GovSA Ltd’s Profit Proposition
Government generates all its revenues from all sorts of taxes ranging from corporate tax; individual tax (the biggest revenue generator); surcharge tax on certain products and services; value added tax (VAT) as well as customs and excise duties. However, as we’ve seen with the recent mid-term budget policy statement delivered to parliament by Minister Gordhan, sometimes the revenue raised from taxes is simply not enough to accommodate government expenditure. When this happens government usually has two options available to it regarding additional funding namely, borrowing or the most undesirable option of them all, the simple of printing money via the Reserve Bank.
The most ideal option for any government is clearly to generate enough revenue from taxes to cover total planned expenditure; this therefore requires a very clear profit proposition or tax and revenue collection strategy by government. At a provincial and local levels, government generates some revenues from charging for certain services such as water and electricity as well as from fines levied on certain transgressions such as traffic offences.
The role people and technology in Government
A key success factor for government in effectively collecting all monies to due to it is to ensure that it has well trained people doing the collection job but more importantly government must couple this with the employment of technology to make the revenue collection more convenient. In part two of this series I highlighted government’s success in employing technology to collect taxes through its e-Filing platform. Another great idea that government has employed is the electronic payment method for traffic fines. Where government seems to fail is in the collection of revenue from household- related services , specifically standard rates and taxes. Local government seem to find it difficult to properly administer the billing regarding rates and taxes and as a result many homeowners fined themselves unintentionally in arrears owing thousands of Rands as a result of poor government systems and processes.
GovSA Ltd’s People Proposition
By far the most critical proposition which is essential to effective government is a people proposition. Government’s people proposition should aim to have a motivated and well trained staff. We often hear of commercial organizations strategically focusing on attracting and retaining top talent as, imagine therefore if the government of President Zuma had the same focus. Having top talent in government is certainly one of the most critical requirements for excellent service delivery. Ultimately .President Zuma’s success in execution depends on both its people and its partners, to this end the values as defined by the President Zuma must form part of the culture of the GovSA Ltd. organization as a whole.
Gov SA Ltd’s Performance Evaluation
Performance against each of the three value propositions discussed in this series, namely government value proposition, government profit proposition and government people proposition is essential. Therefore, having a strict performance evaluation mechanism across all government departments is key with scorecards that trickle all the way from the top of the organization to the individual employees on the ground. The Managing Director of the newly formed division of Performance Management Monitoring and Evaluation would play the role of providing the guidelines of how performance ought to be evaluated and how often the evaluation ought to take place. However it’s not enough to have government scorecard in place, what is critical is that this scorecard must be made public and the results of government’s performance against such a scorecard must also be made available to the citizens. Imagine how refreshing it would be to have a government that is transparent and willing to share with its citizens on its successes and falilures.
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