The White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery (1997:11) requires that government commit to a citizen-centred approach to service delivery. The Citizen’s Charter has been developed from the Bill of Rights incorporated in Chapter 2, Sections 7 to 39 of the Constitution of South Africa. In the Foreword of the KZN Citizen’s Charter (2009:1), the former Premier of KZN, Dr Zweli Mkhize explains explicitly that “the government therefore, by way of this document, makes a commitment that it will uphold your rights as a citizen… The Charter therefore ‘lifts the veil’ from the face of government, in order to enable each and every citizen to get a clear picture of his/her rights and privileges, while at the same time ensuring that civil servants act with diligence – free of corruption and malpractice – at all times, for the good of all levels of society” It is against this backdrop that strategic use of communication (services) will facilitate good governance through accountability via transparency, both internally and externally. The revised policy on communication services is the key mechanism to realise this objective of government, and is emphasised with significance through this research study.
Batho Pele, which is a Sotho translation meaning ‘People First’, is a process intended to get public servants to be service-orientated and accountable for the level of services they deliver. The KZN Citizen’s Charter, furthermore, commits every government official in KZN to the adoption of the Batho Pele Principles. This Charter is the KZN government’s attempt at good governance, and its core thrust is the service delivered to the citizens of
the province. The first eight principles are national principles whilst the last three have been added by the KZN legislature.
A major concern currently is the high rate of corruption present within the public service.
Despite the Ombudsman in KZN being operational, accessible via the Presidential hotline (contact number 0800 596 596) as well as being present in the Office of the KZN Premier, much more needs to be done to minimize, if not eradicate, fraud and corruption within government. In his State of The Nation Address (SONA) on 09 February 2012, President Jacob Zuma emphasised that his government has prioritized “the fight against corruption”
and that it was working closely with provincial government departments to “improve governance, systems and administration.” President Zuma’s 14 February 2013 SONA also included his strong statement that government is “cracking down on corruption, tender fraud and price fixing in the infrastructure programme.”
This concern with corruption within the government sphere was reiterated in the 2012 State Of The Province Address (SOPA) by former KZN Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize, who stated that the KZN government was also considering “additional mechanisms to fight fraud and corruption” and that the Citizen’s Charter, Batho Pele and other relevant information would “empower the citizens to evaluate the performance of the public service.” In the 2013 SOPA, former Premier Dr Mkhize referred to this area of concern when he stated that “we note media reports almost on a daily basis about how devious crooks, colluding with corrupt public servants, are stealing millions of Rands intended by the State to support the indigent, disabled and vulnerable among us.” The Premier chose to speak on the issue of ‘Good Governance and Administration’ as a dedicated item on the agenda, with his opening words being, “At the beginning of the term of this current Administration, we undertook to create an image of a clean and efficient government, with a strong focus on good governance and to be very firm and decisive in the fight against fraud and corruption in our Public Service. We continue to maintain this position.” The Premier also emphasised the importance of consultation with regard to the National Development Plan, 2030 by stating that “a comprehensive Citizen Satisfaction Survey is underway to indicate the specific areas where the people of this province want us to focus
our efforts in the implementation of the Plan.” The intent of the Provincial Government’s agenda to interact with its citizens in service provision continues to be of paramount importance. This concern with minimizing corruption within the public sector was also reiterated by Ms Ndala Mngadi, the GCIS Provincial Head of KZN, in her opinion piece on 04 September 2014 titled “We can all help to stop corruption,” where she maintains that good communication with the public is essential to ensure citizen-awareness of the channels that they should use to access government services, as well as their being enlightened on the efforts of government to address such challenges.
The concern with poor service delivery, fraud and corruption and risk management through the monitoring and evaluation process, and its link to transparency is inextricably associated with the communication policy. The Batho Pele policy remains government’s most important ‘crusade’ to transform the public servants into serving citizens as their most important client. Visser & Twinomurinzi (2008:4) believe that the “use of e- Government as a service delivery enabler will definitely support government’s service improvement philosophy of Batho Pele, thus putting people first. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can put people first, but only if the use of ICT is supported by the underlying business processes.” The success of both ICT inclusion and e-Governance is also dependent on the efficacy of the communication policy.
Ngcobo (2009:113) postulates that government has an obligation to promote the use of all official languages but that “the primary impediment, however, is that indigenous languages are not considered adequately developed in order to be used in all domains of language use compared with English and Afrikaans.” Communicating with the citizenry in their language of choice would indicate adherence to the Batho Pele Principles of access, information and courtesy, considered as important focus areas in policy operationalization in the country.
The afore-mentioned documents entrench the rights of the citizens of South Africa not only to quality service delivery but to total access to the operations of the government-of- the-day, duly elected in the new dispensation in democratic South Africa as well. These
documents concretise the accountability of government, manifested by government officials and political office-bearers alike, through legislation. Gould & Kolb (cited in Tunde & Omobolaji 2009:14), believe that the term ‘accountability’ “focuses attention upon the sanctions or procedures by which public officials may be held to account for their actions.” Accountability serves as a quality control device for the public service so that the public can expect the best service from the public service.