E Rasool: Western Cape State of the Province Address

10 February 2006

THE THRESHOLD OF PROSPERITY

The Age of Hope

Last Friday, in his State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki drew
the nation's attention to the hope that is abundant and growing in our country:
Our people are firmly convinced that our country has entered its Age of Hope.
They are convinced that we have created the conditions to achieve more rapid
progress towards the realisation of their dreams. They are certain we are
indeed a winning nation.

Today, as we open this session of the Provincial Legislature, we can confirm
that even in this Province we have seen the strong emergence of hope, a hope
made ever more heroic given the great battles we fight on a daily basis against
our inheritance from the past, divisions and alienation that persist into the
present and even the ravages of nature that often capriciously alternates
drought with flood and flood with fire.

Out of all this, the heroes of hope are those who steadfastly battle the
fire on the mountains and in the squatter camps; those who persevere on the
drought-stricken farms whether owners or workers; those who care for the
vulnerable and those who grow the economy; those who shun the easy gains of
exploiting difference and those who build bridges across our many divides.

Our hope lies in the resilience of our people in the first instance. But it
also lies in the fact that our people are working with government to ensure
delivery on an unprecedented scale. In the last two years our hope in this
province has soared as government, labour and patriotic business people managed
to keep operations going in three clothing factories in the face of hostile
global forces; as we increased the police force by 8000 and reduced contact
crimes by an average of 10% per year, as we manage the delicate balancing act
of using less budget more purposefully, especially for the poorest amongst us;
as we created about 40 000 Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) jobs, as a
total of 12 600 people today in this Province are on anti-retroviral (ARV)
treatment to complement our strong disease preventative programmes; as over 100
000 children receive the child support grant every month; as we built 15 new
schools in a record six months accommodating 17 000 learners; as we for the
first time, have in place the regulatory frameworks that sustain the natural
heritage of our Province; as we have been able to transfer 10 000 hectares of
land to emerging farmers as one of the clearest signs that justice is being
done; as we set clearly our intention around service delivery by starting our
assault on the bucket system in De Doorns and bringing relief to those in
housing arrears in Lentegeur and Gatesville and as we build our diverse home
for all through language festivals, sport facilities and the availability of
library books and free internet connectivity. Indeed, the age of hope has also
dawned in the Western Cape.

The threats to hope

This does not mean we have no challenges. This government is painfully aware
that 26.3% of our citizens are unemployed. That most of them are youth also
speaks to the massive skills challenges we face. This government knows that
grinding poverty defines the life of many among us as evidenced in the
sprawling informal settlements, hunger of hopelessness. This government knows
that mothers are desperate to find an end to tik and other drugs that have
transformed their children in front of their eyes. No one knows more the impact
of trauma in our communities resulting from alcohol and manifesting itself in
acts of violence inside and outside the household and in motor vehicle
accidents that kill and maim.

It is this inequality between people, the unequal access to assets,
resources and opportunities, that makes it so difficult for citizens to see
each other without mistrust and suspicious, always believing that the other
racial, religious or language group has preferential access. It is precisely
this inequality that creates such a fertile ground for political charlatans to
exploit the competition for scarce resources for their own narrow and
short-sighted gain.

It is out of marginalisation and disempowerment that communities, families
and people turn in on each other. Hence, this province's notoriety for its
ill-treatment of women, the battery of wives, the abuse of children, the
neglect of the elderly, and the alienation of the youth. The age of hope must
be sustained will not last if we do not reverse these social patterns. The age
of hope provides us with the best opportunity in the Western Cape to make a
decisive shift towards Prosperity. Every lesson we have learnt in our first
decade of freedom has placed us on the threshold of prosperity.

We have learnt crucial lesson about how to reverse the legacies of the past
and how to navigate a sustainable pathway to a prosperous future in the
intensely inter-connected world of the 21st Century. We learnt that we could
run this country with its modern economy. We have learnt well how to deepen a
culture of democracy and human rights. We learnt how the machinery of the state
can begin to serve the majority without bankrupting the fiscus or isolating the
economy. We are still learning to manage a dramatic increase in basic services,
amenities and infrastructure in the face of rapid growth in new households,
where many recipients do not have stable incomes or assets.

The most important lesson of the first decade is that the deep-rooted
problems of poverty, inequality and economic exclusion cannot simply be
overcome through meeting basic needs. To consolidate our freedom we need the
economic transformation of our society. The social wage provided by the state
increasingly and progressively has to be augmented or replaced by an economic
wage.

