Pretoria – The backlog of invoices that were not paid within 30 days has been reduced notably, says Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
Briefing journalists on the Governance and Administrative Cluster’s first quarter report in Cape Town on Thursday, Sisulu also said the Department of Arts and Culture was working towards unveiling the statue of former President Nelson Mandela in December.
This comes after President Jacob Zuma and other members of the national, provincial and local government executives expressed concerns that the delays in processing invoices harmed emerging businesses and entrepreneurs.
“Some progress has been made, although it remains a challenge.
“The cluster has made major inroads in improving service delivery, including … [a] drop in invoices not paid within 30 days from 82 685 in February 2013 to 69 825 as at the end of May 2013,” Sisulu said.
Sisulu said part of the progress that was made in the period under review includes:
- A decrease in processing of social grant applications from 30 days in 2010 to two days in 2013;
- A 92% resolutions rate for received calls to the Presidential Hotline by June 2013;
- Cases from the National Anti-Corruption Hotline that were closed by departments improved marginally from 39% in February to 37% as at 15 July.
Implementing frameworks to improve delivery
Sisulu also said when the current administration took over, Cabinet committed to ensuring that government received value for its money that it pays to its public servants.
In turn, government would provide a conducive working environment for public servants to ensure that they perform to the levels expected of them.
“In this regard, we undertook, amongst other things, to develop a Service Charter and establish the National School of Government. The successful launch of the National School of Government and the signing of the Service Charter with labour strengthen our efforts to build an efficient, effective and development-oriented public service.
“The implementation of the Charter will raise the standard of service delivery experience and further improve on the progress we have made in the first 20 years of freedom,” Sisulu said.
As part of professionalising the public service to improve service delivery and eliminating corruption, Cabinet recently approved the submission of the Public Administration Management Bill to ensure, amongst others, that public servants declare their financial interests and are prohibited from doing business with the State.
Together with the establishment of the National School of Government, the Bill also made it possible for the Public Administration Ethics, Integrity and Disciplinary Technical Assistance Unit to be established.
Sisulu said in collaboration with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), her department had developed an e-Disclosure system to capture and manage financial disclosures.
“On matters of Human Resources Management Development, the percentage of Senior Management Service members’ financial disclosure forms filled with the Public Service Commission on time increased from 74% in 2012/13 to 85% in 2013/14,” she said.
Sisulu vowed that with the introduction of e-disclosures, compliance would improve to 100% by next year.
Residence permits applications backlog halved
Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said the Service Charter would also improve the turnaround times to reduce waiting times for renewal of driver’s and car licences, and would increase the efficiency in processing permanent residence permits applications.
To this effect, she said, 10 757 applications had been processed out of the backlog of 23 945 applications.
Sisulu said to enhance security and productivity, permanent resident permits will in the near future be printed, “unlike in the present practice of issuing handwritten certificates”.
“Also, temporary permits, including asylum seeker permits and refugee permits, will in future be electronically printed.” – SAnews.gov.za
