GPW_AR_2013_Final_v10.pdf

125 year anniversary

2. From 1976 to 2008 During 1976, the GPW was established as a trade account.This implied that the GPW had to operate on regular business principles and since then, ½ nancial viability of the institution thus depended entirely on the GPW’s ability to generate suf ½ cient revenue from services rendered to defray all its operational and capital expenditure. Being functionally charged with the rendering of inter-departmental services, the National Treasury (NT) directed the trade account’s operations within the following framework: Meeting its mandate required the GPW to commit substantial investment in sophisticated equipment and processes, which, if restricted to the production of security printed matter only, would not be utilised economically and thus it was considered imperative that other related services also be rendered by the GPW to ensure optimum utilisation of the institution’s internal capacity. In view of this, NT directed that government institutions be obliged to source all of their printing related services only from the GPW. The afore-mentioned arrangement established the GPW as a centralised national printing facility with a stable customer base, ensuring optimum utilisation of its infrastructure by rendering security printing services as well as related non-security services to government institutions. Following the 1994 general election, all printing facilities of the former independent states and self governing territories were allocated to the GPW. The new political dispensation implied that South Africa had six printing facilities and the GPW, operating on business principles, had to absorb all these facilities, which presented the organisation with a substantial duplication of personnel and equipment. Given this untenable situation, cabinet was approached with a recommendation that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) be authorised to re-organise and rationalise government’s printing functions. Cabinet approved this recommendation on 24 February 1996. Upon completion of its investigation, the DHA submitted a cabinet memorandum with recommendations that certain printing facilities, such as the Umtata Printing Works, be closed down whilst other facilities be restructured to serve as provincial of ½ ces of the GPW.

The restructuring was subsequently completed, leaving the GPW’s head of ½ ce in Pretoria with regional of ½ ces in Polokwane, Mmabatho, East London and Cape Town respectively.

18