Staff reporter
TRANSPARENCY, coordination and timeliness were some of the key values that the Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, highlighted as important for the Office of the Prime Minister’s strategic planning efforts.
“Strategic planning enables public institutions to actualize the policies adopted by State institutions for the promotion of the public welfare. They also enable public institutions to account to the public on how they are meeting their respective mandates,” the Prime Minister stated at the opening of the annual strategic planning workshop, which took place on Monday in Otjiwarongo.
Emphasising the importance of prudent resource management and transparency, the Prime Minister referred to the recently launched Anti-Corruption (ACC) Strategy and Action Plan, stating that all offices, ministries and agencies are required to establish an Integrity Committee and to review processes that are prone to corruption.
The Prime Minister also highlighted the need to identify the obstacles that hinder the prompt execution of government programmes. According to her, some agreed programmes are not executed on account of bureaucracy or lack of coordination, even when funding is availed.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila also stressed the need for digitalisation in the delivery of government services as it could accelerate the rollout of public services while reducing cost administration and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public service.
According to Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, “timely and responsive, well-coordinated interventions” are also necessary when it comes to addressing the obstacles that have constrained the country’s economic growth and eroded socio-economic progress over the last five years. These obstacles include but are not limited to, weather conditions, adverse developments in the global economy and Covid-19.
“These developments have highlighted the vulnerability of our economy and the need to build the resilience of our economy and systems to external shocks. We should thus prioritize mainstreaming of resilience in the policies and operational plans of public institutions. In this respect, the completion of the resilience strategy needs to be prioritized,” she added.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila also stated that the wage bill reduction, expenditure audits, HCMS, customers’ satisfaction survey and Business Process re-engineering must also receive due attention.
“Civil servants are serving the public on trust given to us to govern on behalf of the citizens who are the absolute sovereigns. Such trust requires that we at all times deploy our maximum efforts to provide public services without favour to all needing it, and that we excel in so doing. We must also be results-oriented and coordinated,” she explained.
