Public Services Commissions across the continent should uphold constitutionalism when executing their mandates. Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Public Service and Human Capital Development Hon. Justin Muturi who was the chief guest at the Sixth AAPSCOMS Elective General Assembly, urged delegates from 10 African countries and representatives of three others when he officially opened the conference on October 6 2024 at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi. He said Commissions must perform their roles diligently while promoting good governance, noting that forming the AAPSCOMS enabled various African nations to come together and share noble ideas that promote efficiency and service delivery.
“Strengthening the Association needs to be supported because Public Services Commissions are central to achieving the United Nations sustainable development goal number 17,” said Muturi.
He observed that the public service sector was a critical player in development and that no country in the world has ever developed without a strong public service. “The public service provides public goods and services such as infrastructure, education, health, law and order,” he added.
Muturi noted that access to and delivery of public services continue to be a major area of focus in ensuring responsiveness to citizens’ needs. “Bringing together public service professionals from different countries to a joint conference promotes synergy for exploring ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness,” he said.
Referring to the conference theme, “Driving public service delivery transformation through innovation and technology,” the CS urged the Association to integrate technology into public service delivery.
“Having innovation and technology as per the theme challenges us to interrogate how public services can ride on the information technology revolution to address the revolving pressure in service delivery and other areas,” he said.
Hon. Muturi pointed out that governments using technology hold enormous promise for both public servants and citizens. He observed that applying information and technology can eradicate time consumption and cumbersome processes that frustrate everyone and make governments more accessible to people. The CS noted that the technological revolution has created avenues for engaging the young generation wishing to join the government.
“Automation and artificial intelligence which can perform routine, repetitive or other tasks is faster and more efficiently than humans and could be put into good use in a host of other areas of public service, particularly those involving masses or paperwork or queues of citizens waiting for service delivery,” he said. The Cabinet Secretary also urged participants to learn continuously from each other.
“I therefore urge you to relentlessly pursue the outcomes of the discussions to ensure that every commission leaves this conference with a take home that will make a positive change to the citizens,” he stated.
