Cape Town – The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) has recognised its staff members for their dedication and contribution to the agency achieving its clean audit.
Acting Director General Donald Lephoko said this shortly after presenting the annual report of the GCIS to the Portfolio Committee on Communications in Parliament on Tuesday.
“The Minister of course has congratulated us for reaching this milestone. We recognise that there is individual effort with every person that is within GCIS. Every employee has contributed towards ensuring that we achieve this audit outcome,” he said.
The Acting DG said while the audit outcomes came as good news for good governance, a lot of work still needed to be done to maintain the performance.
The GCIS is mandated to provide communications support to government’s cross-cutting communications campaigns.
Liphoko said the agency’s key achievements over the past year include providing communications support for the 2015 State of the Nation Address, the Presidential Local Government Summit – which adopted the Back to Basics Strategy, the launch of Operation Phakisa and the African Charter and the repatriation of the mortal remains of South Africans who died when a guesthouse collapsed in Nigeria.
“The GCIS is exceptionally proud of the audit outcome. The AG has confirmed that we have started to entrench a culture of professionalism that we strive for, service excellence in all that we do.
“As you would know, only a handful of departments have been able to achieve this audit milestone, and for us, we think that it calls for celebration but there is much more work ahead of us so that we can maintain a clean sheet of audit outcomes in the future.”
Meeting government’s communications needs
The GCIS, which was established in 1998, was launched to ensure that government, overall, coordinates its communications strategy across all spheres of government to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in getting key messages to members of the public.
Harold Maloka, the Deputy Director General responsible for content processing and dissemination, said a lot of progress has been made “to help government communicate in one voice”.
Maloka said among the products that were produced and distributed to grow the voice of government included:
- Some 45 000 copies of the 2013/ 14 SA Year Book being produced;
- The production of 11 editions, or 18.7 million copies, of Vukuzenzele newspapers in all official languages, including 4950 copies in braille;
- 11 editions, or 151 991 copies, of Public Sector Magazine and 48 copies of the weekly newsletter My District Today being published.
“We produced research cluster reports to guide planning and inform communication strategies of government communication clusters. We also produced research advisory reports for various national departments and Premiers’ offices.
“Content convergence delivered government information to more people on more platforms.
“The South African Government News Agency [SAnews] Twitter following grew tremendously. The following was at 19 000 in April 2014 and grew to more than 45 000 by March 2015,” he said.
He said SAnews wrote at least 20 opinion pieces that were published in mainstream media to ensure government’s key messages are communicated.
Other notable achievements, Maloka said, includes the launch of two government mobile apps – Vuk’uzenzele and the SA Government website.
Nebo Legoabe, Deputy Director General responsible for intergovernmental coordination and stakeholder management, said GCIS managed to successfully roll-out several community outreach campaigns.
This includes:
- Some 2238 development communications project reaching more than 53 million people;
- Approximately 2506 community stakeholder liaison visits conducted;
- About 326 public participation events where political principals interacted with the community; and
- Around 746 marketing events to increase the visibility of the Thusong Service Centre.
She said GCIS managed 272 media bulk buying campaigns with a total committed amount of R273.2 million, saving departments a total of R24.6 million. – SAnews.gov.za
