WHITE RIVER – “Administrators must not derive pleasure from their political principals lacking knowledge on administrative matters,” says premier Mr David Mabuza. He was speaking during a provincial senior-management summit held at Ingwenyama Sport and Conference Resort in White River last week.
“The shortcoming in some politicians is that we are not knowledgeable. We are just laypersons who are in leadership positions because we were voted in by the people.” He explained that administrators such as heads of departments and municipal managers should help politicians understand these matters. “Nobody was born knowing everything. They should not rejoice on our shortcomings, whether that person is a fool, just humble yourself before the fool because that fool is there for a reason (sic).”
The premier also warned members of the executive, mayors and senior managers not to involve themselves in tender processes as it was “killing the efforts of sustaining small businesses”.
“These quotations for tenders are milking the government. Its resources end up not going in the right way. These are meant to deal with the problem of unemployment and empowerment for small businesses. Out of these tenders there is a lot of corruption, therefore for the politicians to be involved in the quotations means that we are deliberately killing the efforts of small businesses.”
He added that from now on there would be consequences for senior managers who delayed payment of service providers after 30 days. During the same summit, the province’s director-general Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize said that attacking poverty and deprivation had to be government’s first priority.
She said overtime is used to augment salaries instead of adding value and that in some instances employees earned more money from overtime than their salaries. Mkhize said travel claims were a luxury but that some government employees never produced a report to justify their trips.
“Lunch and tea breaks last for hours. Arriving late and absenteeism are some of the symptoms of a dysfunctional and uncaring work environment that disrespects its clients,” she said. “Over years, the Auditor-General has lifted out a lack of consequence management as one of the reasons why public service is struggling. Poor performance, transgression of rules and regulations, late and non-submission of information and shoddy quality of work have come to characterise public service – all done with impunity.”
At the end of the summit Mabuza, mayors and the heads of department signed a citizens’ charter committing themselves to ensure the provision of services.