The threshold of prosperity

Are we truly on the threshold of prosperity? The age of hope has indeed
placed us on the threshold of prosperity. Consider the following critical
economic indicators for the province:
* For the second consecutive year, provincial growth is at 5.3%, fuelled by
good sectoral growth.
* In the past two years the Business Process Outsourcing industry has created
6000 new jobs on the back of almost R1bn in new investment
* Overseas tourists increased from 810 000 in 2000 to 1,535,000 in 2004.
* Agricultural exports increased threefold over the past few years manifested
in a growth rate of 7.4% in the current financial year.
* The construction sector's annual growth rate moved from 5.8% in 2004/5 to
8.8% in the current financial year.
* The buoyancy of the economy attracted stronger foreign direct investment to
the value of R1.4bn in 2005.
* Lastly, we are also making progress on the jobs front; in 2004, 151 000 more
matriculates were employed compared to 2000.

All of these are indeed signs that we are on the threshold of prosperity.
But the prosperity has to be shared by all, otherwise it will not be
sustainable.

A shared prosperity

If President Thabo Mbeki quoted from Shakespeare's Macbeth to underpin the
age of hope, let me quote Gloucester in King Lear to underpin why our path to
prosperity must be on the paradigm of Shared Growth: "that Distribution should
undo excess and each man have enough." Using this wisdom as a basis, our
determination as a Province to contribute to and benefit from, the Accelerated
and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA) must meet the challenges
of resilient growth.

Firstly, we must intervene to accelerate the rate of growth to over 6% by
2010. We, are therefore focussed on removing any obstacles to higher rates of
growth such as our skills base, the high cost of finance, strategic
infrastructure that impedes the movement of goods and services, locational
disadvantages and undue administrative red tape.

Secondly, we need to intervene from the outset to ensure that higher rates
of growth are pro-poor, where the incomes of the poor grow faster than the rest
of the population. In this we need to stem the growing inequality and act
against the instinct of a largely service-based economy in the Province where
skilled labour commands sizeable salaries.

Thirdly, shared growth has to ensure that poor households are empowered
beyond welfare grants. This means focussing on quality targeted education that
equip young people with employable skills; affordable and reliable public
transport to lower the cost of economic participation; and healthy and vibrant
living environments - even in informal dwellings. Fourthly, shared growth has
to be about nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit amongst people and creating
the supply-side infrastructure (information, finance, training, marketing
support, and so forth) and adjusting the regulatory environment to allow the
second economy to flourish in our communities and our streets.

Lastly, shared growth also means that the poor must be enabled to
participate meaningfully in shaping the institutions and communities of
society. Such citizenship demands responsive governance and an engaging
citizenry. Our schools, for example, will not deliver what society needs if the
Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) Service Delivery Survey
continues to show that the main obstacles to educational excellence in the
province are a lack of parental involvement in school governing bodies followed
by poor learner discipline. Other drivers of educational performance are quite
far behind these two.

This shared growth agenda must be the platform over the next decade that
harnesses all our power and resources to achieve the millennium development
goals (MDGs) by 2015, which include the following:
* Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
* Achieve universal primary education
* Promote gender equality and empower women
* Reduce child mortality
* Improve maternal health
* Ensure environmental sustainability.

Shared growth battleplan

This is clearly an ambitious agenda. We have limited resources. This, of
necessity, requires government to take decisions, to make trade-offs, to
prioritise resources and to plan for the long term. At all the makgotla of this
Cabinet over the last year, there has been a recurring refrain: do we have the
appetite to govern? If the answer to this is yes, which it is, then what is the
battleplan to achieve shared growth in the Western Cape? How will we move from
the threshold of prosperity into the age of shared prosperity?

1. The Economy

The primary terrain for shared growth is the Economy. Increasing the rate of
growth in the Western Cape will only occur by maximising the growth potential
of key ascending economic sectors such as:
* Call Centres and Business Process Outsourcing
* Tourism
* Oil and Gas with its related support services
* Information and communication technology (ICT) as well as
* Agriculture

For the first time this Province has a Micro-Economic Development Strategy
(MEDS) that shows how targeted interventions in each sector can expand the
potential of that sector. In just these five priority sector we have the
potential to create 232 000 new jobs in the economy by 2015. While not
sufficient to absorb all the unemployed, we believe it will reverse the trend
of burgeoning unemployment and lay the basis for bringing unemployment to under
15% by 2020. The success hereof depends on effective social partnerships with
labour, business and civil society.

