Ilva
Mackay Langa
Briefing to Portfolio Committee on Communications
10
May 2002
GCIS
budget vote: Provincial & Local Liaison, Project Desk, Human
Resources, Financial Management, Logistics & Auxiliary Services,
and Internal Audit programmes
I will try to touch briefly on some
of the highlights of these diverse areas.
One of the major priorities of this
programme over the past year has been the roll-out of the MPCC programme.
To date 18 MPCCs are servicing the needs of citizens in all provinces
across the country. The aim is to launch 27 during this current
financial year and the remaining 15 by the end of 2003. This will
total 60 MPCCs, which will cover all the districts in the country.
The MPCC programme has reached into the most remote parts of the
country and has provided the opportunity for government to extend
its services to communities who were previously excluded from receiving
such services. We are often confronted by painful images in the
media of families starving because there are unable to access govt
services because of lack of birth certificates or ID books. The
MPCC programme is one means of ensuring that such services are accessible.
To date the kinds of services provided in the MPCCs include:
- Department of Home Affairs providing birth and death certificates, registration of customary union marriages, issuing of ID and passport documents
- Social Development processing applications for child, disability and pension grants
- Agriculture conducting extension programmes for the improvement of land usage and its productivity
- Department of Communications offering a Public Information Terminal and a Telecentre that gives the community access to computers and Internet.
- Department of Labour processing UIF claims
- Some MPCCs have community banks, Citizens’ Post Offices, clinics, Arts and Crafts centres
- Government Information Centres supply the community with information about government
and we are encouraging other departments to make their services available in this one-stop government centre.
The challenge that we have been faced with for some years, has been the extension of the government communication and information system to the local level. This is a priority for us in this year and steps have already been taken to achieve this objective.
The local liaison activities of GCIS Communication officers have been re-oriented to be based at the ward level of local municipalities (Category C). Links have been forged with most Metropolitan, District and Local Municipalities. This has been made easier by the primary role being played by local government structures in the ownership and management of MPCCs.
In the majority of MPCCs launched this year, local government has
appointed centre managers to oversee the MPCCs.
Discussions have also been initiated
with SALGA regarding the forging of partnerships to build greater
unity between the communication structures of the three spheres
of government. As a result, SALGA is represented on the intersectoral
steering committees on MPCCs nationally and provincially; It is
also represented on the government Communicators Forum and on the
Forum of Provincial Heads of Communication.
At the invitation of the District Municipality,
GCIS also conducted a pilot case study in the Amatole District in
the Eastern Cape to assess the feasibility of national and provincial
communication structures offering communication-strategising support
to local government. This programme will be rolled out during this
financial year and a strategy to involve local government more comprehensively
in national and provincial communication systems, will be developed.
GCIS will also be partnering SALGA
in hosting a conference for local government communicators in June
this year. Issues of access to and involvement in communication
systems, as well as the requisite staffing requirements for communication
at local government level, will be assessed.
Project desk
GCIS has adopted a project management
approach to most of its work and the project desk serves as the
single entry point for govt depts into GCIS. We have developed a
Government Communication Programme which is a GCIS portfolio of
communication projects based on the President’s State of the
Nation Address.
We operate on the basis of the five
clusters as found in the Cabinet Committee system –with theme
supervisors for each cluster and a team to serve of the various
projects. Through this method we believe that we will develop specialization
and expertise in all these areas and provide more effective support
to government departments in their communication efforts.
Approximately 5% of our personnel budget
has been allocated to Human Resources Development. The Department
is currently engaged in a skills audit from which the skills development
plan will be updated and implemented.
Senior and middle managers are undergoing
various management training programmes in order to enhance their
management skills. Emphasis is also being placed on the recruitment
and training of African women in middle management positions. Management
courses on mentoring and coaching, diversity management and change
management are being planned for all GCIS managers in 2002/2003.
Senior managers have also been identified to attend managerial training
provided by DPSA.
Affirmative action targets
GCIS is progressing well in meeting
the national target in terms of representivity. As of 1 May 2002,
our staff complement of 306 comprises 49 % women, as compared to
48% in May last year. 85% of our total staff are black, compared
to 80% at this time last year. The figure for our disabled staff
is more or less constant, at just under 1%.
In management i.e. director level and
above: 80% of our managers are black (83% in May last year). With
regard to women in management, the national target for women by
the year 2005 is 51%, and GCIS currently has 40% women in management.
(41% last year).
Budget for 2001/2002
GCIS was allocated a total of R124
213 for the last financial year, 2001/02. Our total expenditure
to 31 March 2002 amounted to R122 736 434, which is 98,8% of our
budget. Of the remaining R1 476 566, (1.2%) an amount of R1 418
000 had been committed, and at the appropriate time we will request
National Treasury to move the funds into the new financial year.
As promised both to this Committee and to SCOPA, we have tried to
operate within the confines of our budget allocation. The problems
we experienced with overspending due to an insufficient budget have
been overcome and our allocation for this financial year, 2002 is
R144 m. The largest allocation of our budget remains R50m for International
Marketing and R23.4m for Provincial and Local Liaison. We have tried
to increase the allocation to CSA for the production of information
products for various campaigns such as the Imbizo, and State of
the Nation multi-media campaign.
Presentation by Ilva Mackay Langa,
Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Centralised Services, GCIS
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