Government seeks to strengthen efforts for all spheres, as well as social partners, to work together in alignment to achieve its objectives of creating jobs, eliminating poverty, creating an inclusive economy and reducing inequality.

“We need to forge a solid and seamless synergy with all government departments, entities and social partners, align our plans to these strategic objectives and long-term developmental plans,” Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele, said on Friday.

Delivering the DPME budget vote, Gungubele said for government to effectively achieve the goals encapsulated in the National Development Plan (NDP), South Africa has to overcome the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, rebuild the economy, equip people with the necessary skills, fight corruption both in government and the private sector.

The July 2021 unrest, floods and the drought in the KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West Provinces further compounded the country’s challenges.

“The National Developmental Plan remains our lodestar as we continue to deal with current and future challenges post the COVID-19 environment. We must recalibrate our efforts to ensure that our plans are implemented within the set time and allocated budgets,” Gungubele said.

In this regard, the DPME will undertake Inter-governmental and public consultations on the revised Integrated Development Planning Framework Bill.

“We remain committed to produce a legal framework that will usher in a new predictable and automated planning paradigm and discipline within and across all spheres of government. We anticipate that these consultations would be finalised by September 2022 and the necessary updates to incorporate comments will be effected by March 2023,” the Minister said.

Over the years, the DPME has consistently assessed all departmental strategic plans and Annual Performance Plans to ensure that they are aligned to the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) and NDP.

“These efforts were augmented with a series of training sessions for key planning functionaries in government to get them up to speed with the planning framework and guiding concepts.

“This work, which will continue in the financial year 2022/2023, has been enhanced by the development of a much more nuanced theory of change that would guide integrated development planning in government and ensure that all components of the government machinery work collaboratively to achieve the set MTSF and NDP outcomes,” the Minister said.

This work has also been strengthened by the introduction of the National Annual Strategic Plan (NASP) in the planning cycle of government to improve developmental results.

“The NASP sets out the priorities for the year ahead and improves alignment between the medium-term priorities and annual plans and budgets of departments. The NASP is in alignment with the priorities that were set out in the President’s 2022 State of the Nation Address, NDP and the MTSF,” the Minister said.

It is anchored on four key areas that are aimed at stabilizing the current situation and lead to full recovery, namely; management of the pandemic, economic recovery, employment support and relief and building state capability for effective delivery.

In line with these key areas, the NASP identifies 10 critical interventions that should find expression in the departments’ Annual Performance Plans.

These top ten interventions include the need to massify job creation, effect structural reforms and create conditions for ease of doing business in the country.

It also focuses on digitization and modernization, food security and household income, provision of basic services, access to clean drinkable water and dignified sanitation, encourages citizens to take up vaccines for protection against the COVID-19 and deal with corruption decisively.

“The implementation of these top ten interventions will be monitored and evaluated on a monthly basis to ensure consistence in alignment and delivery. We will ensure that this enhanced planning paradigm finds expression across all spheres of government through the District Development Model (DDM),” the Minister said.

The DPME chairs the Presidency Steering Committee on the DDM and has already established a number of work streams to assist in driving integrated planning and implementation of programmes in the 44 pilot districts.

The DDM adopts an integrated approach and dispels silos in the implementation of government programmes across the three tiers of government.

It intends to ensure that plans translate into implementable programmes that yield demonstrable results.

Over the medium term, the DPME will continue to monitor government performance towards the achievement of envisaged outcomes by, among others, conducting bi-annual integrated medium-term strategic framework (MTSF) monitoring reviews.

“These reviews are aimed at measuring progress against MTSF priorities to achieve improved accountability of the government in the implementation of service delivery programmes and projects.

“The reviews will include monitoring of the implementation of the Industrial Master Plans, Food and Nutrition Security, Gender Based Violence and Femicide, COVID-19 Assessments and Operation Phakisa Assessment and the Ease of Doing Business in the country,” the Minister said.

Budget allocation

The Minister has committed deploy R470.9 million of the budget vote for the financial year 2022/23, towards building an integrated evidence based planning, monitoring and evaluation system.

“It is our view that this will significantly improve the capability of the state to deliver and promote participation of various stakeholders and ordinary people,” he said.

With the budget made available, the DPME has made the following allocations:

R190.4 million for the compensation of employees, goods and services.

R84.6 million towards the improved development outcomes for the country through the coordination and institutionalisation of an integrated government planning system. This includes the monitoring of the NDP; automation of the planning system across all government institutions; and stakeholder engagement programmes of the National Planning Commission (NPC).

R69.4 million dedicated to monitoring government’s progress on its achievement of the goals set out in the NDP.

R83.1 million to provide appropriate support for the implementation of the MTSF.

R43.4 million dedicated towards advancing evidence-based planning, monitoring and evaluation. This will enable reporting on selected indicators on economic and social development in South Africa, Technical support interventions.

Source: South African Government News Agency