealt with he called for a more customer centric approach that was responsive, proactive, innovative and transparent.  

For her part, the director of public service management,  Ms Ruth Maphorisa called for sustainable action and encouraged leaders in the public service to raise the bar higher in the face of global challenges,.

“The future is now. We must strive to deliver. We are challenged to act. As leaders we need to set the tone. We need to build a critical mass of workforce irrespective of where we stand with them. No one should be left behind,” she said

Sharing experiences on public sector modernization, ambassador of Japan Mr Mashahiro Onishi said  publics ervice reform was a critical issue that could enable effective service delivery in government.

He said his government continuously improved on its deliverables by amending  performance management systems,  looking at the current trends.

He said the performance management system was competency based, adding “promotion and salary increase should be based on merit.” ENDS