key note address by rt. hon. amama mbabazi, sc. mp prime minister ...

THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA
KEY NOTE ADDRESS BY RT. HON. AMAMA MBABAZI, SC. MP
PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA
AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE 1 ST PUBLIC SECTOR
INNOVATION CONFERENCE, 26TH – 27th NOVEMBER 2012
NWSC INTERNATIONAL RESOURCE CENTRE
KAMPALA, UGANDA
26th November 2012
at 9:00am

Rt. Hon. Henry Muganwa Kajura, 2 nd Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Public Service
The Members of Parliament
Senior Government Officials
Development Partners
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am delighted to join you today on this occasion of opening the
1 st Public Sector Innovation Conference. I thank my colleague Rt.
Hon. Henry Muganwa Kajura, 2 nd Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Public Service, for inviting me to give the Key Note
Address. I wish to congratulate the Civil Service College Uganda
and Ministry of Public Service for organising the Conference
which is a national landmark.
This conference comes at a time when we have just celebrated 50
years of independence. The first 25 years were marred by postindependence
political crises and economic breakdown. The NRM
Government has restored peace, economy and infrastructure
which provide a conducive environment for creativity and
innovation. As we innovate, we should be guided by Vision 2040
which aims at achieving A transformed Ugandan society from
a Peasant to a Modern and Prosperous Country within 30
years.
The achievement of this will largely depend on public officers who
implement Government policies and provide services to the
citizens.
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The motivation and commitment of public officers to find
innovative ways of achieving this vision is critical for success to
be celebrated.
The Theme of the Conference: “Service Excellence Through
Innovation” is definitely pertinent to Government objectives.
Service Excellence is the ability of a provider to consistently
meet and satisfy customer expectations.
As a nation, we strive to achieve excellence in form of clinical
services in hospitals, curriculum delivery in schools and
universities, correctional services delivery in prisons, justice
delivery in courts of law, agricultural extension, public transport,
and so on.
The public sector is facing both local and global challenges. The
global economic crisis, rising cost of service delivery, changing
demographics, hyper connected world, new global competition
and pervasive globalisation pose serious challenges. New ideas,
therefore, are required to resolve these challenges and take
advantage of new opportunities.
Innovation in the Uganda Public Sector, particularly in policy
development, programme design and implementation and service
delivery (that comprises processes, application of technology,
leadership and culture, among others), is fundamental in
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providing targeted and efficient public services, that are more
responsive to citizens' needs.
Public Servants have a pivotal role to play in making innovation
happen. You must be champions of change, bringing forward
fresh ideas. I call on you to embrace action and new ideas over
the next two days that you will be here.
One of the Government strategies in Uganda's Vision 2040, is to
adopt a 'business approach' in delivery of public services.
The Public Sector can no longer rely on the traditional way of
doing things - 'business as usual'. It must continuously 'think
outside the box' and institutionalise innovation. To do this the
Public Sector culture must change. We need to deliver better
services: more cheaply, more efficiently and more effectively.
But embracing a new 'business approach' requires shifting our
mind-set. From institutions, teams and through each leader, we
must be innovative - driven in our attitudes and behaviour.
I would like to share a few thoughts on the key ideas of this
Conference, which include:
1. Process Innovation;
2. Technology as an Enabler of Service Excellence;
3. Accelerating a Culture of Innovation;
4. Service Innovation; and
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5. Becoming leaders of Innovation.
Process Innovation: Calls for us to examine the core Public
Sector processes, procedures and systems that deliver services to
citizens.
Highly performing organizations worldwide are characterized by
flexible structures and quick operational procedures for doing
business. Currently, the systems and processes in public service
are too long, too manual, and excessively rule-bound and rigid to
deliver the services efficiently. While it is recognized that systems
and procedures are required to guard against unscrupulous
behaviour, it is fundamental that the systems are flexible enough
to facilitate effective service delivery. As a result, the cost of doing
business/delivering a public service in Uganda is quite high due
to the number of procedures and resources deployed to attain a
specific business output e.g. acquiring land, registering the
business and obtaining an operating license, among others. For
example, in 2010 Uganda was ranked 112 th out of 183 countries
in the whole world in the high cost of doing business (World
Bank (2010) Cost of Doing Business). This state of affairs must
change.
It is imperative that public sector entities plan for regular reviews
of processes, procedures and systems; and allow room for
innovative ideas that can be translated into best practices.
