Address by Public Protector Adv Thuli
Madonsela on the occasion of a stakeholder consultation
meeting in Cape Town, Western Cape
16 March 2010
Programme Director,
Executive Deputy Mayor of the City of Cape Town; Mr Alderman
Nielson,
Councillors,
Heads of Departments,
Representatives of various government departments,
Representatives of Chapter 9 and other state institutions,
City Ombudsman; Mr M Baba,
Chaiperson of the Cape Bar Council; Adv Jeremy Muller,
Political Parties present,
Members of the media,
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Let me start by extending my warmest greetings to all of you
this morning and also express my sincere appreciation for
your positive response to our invitation for this meeting.
Let me also thank Executive Deputy Mayor Nielson for a
warm welcome to the Mother City, the legislative capital of
our country.
This is the city well-known the world over for its
natural setting, which include popular landmarks and tourist
attractions such as the Table Mountain and the Cape Point.
It is also a few kilometers outside this city, where one
can find Robben Island, an island where some of our
country’s freedom fighters, including former President,
Humanitarian and Nobel Laurete Nelson Mandela, President
Jacob Zuma and his deputy Kgalema Motlanthe, were imprisoned
during the dark days of apartheid.
I am sure that, as some of the 2010 FIFA World Cup games
will be played here at the Greenpoint Stadium, our
international guests will have a good time touring these and
many other sites found in this province.
Honourable Mayor, we truly feel welcome in the City of
Cape Town and not only do we hope to have a wonderful stay
in your territory, we also hope for a productive visit all
round.
Coming to why I am here today, most of you may be aware
that early last month, I embarked on a consultative process
across the country, holding talks with stakeholders,
including the general public.
I kick-started this process in Gauteng and to date have
interacted with stakeholders in six of the nine provinces.
As this process winds down, I must say I am satisfied with
the inputs and response I have received thus far.
This process will culminate in a national stakeholders
meeting, where I will be mainly giving feedback about what I
have gathered from the provinces.
The purpose of this consultative process is to introduce
myself and engage you on the Public Protector Vision 2020,
our proposed vision for the next 10 years, with the aim of
sourcing comments and inputs so that we can jointly path the
direction this institution will follow during my term of
office. I believe copies of this document have been
distributed to all of you. I will take you through shortly.
I am also here to establish what your expectations are
regarding the services of the Public Protector, obtain your
views regarding the legislative and constitutional mandate
of the Public Protector. I would also like to discuss
cooperation for purposes of enhancing the responsiveness of
my office to the people of this country.
Yesterday I had a successful meeting with Premier Helen
Zille and I must say I am satisfied with the support she
pledged for the work of our institution. I am confident that
with such relations, our work will be much easier.
Programme Director;
At this point, I am going to briefly discuss what the Public
Protector is and what role this institution plays in a
constitutional democracy for the benefit of those who may be
hearing about for the first time. I do this with a full
knowledge that most if not all of us here are aware of the
existence of this institution and its role.
The Public Protector is established by the Constitution
to receive and resolve complaints about the services and
conduct of organs of state. Alleged and suspected corruption
and other forms of maladministration in the public sector
can also be investigated by the Public Protector.
The Public Protector possesses the power to investigate,
mediate, negotiate, conciliate and take remedial action to
ensure that all components of the state are accountable and
responsive to the needs of all.
I conduct investigations and resolve complaints in terms
of the Public Protector Act. In addition to that, my
responsibility includes enforcing the Executive Members
Ethics Act and playing a role in enforcing anti-corruption
legislation and a few other laws that regulate the conduct
of public authorities.
As the Public Protector, I am independent of government
and political parties and therefore carry out my
responsibilities impartially without fear, favour or
prejudice. That is, in a nutshell, what the Public Protector
is about.
Programme Director;
In its mid-year population estimates for 2009, Statistics
South Africa put the Western Cape populace at a staggering
5, 356 million heads. This amounted to about 10,9 percent of
the total South African population.
