| dc.description.abstract | In 1995 the government set up an independent task team(Comtask) to
study South African communication challenges and to recommend to
government how to address these challenges. The team observed the
following issues about government communication:
* Communication suffered from poor morale and lack of mandate,
* Overall government lacked central co-ordination in messaging,
* Adequate planning of information campaigns and communication
was given a low priority (Burger 2004).
Government Communication and Information Systems (GCIS) was
established in terms of section 7 sub 2 & 3 of the Public Service Act, 1994
as amended. The GCIS was officially launched on the 18th of May 1998,
with a vision to assist with the communication and information needs of
government and the people to ensure a better life for all, and a mission to
provide leadership in government communication and to ensure that the
publics are informed of governments implementation of its mandate.
GCIS strategic objectives are to ensure that the voice of Government is
heard, foster a more positive communication environment, have a clear
understanding of the publics information of Government communication
needs, promote interactive communication between government and the
public, and set high standards for government communication.
To reach its objectives, the CGIS aims to provide excellent media and
communication service to government departments, make government
information centres (GICs) and Multi-Purpose Community Centres
(MPCCs) critical elements of government communication. It assists in
developing media, communication and information policy, ensures
efficient services to the media, and produce information products for
dissemination to citizens. It also integrates the international marketing
South Africa, and continually transform itself and to develop its
management and employees to meet the demands of its mandate.
The results of the present study indicate that that the Government has not
achieved its mandate to get the government services closer to the people.
Most of the respondents do not know the roles of the Government
Communication and Information Systems and neither do they know of the
MPCCs and the role they are suppose to play. The MPCC initiative is an
ideal situation but presently not yet a reality.
The Government itself lacks coordination and monitoring systems and the
problems it is also facing is that of capacity and expertise, compounded by
the fact that most communicators lack skill and are not qualified to be in
the posts of coordinating communication strategies. There is also lack of
positive relation between political principals and communications officers.
Recommendations are that a crash course on Organisational
Communication should be developed for political principal in order to
show them the importance of their communication office.
Secondly, optimise establishments where communities congregate or
frequently meet to obtain services and information with the idea of
supplementing their communication capacity. To eliminate the problems
of lack of capacity and expertise, only candidates with qualification should
be employed, especially head of departments and clusters. | en_US |
