​Rofhiwa Marubini-Tshitahe
Gauteng Provincial Government's (GPG) commitment to go the extra mile in delivering services by putting people first was honoured at the National Batho Pele Excellence Awards (NBPEA).
NBPEA was launched in 2013 as an effort to encourage continuous performance improvement and promote professional and productive public service that delivers quality public services.
GPG's response was recognised as worthy of an award in silver, and Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital won gold, for "Best Responsive Government Institution of the Year" in the same category.
Other winners in the province include the Best Researcher of the Year, which was awarded to Dr Jonathan Moustakis, from Gauteng's Lenasia's Community Health Centre (CHC). 
The Best General Worker of the Year was awarded to Raesibe Annah Letsoalo from Tara Hospital in Gauteng and the Lifetime Achiever was awarded to Professor Ephraim Thibedi Mokgokong, a retired former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. 
Mokgokong became the first African to be at the helm of a Medical University from the year 1992 to 1999. He was a qualified Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and was the first to be admitted as a Fellow of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of South Africa. He served the public service for a solid 37 years. 
This year's edition, which took place on Thursday, 24 March 2022, sought to highlight the strength and resilience of public servants in combating the COVID-19 pandemic under the theme: "Combating the COVID-19 pandemic through a Batho Pele focus, Putting People First." 
In addition to NBPEA, Gauteng's response to COVID-19 has been recognised by several credible institutions such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Government Technical Advisory Committee of National Treasury, the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation and the Gauteng City-Region Observatory.
Gauteng province has been the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak since its outbreak in 2020.  
From the onset, the provincial government established innovative, agile, and adaptive governance structures which ensured that there was a coordinated response to COVID-19 from national, provincial to local government levels. 
The response to COVID-19 is built on a six-pillar strategy, which consists of a comprehensive health response, food security response, enforcement and compliance, an economic response, social mobilisation and social solidarity response.