2. Skills

The terrain of the labour market is the second element in our battleplan for
shared growth. Provincial government is not in a position to deal with
questions of labour market rigidities. What we have influence over
significantly is the skills base of the labour force. We know that our economy
demands more qualified labour with hard technical, engineering and project
management skills. These are not skills which come overnight. They require
structural and systemic interventions and we have therefore, proceeded to
redesign our entire education approach.

This year will see us go to the basics of Education: the Early Childhood
Development (ECD) sector. We have set ourselves the target over the next year
to begin the process of putting an additional 25 000 children in these ECD
Centres and use the EPWP to train 900 ECD practitioners and 233 ECD assistants
so that our children can get a flying start in life. In this is an opportunity
for social solidarity and volunteerism. I call on all skilled people to assist
in management, bookkeeping, resourcing and in the supply of materials to such
ECD Centres.

Already, you have seen our determination to build, equip and staff schools.
This is merely a step towards greater focus in these schools as already seen in
the Dinaledi Schools with its aim to double the number of learners with Maths
and Science by 2008. This year will also see school safety infrastructure at 50
priority schools.

All of these are critical feeders for our revamped Further Education and
Training (FET) colleges and the Western Cape is the most advanced in the
process to establish six such vocation-oriented Colleges. This year we will
spend R170m for their physical upgrading. At the same time we have had a very
fruitful process of engaging the Vice Chancellors of our four universities in
the Western Cape on our Human Capital Strategy. While national institutions,
they have understood their role in providing the necessary skills for a
growing, knowledge-based economy in this Province.

3. Infrastructure

The third element of our battleplan for accelerated and shared growth is in
expanding and maintaining our infrastructure - the nervous system of our
economy. The President has prioritised investment in infrastructure as the key
to ASGISA and we need to position the province for an appropriate share of the
R372 billion budgeted nationally to drive investment and growth over the medium
term.

It is infrastructure that makes our economy competitive, ensures social
integration and, if handled correctly, makes the Western Cape environmentally
sustainable.

World Cup 2010 has emerged as both the catalyst and a milestone for our
Strategic Infrastructure Plan (SIP). The backbone of this Plan is public
transport. Rehabilitation of key highways will continue, and resealing and
regravelling programmes of roads throughout the province will be prioritised.
In addition, 2006 will see the Klipfontein Corridor being started, the
Lansdowne Corridor upgraded and the George mobility Strategy implemented. Such
an emphasis on infrastructure will see greater results for EPWP jobs and will
see a greater demand for scarce engineering skills. The Minister has boldly
recruited 130 prospective engineers, furnished them with bursaries and sent
them off to universities.

4. Strong communities

The fourth element of the battleplan against poverty must be safe, healthy
and integrated communities. Strong communities based on vibrant and loving
families is the cornerstone of prosperity. At this moment where and how our
communities are do not equip the poor to participate in economic activities and
opportunities. The first intervention has to be in the space economy and we now
have the framework in the Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF),
which now requires every municipality to plan for fully integrated human
settlements - racially integrated, integrated into the economy and connected to
transport networks. We must have an end to sprawling, low-income settlements on
the periphery, far away from all opportunity.

This is the basis for an approach to housing provision in this province.
Under interrogation from the President in our December City Imbizo, it became
clear that current levels of housing subsidy are inadequate for the growing
housing demand and that private sector loans would be an irresponsible
alternative to subsidy shortfalls. This Province has to countenance, with our
social partners and most importantly the private sector, other bold
initiatives. Can we use the state's collective portfolio of property as a
leverage to bring gap housing to the market and to use such profit generated to
augment the subsidy budget? Is this also not the time to allow the poorest
amongst us to benefit from the Western Cape property boom through a development
levy - something that is standard practice in many other successful
countries?

While these questions are answered, we need to intensify our onslaught on
conditions which make life unhealthy, unhygienic and undignified in
over-crowded poor communities and especially informal settlements. Such areas
have an immediate possibility of dignity through the accelerated provision of
water, electricity and other basic services. Already we are out of the starting
blocks to eliminate the bucket system by 2007. Poverty does not have to mean
indignity.

A further intervention on this front has to ensure that quality health
services are added to the basic basket of social security and welfare services
that we provide. On the back of this province's acknowledged success in the
programme to combat HIV and AIDS, we need the Health Department to rededicate
the Western Cape to the fight against Tuberculosis and other preventable
diseases through a more efficient and caring primary healthcare network.

