1. HON. Members, the PFMA promotes good financial management, in order to maximise service delivery through the efficient and effective use of limited resources. However, other existing legislation and prescripts also has an impact on the activities of all departments.
2. Part 5 of the King IV Code for good governance deals with leadership, ethics and corporate citizenship. The principles 1 to 3 highlights conduct, organisational ethics and responsible corporate citizenship, respectively.
3. Therefore, it is fundamentally important that public officials act justly and fairly to one and all, ensuring that these are manifested based on Batho Pele principles. It is imperative that each public official, upon accepting government employment, takes cognizance of the fact that there is a special duty to be open, fair and impartial in interacting with the public.
4. To this end, HON. MEC, Treasury needs to foster and sustain high levels of civil servants’ good governance and ethics. The increased concern about corruption and the decline of confidence in both the integrity and capacity of public administration should prompt a KZN review of approaches to good governance and ethical conduct.
5. Government’s image depends upon the conduct of public officials and what perceptions our citizenry has regarding the acceptable standards of services offered by officials. Therefore, the Minority Front would like to see back to basics training on the eight Batho Pele principles by Treasury in a co-ordinated manner. This should improve KZN’s services satisfaction surveys meaningfully.
6. HON. MEC the MF supports this budget of R607.8 million.
7. Thank You.

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

Minority Front  MPL KZN Legislature