National Assembly:   22nd September 2009

Debate on the Green Paper on Improving Government Performance
 

The IFP welcomes the release of the green paper on performance, monitoring and evaluation for public comment and discussion. In all probability we do hope the green paper will pave the way for an accelerated delivery of basic services to the poor.

However, as the IFP, we think it is wrong to believe that the establishment of the Ministry will in itself be a panacea to a whole range of serious problems impeding government performance.

These impediments relate to a wide range of issues such as corruption, unrealistic expectations, top down approach, unfilled vacancies as well as the quality of leadership, to mention only few.

Since the establishment of the ministry a lot of questions have been asked about its mandate and the capacity of government to monitor its own performance. The IFP suggests the following:

In the same way we have an Auditor General, we need to create a watch-dog, similar to chapter nine institutions, that will evaluate the overall performance of the Government. Such a chapter institution will operate independently of the Ministry and will restrict itself to non-financial issues. If this role falls within the ambit of the Public Service Commission then it will need to beef-up the commission.

More importantly South Africa need to think about introducing a 'public service academy', likewise in India, in which every public servant undergoes training.

The new Ministry needs also to create a 'war room' in the Office of the Presidency in which they will press a button to show the progress of all delivery projects in respect of timelines and budgets.

The hard question is whether the government is interested in listening to the concerns of its citizens-or merely overhearing them?

It is important to stress that efforts to improve government performance and the pace of service delivery cannot be left to the government alone, to monitor its performance. All of us including government need to find a way to promote greater citizen participation in monitoring and evaluating the performance of the government.

People's concerns need to find a resonance with the new Ministry that aims at evaluating and monitoring government performance, in order to improve and accelerate delivery of services.