5. Civic life

A fifth element in our battleplan against poverty and underdevelopment has
to be the facilitation of strong civic life. Ordinary people are the most
important actors in achieving developmental success over the long term. What
guarantees such success is when ordinary people are organised and networked
into and across community structures both to protect and serve
communities.
The early signs of success are there in the wake of our Social Capital
Formation Strategy. Across government departments in this province we are
organising and networking people to solve problems which recently seemed
intractable: Community Safety, through Bambanani, has shown the fearlessness of
networked citizens in the fight against crime. Similarly, Community Health
Workers have all but eliminated the ravages of child diarrhoea through
community-based oral rehydration treatment while Social Development volunteers
have signed up an unprecedented number of children who should be receiving the
Child Support benefits. And so we can go on to show how recruiting ordinary
citizens and networking them into Agricultural Extension Officers, the Working
for Water programme, School Safety Officers, begins to transform society, by
tailoring public services to local conditions and maximising development
impact.

Our latest innovation of recruiting and training Community Development
Workers (CDWs) create the real potential of deepening local democracy and
development. They can improve the effectiveness and internal democracy of
community-based organisation, be the interface with government, ensure access
to public services and make civic life vibrant by support local development
projects like food gardens, bulk buying, etc.

During 2006, the major challenges that government must meet with communities
are the rising incidence of substance abuse, violence against women and the
trauma facing our children who have to find their social identities in such
conditions.

6. The Second Economy

The sixth element in our battleplan for Accelerated and Shared Growth has to
be around the role of the Second Economy. We have to develop and unleash the
entrepreneurial spirit of our people. Our schools do not develop this spirit,
and every school should. Our laws constrain this spirit and within acceptable
norms we should open up possibilities for entrepreneurs. Our financial
institutions do not support this second economy and we should find alternative
while we persuade such institutions to share the risks.

For many without the skills for the first economy, this second economy
should be welcoming. We need to strengthen the interventions we have already
started. Our Real Enterprise Development or (RED) Door is popular, helpful and
it must be broadened and made ever more effective. The mobile Red Door will
help further with disseminating business information and networking with key
institutions like banks, Umsobomvu and others.

Our agricultural department too is gearing up to realise the President's
urgency about land reform. In anticipation farmer support services and the farm
worker development programme will play a vital role. These have made our
Province a leader in land reform.

7. Sustainable Growth

Our seventh element in our battleplan for growth is to ensure that our
growth is sustainable. The last three years have been difficult as this
province is in the grip of a drought punctuated by fires and floods and causing
untold hardships on our people and environment.

In short, this province has to come to grips with climate change. We are in
the midst of a study into the effects that climate change has and will have on
our province but what is not contested is that we need alternative sources of
water, we need to increasingly harness the potential of renewable energy, we
need to jealously improve and guard our air quality, reduce carbon emissions
and we need to manage waste in environmentally sound ways.

This is the basis of our Provincial Spatial Development Frame (PSDF) and our
approach to golf and polo resorts. We believe that ASGISA in the Western Cape
has to be premised on the environment as our most precious resource.

This intent, however, is not to condone endless red tape and bureaucratic
frustration. The NIMBY syndrome must not find justification in our intent to
preserve our natural heritage. It is for this reason that we aim to reduce both
the cost and time of doing business in the Western Cape. This province is now a
pilot for the national government to house all regulatory functions together in
the Integrated Law Reform process. It is my hope that decision-making will soon
have a turnaround time of 6 months.

8. Flagship Projects

The eighth element in our battleplan for Accelerated and Shared growth is a
set of Flagship interventions. In the national plan for ASGISA the Western
Cape's proposal for the regeneration of the Cape Flats as been accepted. This
will shift significantly the focus of public investment into the most neglected
quadrant of the Metro.

This regeneration ties with the announcement that Cape Town will play a very
significant role in the World Cup 2010. Three months ago we were merely going
to be hosts for one group playing first round matches. Now we have the
possibility of being the face of the World Cup in 2010, with FIFA wanting as
many matches as possible in the city right up to the semi-final levels.

This has resulted in the need for a 70 000 seater, multi-purpose, all
weather stadium at Green Point. This does not in anyway detract from Athlone
Stadium being completed as a 30 000 seater soccer stadium, at a further cost of
R168m. The massive investment in infrastructure for these facilities and the
knock-on effect on our public transport infrastructure will kick-start ASGISA,
especially if we also plan for the tourism boom towards, during, and after the
World Cup 2010.

