Bird’s-Eye View
THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
We are very proud to present to you this exciting newsletter that covers activities of the first part of 2021 within Council. The purpose of these regular newsletters is to keep you abreast on developments within the SAVC and share activities we carry out to fulfil our statutory mandate. Despite the onset of the second wave of Covid-19 at the beginning of this year, our Council members and staff continued with their duties and responsibilities in support of our Strategic Plan 2019 – 2022. The past few months have seen various scheduled Council committee meetings taking place and numerous strategic and operational decisions made. We have embarked on a drive to digitize our internal processes to improve efficiencies. We further bolstered our human resource capacity through appointment of additional personnel in the registration and education departments.
to set minimum standards and at the same time work in tandem with these institutions/facilities on continuous improvements.
We have developed a draft Risk Management Policy that ensures that the SAVC adheres to principles of good governance and evaluates organisational risks while at the same time identifying procedures to avoid and/or minimize such risks. One of the recent highlights of our work is the submission of proposals for regulatory amendments to the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development to enable electronic voting for Council members. This is an epic milestone as it paves a way for possible electronic voting for the first time in the 88-year history of Council.
These issues are more often unpleasant to talk about, but we feel we need to be open and transparent with you about them and assist you in understanding them better. We believe that a member who understands the processes and rules better, is less likely to infringe or transgress such rules. We received a lot of positive feedback on these seminars, and we believe they will continue to enrich and empower you in your daily professional life. There are more seminars coming in the future and we look forward to your attendance of those. You are welcome to suggest topics of interest to you.
We have embarked on a concerted rollout of a series of webinars. These webinars form part of the Council’s undertaking and effort to familiarise our members with the processes within Council. Our recent webinars have focused on legal matters such as complaints handling, investigations, inquiries and appeals processes that are followed by Council.
In these past few past months, Council has also approved new rules for para-veterinarians that will give way to a broader participation of these professions in veterinary care delivery in the country. We continue with our routine inspections of veterinary facilities and visitations of academic institutions to ensure adherence
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