Africa-Press – Botswana. Kgatleng District Council staff have been implored to restore confidence and trust on citizens.
This was said by Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, deputy permanent secretary – Operations, Ms Mmamiki Kamanakao when addressing Kgatleng council staff recently.
Ms Kamanakao said following the Reset and Reclaim agenda, employees should be cautious of the fact that something must had gone wrong regarding how things had been done.
She said therefore, they should come out of their comfort zones and change their attitude towards work as well.
“The Reset agenda to you should mean that “We have made mistakes, wheels have come off. Let us acknowledge our mistakes and improve service delivery,” she said.
In that regard, Ms Kamanakao said it was imperative for council to work towards improving organisational culture to become effective and serve diligently.
She said the recently launched Mindset Change should further be a constant reminder to employees that they should change their attitude towards work and ensure there was effective service delivery.
Ms Kamanakao pointed out that the employees should introspect and do away with things that had not yielded performance and prioritise on impactful service delivery.
“Let us drop the dumb and resist from doing things that have not bring out positive results,” she said.
She pointed out that most concerning issues before the ministry was failure to prioritise projects, delayed project implementation, inaccurate costing and lack of monitoring among others.
In that regard, she urged staff members to desist from compartmentalising themselves and work with other ministries of departments that influence the local government budget.
“If we rationalise budget and justify why we want some projects to be included in our budgeting, we can always be prioritised in the budget provision.
Let us challenge ourselves and make a good case as to why we need money,” she said.
She encouraged them to drive performance and inculcate the culture of pre planning and not wait for the eleventh hour to submit budget proposals.
“This cut and paste of projects on the State-Of-Nation-Address and Budget speeches should come to an end,” she stressed.
Other issues, she covered included addressing issues of staff welfare, staff motivation and poor communication and issues of abuse of junior staff, which she said were appalling among district councils.
She further urged the council to improve record keeping, infrastructure maintenance, social services provision, waste management and vegetation control, licensing and permits and improvement of monitoring and evaluation.
“I want you to start paying attention to some national pronouncements and align yourselves to decentralisation policy, read laws and move away from ‘business as usual’,” she said.
For their part, employees requested the deputy permanent secretary to pay attention to staff welfare issues that demotivated them and issues of progression among other concerns.
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