Pretoria - Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has urged employees at the Department of Home Affairs to put the public first and to help improve the department.
Addressing cadre ambassadors in Pretoria, on Friday, the Minister urged the ambassadors to work hard at improving the image of the department.
The department’s Cadre Ambassador Programme was introduced to turn around the organisational culture and management of people as individuals, leaders, managers and teams. The programme aims to instil a high performance culture and output based performance within the department.
“What we want you to recognise, wherever you are is that our clients come first,” he said, adding that in the past, Skhumbuzo Mhlongo committed suicide after he was refused an ID. The 22-year old took his life in 2009.
“We must create an organisation where there is a high culture of working hard; of professionalism; where there is leadership everywhere; where there is excellence everywhere,” said the Minister.
Speaking to the cadres, the Minister said he believes that the department needs good, strong, fair, solid leaders everywhere and that the customer experience of ordinary South Africans at Home Affairs is of importance.
“Members of the public are my concern,” said Minister Gigaba.
The Minister further added that the department does not introduce any system processes or programme for the convenience of officials but rather for the benefit of the public.
“They come first. As cadres remember that all the time, our clients come first wherever you are deployed. The only debt we owe to Skhumbuzo Mhlongo is to ensure that no other South African goes through the frustration that he went through which caused him to take his life. We must remember him,” explained the Minister.
Minister Gigaba said that he had received compliments from the public on how service delivery has changed from bad to good but he also added that things still need to change at some Home Affairs offices.
Other members of the public, he said, were still experiencing bad service, adding that this experience needs to change.
Minister Gigaba urged the cadres to bring about change in the department and to be innovative while also discouraging them from being lazy.
“I don’t want laziness at Home Affairs,” he said, adding that the department must only recruit those who can improve the department and assure it of excellence.
“We are not only a department that issues IDs and passports, birth and death certificates among others. We are at a crucial connection between economic development, security, service delivery and governance and administration. We are the most critical enabler, we are the backdrop of government service,” said the Minister.
The Minister also spoke out against corruption, adding that since April 2015 up until now, over 30 people had been arrested in connection with corruption at the department. - SAnews.gov.za
