SARS, Free State excel at Public Sector Excellence Awards

Surprisingly, the ‘limping' SABC and Eskom were also acknowledged for ‘performing well'.

The Public Sector Excellence Awards is the brainchild of the Brand Leadership Academy, and the inaugural event was made possible thanks to the association with TNS Research Surveys, Wits Business School, Sunday Times, Sowetan, Bizcommunity.com, SAfm, eNews Channel and Ogilvy.

SARS' top leadership and staff will have, at least, something to celebrate, despite the unwelcome news that tax revenues are heading for a massive shortfall due to the economic slowdown, and ahead of the Finance Minister's presentation of the mid-term annual budget today, Tuesday 27 October.

HIV/AIDS programs take centre stage

But all that was briefly forgotten last night at the Sandton Sun Intercontinental as SARS deputy commissioner jovially went up on stage several times to accept the awards, which also included two golds in the state-owned entities category for overall effectiveness and service orientation.

While Gauteng residents were disappointed that their province wasn't in the club of top laureates, Free State Provincial Government ran away with platinum's best reputation, well ahead of Northern Cape (gold), Kwazulu-Natal (silver) and Mpumalanga (bronze) in the provincial government category.

DSD (gold), Finance (silver) and Health (bronze) were voted the ‘most effective' government departments, while HIV/Aids took platinum in the top five government campaigns - in a list that also included Arrive Alive, Health Awareness, Abuse against Women and Children, and Love Life.

Eskom? SABC?

However, controversy hit when the name of embattled parastatal Eskom was announced four times as ‘having excelled' in the state-owned category of internal effectiveness (gold), community engagement (gold) and overall effectiveness (silver).

Eskom also took home silver for ‘best reputation' in the energy sector.

Crisis-hit SABC won bronze for ‘best reputation' (communication sector) - a move set to trigger a heated debate behind the scenes in the journalistic fraternity.

At the end of the event, certain sources - surely not happy with Eskom taking home what they called ‘undeserved awards' - questioned the methodology used to select the winners.

Well-known may not mean well-liked

Addressing the audience, Masenyani Richard Baloyi, Minister of Public Service and Administration, said: “This initiative reflects the view of the people of South Africa. It is not judged by a panel of so-called experts but by the people that our government and its various departments exist to serve.

“This is what makes it so highly credible and worthy in terms of the feedback it provides us with.”

Thebe Ikalafeng, founder of the Brand Leadership Academy, said: “Being well-known does not necessarily mean having a good reputation.

“The results clearly show that the brands that are the top of mind are those that are active in their communities and actively engaged in day-to-day issues such as transport, electricity, communication and health.”

Go to www.brandleadershipacademy.org for more information.