While certain indicators such as literacy levels, access
to electricity for lighting, piped water and sanitation in
the Western Cape reflect figures that are fairly favourable
when compared to other provinces in the country, this
province still faces many socio economic and other
challenges.
These include general service delivery by government,
particularly at a local level. However, government is
endeavouring to address some of these stumbling blocks
through specific programmes such as the Local Government
Turnaround Strategy, which is currently being implemented
nationally, including in this province.
The service delivery challenges that I have just alluded
to are, to a certain extent, reflected by the upward trend
in the demand for Public Protector services in this
province. For example, in the 2008/09 financial year, my
office in this province received a total of 812 complaints.
By March 2010 in the current fiscal year, the same office
had received 1140 complaints, marking a 40 percent rise in
complaints received. Just over a thousand of these (1093)
were finalised.
The top four institutions that communities complained
against in this province this financial year were
municipalities, the Department of Home Affairs, Department
of Labour (mostly Unemployment Insurance Fund matters) and
the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).
The municipalities and Home Affairs led the pack, each
accounting for 16 percent of the total complaints. These
were followed by Labour which accounted for 12 percent of
the complaints while SASSA accounted for only 11 percent.
As the Public Protector, we have a general challenge of poor
cooperation from some government departments and state
institutions, which today’s meeting also aim to address.
However, following my meeting with the Premier, I am hopeful
that we will see a positive shift.
We are also continuously liaising with fellow Chapter 9
institutions. In addition, we have entered into Memorandums
of Understanding with Regional Coordinators of Community
Development Workers in the Cape Town Metropole to share
information, cooperate in relation to the improvement of
service delivery in communities and for public education
purposes.
While still on the public education subject, I must
mention that we have been using the little resources we have
in this province to ensure that we reach out to all
communities and raise awareness about our existence.
Apart from the provincial office, which is located here in
Cape Town, we have a regional office in George to try and
enhance accessibility of our services. Obviously this is not
enough.
To supplement this, we have the outreach programme
through which we cover the rest of the province. Between
April and December 2009, we reached out to all regions of
this province, conducting 73 public education sessions.
During these sessions, which were mostly conducted in remote
areas, members of the communities were able to consult our
investigators and lodge complaints.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Vision 2020 I referred to earlier
includes the following:
Vision
A trusted, effective and accessible Public Protector that
rights wrongs and consistently acts with integrity to ensure
fair, accountable and responsive decision-making, service
and good governance in all state affairs and public
administration in any sphere of government.
Mission
We serve the public in accordance with our constitutional
mandate by rectifying and redressing any improper or
prejudicial conduct in state affairs and resolving related
disputes through investigation, mediation, conciliation,
negotiation and other measures to ensure fair, responsive
and accountable public sector decision-making and service
delivery.
Values
- Independence and impartiality;
- Human Dignity;
- Equality;
- Ubuntu and Empathy;
- Redress;
- Accountability;
- Integrity;
- Responsiveness;
- Transparency; and
- Justice and Fairness.
In addition, we are guided by three main principles
namely accountability, integrity and responsiveness. We have
also proposed strategic objectives for the next three years
as the mechanism for ensuring, among other things, that
there is prompt remedial action for all wrongs committed by
public authorities and that good governance generally is
achieved in the conduct of all state affairs.
Programme Director, we are also making several improvements
with the aim of serving complainants more effectively and
responsively. The key improvements include improving
turnaround times, primarily through an early resolution
mechanism we have just created.
We have also shifted our operational emphasis from
focusing on investigations to resolving complaints against
public authorities. We resolve the complaints through using
various powers I am given by the Constitution, which include
investigations, mediation, conciliation, negotiation and any
other competent action as I have already indicated.
I’m also in the process of implementing measures to
strengthen our capacity especially on the areas of rigour
and forensic investigation. These are critical for
investigating corruption and other forms of
maladministration.
Another area of focus is that of systemic interventions to
identify and address the system malfunctions that lead to
poor service delivery.
Lastly, I trust that we will have fruitful discussions
this morning so that we can realise the ideal of an
accountable and responsive public sector that puts the needs
of the public first.
Thank you.
Adv TN Madonsela
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