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Technology as an Enabler of Service Excellence:
Developments in Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) in our nation and globally, have enhanced delivery of public
services. Citizens are demanding for more meaningful
engagement and citizen focussed delivery of services. Public
Sector entities need to strengthen and build the capacities of
implementing technology innovations that meet and exceed
citizen expectations.
Building a Culture of Innovation: Innovation is more likely to
increase and be sustained in a culture that encourages,
recognises and rewards new initiatives and provides an enabling
environment to translate these initiatives into best practice.
The Uganda Public Sector, however, tends to be complacent and
hesitant to change. To transform the service into one that is
innovative requires both structural and cultural change. Culture
is not so easy to change, but it does change.
As leaders at various levels in the Public Sector entities, you have
the mandate to set the philosophy and culture in your
organisations. You, therefore, need to ensure that you put in
place the right policies, procedures and processes that facilitate
innovation and build a culture of continuous learning and
responsiveness to change. In other words, you must become
Leaders of Innovation.
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Becoming Leaders of Innovation: A leader must drive 'top down
innovation’ but also provide space for 'bottom up innovation'.
Innovative leaders need to create the trend, not to follow the
trend. You must always be proactive and looking for
opportunities for improvement – Challenging the processes.
Besides, you must create an environment (a culture) where
everyone can innovate. Once you do this, you will unleash
Uganda’s greatest resource: its people.
Service Innovation calls for placing the citizen at the centre. It
requires public officers to focus on understanding and satisfying
the needs of citizens. Mediocrity is not an option, only excellence.
It calls for investment in quality Public Sector Research and
Development activities in order to deliver to achieve service
excellence.
I am happy to note that during this Conference some of the
notable innovations in the Public Sector will be recognised and
the brains behind these innovations will receive awards. I hope
you will join me in celebrating their success.
We must have more like them. When we celebrate more years of
independence we, our children and grandchildren should look
back at this conference and the ideas exchanged as the “turning
point” that drove innovation, increased our country's
competitiveness globally and transformed the Ugandan Society
into modernity and prosperity.
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I would like to commend the winners of the various Innovation
Awards. I salute those officers who went beyond the call of duty
to deliver excellent service. We recognise your contribution and
pay special tribute to you. Your dedication and commitment to
service exemplify the spirit we want to inculcate in each public
officer. The Awards should be an inspiration to you to take
innovation to the next level. You should also share your stories
with other public officers so that they can learn from your
success. The rest of the public officers should also learn from the
Award winners and aspire for service excellence through
innovation. The awards support sharing of best practices among
the public agencies. I hope this will spread the learning and
spawn new and even better ideas in the Uganda Public Sector.
I wish to end my address by recognizing partners, individuals
and organizations who have made this day a reality.
I would like to commend and thank the 2nd Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Public Service with his team for effective
planning and successful organization of this important event.
In a special way, I would like to thank the World Bank for
funding the Uganda Public Service Performance Enhancement
Programme and this Innovation Conference in particular.
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I commend the Canadian International Development Agency and
Institute of Public Administration of Canada for their support
through the Ontario-Uganda Partnership.
I also thank the Resource Persons from Ontario Public Service
and Estonia who are here to facilitate at this conference and also
deliver training in management of innovations after the
Conference. I also thank our Ugandan Resource Persons from
various Government Institutions for accepting to come and share
with us the good practices.
Lastly, I commend the Civil Service College team for taking lead
in supporting Innovation in the Public Sector. I am hopeful that
with these activities, innovation will take root in the Uganda
Public Sector.
In conclusion, the Uganda Government must innovate. Our
Public Sector is a key lever in our development agenda.
There are a number of Innovations in the Public Sector that
Government is proud of, and these must be recognised and
rewarded. However, Government urges more Public Sector
entities to come up with innovative ideas to meet the increasingly
changing needs and expectations of the citizens and build a
culture of innovation spearheaded by the leaders of the entities.
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I urge you during this Conference to identify the barriers to
innovation and agree on a framework for understanding the
processes that underpin Innovation in the Uganda Public Sector.
A framework that will facilitate an Innovation culture in order to
drive high performance, productivity, cost savings, service
excellence and greater public service value that Uganda needs.
I now declare the Conference open and wish you fruitful
deliberations.
I thank you.
For God and My Country
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