MINISTER’S SPEECH ON CELEBRATION OF CERTIFICATION OF SWSC FACILITIES AT THE EMTFONJENI BUILDING ON THE 9TH OCTOBER, 2014
Programme Director
Principal Secretary
Members of Portfolio Committees in both Houses of Parliament
Chairman and Members of the SWSC Board
Managing Director
SWSC Management and staff
Senior Government Officials Present
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen;
It gives me great pleasure today to see the SWSC realising its vision through certification of a number of facilities within the Corporation. Today we are receiving ISO 9001 certification for the Head Office and Matsapha Water Treatment plant. Such a certification is a key standard in the business world since ISO 9001 is an internationally recognised Quality Management System.
It should be noted that in its endeavour to realise its vision of delighting customers, the Corporation has implemented a number of activities under the Customer Service and Quality strategic focus area. One major objective under this strategic focus area was certification of SWSC facilities.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Nowadays customers are well versed on quality requirements hence an organisation needs to strategically position itself to continually deliver services and products that meet the evolving customer requirements.
ISO 9001 certification is a value-add to the Corporation, because it enables the organisations to adopt a process based approach; with emphasis on customer focus, customer feedback and customer satisfaction. This certification further supplements the recently launched Customer Service Charter which also specifies the Corporation’s responsibilities to the customer.
We have previously seen a number of organisations and utilities outside Swaziland coming to benchmark from the Corporation. I have no doubt that with the certification we are celebrating today; organisations will continue flocking the Corporation for benchmarking and learning from our achievements.
It is also worth noting that ISO 9001 is based on the continual improvement principle, which is actually one of the values of the Corporation. We are therefore, confident that this ISO 9001 certification is not the end, but only the beginning as the Corporation continually explore new and better ways of attaining its vision.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am aware that this ISO 9001 certification is not the first certification since three of the Corporation’s water treatment plants were also recently certified for ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System). It is very encouraging to know that the Corporation implements anEnvironmental Management System which helps to identify and mitigate environmental impacts that can be brought about by the Corporation’s activities. Furthermore the Corporation’s decision to implement OHSAS 18001 ensures that health and safety risks are proactively identified and controlled in a bid to maintain a healthy and safe work environment.
We are looking forward to the Corporation getting more certifications of such nature to the rest of its facilities since this is also in line with the King’s Vision; that of attaining first world status by 2022. It is indeed very encouraging to see Government parastatals like SWSC taking a step forward in ensuring that Vision 2022 is realised.
Icannot conclude without applauding the effort of SWSC staff in ensuring that the organisation delivers on its mandate, that of supplying potable water, waste water collection and disposal and the provision of other services. The Corporation would not be where it is today without your effort hence we hope you keep the working spirit up to ensure sustainable future service delivery.
Having said that, we are hoping that other stakeholders including suppliers will also follow suit and implement management systems within their organisations since the full benefit of implementing these systems can be achieved when implemented across all stakeholders.
In conclusion, may I take this opportunity to encourage all SWSC staff to put an extra effort in ensuring that the Corporation maintains and retains these certifications since you will be annually audited by external bodies to verify that you meet the requirements of all these management system going forward.
I thank you and may God bless you.