Capacity of the State to Deliver

In order to build the developmental state it was necessary fundamentally to
reorient provincial government towards effective service delivery. This
campaign is spearheaded by the reengineering process of the Department of the
Premier so that it can fulfil its leadership and policy coordination role. The
informing imperative is to consolidate a leadership team comprised of the
necessary skills, equity profile and service delivery orientation-the
all-important ingredients of a developmental public service. I am happy to
report that we are well into this process and should have it completed by June
2006. Taking its lead from this process, key delivery departments are also
undergoing crucial restructuring to ensure optimal focus and capacity to
deliver on iKapa Elihlumayo.

We are overhauling the training, capacity building and team development
interventions of the government. The Batho Pele campaign will be targeted at
critical departments which must enhance the dignity of our people. We are
instituting a provincial government monitoring and evaluation system to keep us
in line with the national Programme of Action and to ensure service delivery
towards the goals and targets of iKapa Elihlumayo.

At the centre of the Provincial Government we are building a holistic
governance nerve centre between the Department of the Premier, provincial
Treasury and the Department of Local Government and Housing. This will allow us
to align our planning and budgeting instruments and crucially to strengthen the
ability of Provincial Government to fulfil its support and oversight role over
local government in the Province.

In the State of the Nation Address, the President clearly expressed the
national mood of determination to make local government more effective,
responsive and accountable over the next few years and improve drastically its
45% approval rating by citizens. In line with this emphasis, I am expected to
present a detailed report to the Presidents Coordinating Council by June 2006
on our concrete support actions we will undertake with local government.

Institutionally we will utilise the Premier's Inter-governmental Forum to
agree on such a programme. More importantly, the support interventions will be
geared to ensure that every one of the 30 municipalities in the province have
sound Integrated Development Plan (IDPs), premised on credible local economic
development strategies and viable integrated human settlement strategies.
Effective Local Government is central to realise the Promise of the Age of Hope
and to shift us from the threshold of Prosperity into prosperity itself. Across
the country, premiers have been charged at the last National Cabinet Lekgotla
to drive five key performance areas at local government level; backed up by
MECs for Local Government:

1. Institutional capacity development: This entails the production of draft
IDPs by 1 March 2006; ensuring that core municipal systems be established;
enforcing performance management systems; conducting capacity audits to assess
what technical support must be found for municipalities.
2. Improving basic service delivery and infrastructure investment: This focuses
on the plans and resources for municipalities to achieve universal clean water
and sanitation by 2010; electricity for all households by 2012; and of course
the total eradication of the bucket system by 2007.
3. Improved local economic development: This requires that each municipality
has a credible and implementable LED Strategy in place to advance the shared
growth agenda. Furthermore, we must pay special attention to urban
municipalities given that they serve as the anchor points for the national
economy in a more globalised environment.
4. Financial viability and management: This requires that the necessary
hands-on technical support in municipalities be secured and that the capacity
within Provincial Government be improved to play an effective support and
oversight role to foster good governance and stamp out corruption and
mismanagement at local government level.
5. Community participation and effective Ward Committee: In this performance
area the Premier will join Mayors and Ward councillors in grassroots engagement
and social mobilisation processes in imbizo campaigns.

These interventions and the role played by the Department of Provincial and
Local Government, together with Premier's and the relevant MECs, constitute the
effective plan to make Local government work better. This will not only ensure
good governance and service delivery, but also ensure the insertion of Local
Government into the National Strategies and the Provincial Growth and
Development Strategy.

Towards a prosperous home for all

In this Western Cape nothing shows more than an election campaign how
fragile is the identity of our people, how callous certain leaders and parties
are in their exploitation of people's insecurities and fears, and how political
leaders have no qualms in repeating sentiments formed in the most desperate and
alienated of situations in the human condition.

All over the world, the reactions and counter-reactions to the depiction of
the Prophet Mohammed, the violence that has erupted out of seething anger, the
wanton reproduction of the cartoons, the stereotyping of all Danes as culpable,
and the irrational exploitation of the anger by the politically desperate on
both sides shows us that the anger, the fear and the insecurities emerging from
the very identities by which people define themselves, are not tigers we should
or can ride.

