Queuing for Government Services!

Why do we as South Africans, accept to stand in queues like this? and only complain to one and other about how bad things are.

Batho Pele - Putting people first?

To me the most revealing thing about Batho Pele is its website!

While Batho Pele is a process for the user of government services, the website gives no way of addressing the system in writing.

The INTERNET contact form specifically states

"due to high volume of mail, we're not always able to provide a personal response"

Submissions to the the form resulted in no response after 3 days, although a specific request was made to establish electronic communication.

To add to the inefficincy the website was offline for several hours on 16/03/08.

Batho Pele - What is It?

Batho Pele was established by Government to

"enhance the quality and accessibility of government services by improving efficiency and accountability to the recipients of public goods and services".

promising the user of government (local, provincial and national) services that eight service delivery principles be implemented

* regularly consult with customers
* set service standards
* increase access to services
* ensure higher levels of courtesy
* provide more and better information about services
* increase openness and transparency about services
* remedy failures and mistakes
* give the best possible value for money.

Do these things seem to be being done in the areas you interact with? - definitely not for me!

Machadodorp Musings III

Helping Hawkers?

The hawkers (under the tree & in the insert), the old unoccupied building (across the intersection) and new building shows a flawed process. I have seen in many places including KwaNgwanase, Bazana, Soetfontein and am sure it happens over and over again.



Local government (with a desire to help the poor) see the hawkers and, maybe pressurised by some of the old guard, want to get the hawkers off the road. They don't think of using the empty buildings nearby but build new ones. They presumably consult (but not well enough) the hawkers and design and have something built like that at Maschadodorp. They expect to attract the hawkers and get them to move into the new building.

However, the hawkers don't find any advantage in moving, possibly for one or more of the following reasons:

• the rent is too high - anything is a lot more than nothing (happened in Mellville)
• its too hot inside as its just a corrugated iron roof (I have seen this in Soetfontein)
• it doesn't meet the behavioural needs (women sit on the ground in front of counters selling from the floor in KwaNgwanase)
• its not as pleasant and socially open
  

I of course can't assure you these are the real and the only reasons, but then its not my job to build these centers. I have informed the municipal manager of this post & given her the right of response.

However, with all the failures, I believe its the duty of local government to identify the real problems and share there experiences so that others don't blunder after them.

These small stalls obviously were not an enormous cost but the problem is that similar errors are made with many public buildings (including many similar stalls, Majadje Food Processing Center in Limpopo, Community Center on road from Josini to KwaNgwanase ... - all possible future stories.)

Public Service Capacity

The following exerpt from a call for bids in the Northern Cape got me thinking


what should we really expect from the English of Public Servants - can we really accept being

"..herewith invited to the supply of ... "

should we worry that they want

"..a broiler house typical to that of a poultry farm.."

or is that just being pedantic. But lets hope the same level of English is not used in the call otherwise we start to get difficulties in adjudication and in the contract otherwise...

But at a more significant level this is obviously the start of an attempt to create jobs with taxpayers (my) money by getting into the private sector. Lets hope at least they have an experienced business man (lets not train someone with no drive to be an entrepreneur) to run things. Otherwise it will go the way of many project, examples of which I can relate from experience:

• build something fancy but most often not approipriate
• put up the sign saying who did it
  
• get the minister to cut come and cut the ribon
• see it all on TV and the Good News site
• try, with out sufficient capacity, to get it to work
• forget about it - infact don't tell anyone what didn't work, which would be very useful
• go on to the next one

Then one level more what of the municipality - well they have obviously made a bunch of people happy finding a new name and developing a great logo (only excuse the quality it was a scan from the Sowetan) but does the poor work in publishing their call reflect their real capacity.

If you can't communicate how can you manage anything, let alone a municipality and what do you do with taxpayers money - interfere with the business men who really know how to manage and control. OK so they are not all supermen, but they are not using/loosing my money.

Its all very cynical, but what can we contructive can I do about it?