18 Sep 2019

It is prudent for local authorities to be drilled on change management approaches to effect change, of Public Service Reforms coordinator Dr. Omponye Kereteletswe has said.

He was speaking in an interview with BOPA on the sidelines of a change management workshop held in Francistown this week.

Government, he said, was grappling with implementation of projects due to many factors including lack of skills and poor change management approaches.

To that end, he said,  the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration had deemed it fit to conduct workshops to train officers from various offices countrywide.

“The ministry decided to train officers from district commissioner’s office  first as they are the ones charged with implementation of most government projects and programmes,” he said.

Dr Kereteletswe mentioned that for a long time a number of tools such as Performance Development Plans had been used to measure the performance of public servants.

The performance tools helped hold public servants accountable, he said.

However,  as slow implementation of projects continued to be a challenge, Dr Kereteletswe said the Ministry for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration had resolved to look for a better tool that could truly translate strategy into operational terms, such as the balance scorecard.

He said balance scorecard was used to come up with appropriate objectives and measurements.

For now its purpose had already been fulfilled.

Balance scorecard, he stated, helped to ensure that public servants’ reporting was consistent and aligned to the national performance framework.

Dr Kereteletswe said he was hopeful that at the end of the workshop there would be a marked improvement in implementation of all government projects across local authorities.

Local authorities employees were key enablers of change in their offices, he said advising them to commit to driving performance and implementation of projects in their designated areas. ENDS