Just like we must calm the flames of the cartoon anger, we must desist from
fanning the flames of local identity issues. The reasonableness with which the
President of the Muslim Judicial Council, the Danish Ambassador and the
newspaper editors in the Western Cape have dealt with this matter is a tribute
to the respect for, and power of, the South African Constitution.

Ten years ago the Constitution was fledgling and therefore the exploitation
by extremists of legitimate concerns led to a wave of urban terror in Cape
Town. This year we will celebrate 10 years of the best, most balanced,
post-modern Constitution in the world. It is proving its worth at this very
moment as South Africans find the balance between competing freedoms and rights
and as South Africans find a bridge of tolerance between the anger of Muslims
and the indignation of the media.

We must similarly trust in the ability of the Constitution to carve out a
home for all South Africans. You do not have to be white and you do not have to
be black. You must simply be what God has ordained you to be. Successive
generations of African National Congress (ANC) leaders have laid down their
lives for this principle that is the cornerstone of our Constitution. This is
what Chief Albert Luthuli said in his autobiography, “Let my people go!”

"The task is not finished. South Africa is not yet a home for all her sons
and daughters. Such a home we must wish to ensure. From the beginning our
history has been one of ascending unities, the breaking of tribal, racial and
creedal barriers. The past cannot hope to have a life sustained by itself,
wrenched from the whole. There remains before us the building of a new land, a
home for men who are black, white, brown, from the ruins of the old narrow
groups, a synthesis of the rich cultural strains which have inherited. There
remains to be achieved our integration with the rest of our continent.
Somewhere ahead there beckons a civilisation, a culture, which will take its
place in the parade of God's history besides other great syntheses, Chinese,
Egyptian, Jewish, European. It will not necessarily be all black, but it will
be African."

What better cornerstone for our Constitution, what better summary for our
vision for this province, what better reason to ensure that this year we will
not only celebrate our Constitution with gusto, but we will continue to make it
work in the interest of both our unity and diversity.

Today we call to mind in this House the 1956 march by women on the Union
Building where they made known their intention that women shall not carry
passes. In the lead up to 9 August this year we shall honour them by
commemorating 50 years of women's courage, leadership and equality in the
struggle for a better a life. They may have marched under the black, green and
gold of the ANC, but they did it for all South African women.

We also call to mind those who led us in the uprisings of 1976 and opened
the path for the most heroic youth struggles against apartheid. These are
people we have to thank for our freedom and the democracy we enjoy. The
generations of 1976 were the leaders of the United Democratic Front (UDF), the
foot soldiers in the final phase of the anti-apartheid struggle, and today are
in the vanguard of the better life that is being constructed. Leading up to
June 16, this government, together with Western Cape Youth Commission, will
work with youth structures to ensure that the lessons of selfless, courageous,
patriotic, and untemptable youth will for ever be enshrined in the hearts of
emerging generations in the Western Cape as we commemorate 30 years since
1976.

We owe it to our women and youth in this Province that the Western Cape must
indeed become a home for all. As President Thabo Mbeki said earlier this
year:
"The Western Cape has its own challenges. But its government has a vision that
it calls a Home for All. Indeed, this is correct."

It is, therefore, correct that the best way to celebrate and commemorate the
struggles of our women and youth is to prioritise delivery to them this year.
The Youth Commission has asked us for a quarter of the year to be dedicated to
youth. We say instead, let every day between now and 16 June and 9 August 2006
reverberate with delivery to women and youth.

Siyabulela

Like in our 100 day campaign, our Easter delivery, and the Krismisbox, the
Western Cape Government undertakes the following Siyabulela deliveries by
August 2006:

1. Community Safety:

Minister Ramatlakane will continue the assault on drug-related crimes by
youth and will focus police attention on places where drugs, especially Tik,
are being manufactured, stored and sold to our youth and by August 2006, the
successful actions against such places should be increased by at least
15%.
With regard to women a further 5 Victim Support Rooms will be established at
police stations and 400 women counsellors will be deployed to support women who
have suffered abuse, violence and rape.

2. Finance and Tourism:

Minister Brown has undertaken to double the number of youth entrepreneurs in
the tourism industry from 350 to 700 and will build on our successful
preferential procurement campaign by ensuring that the proportion of women
procuring from government will increase significantly across departments by
August 2006.

3. Transport and Public Works:

By August 2006, Minister Fransman will recruit, train and employ 1000
unemployed youth for trade and entrepreneurial learnerships and will ring-fence
projects and contracts for the most successful amongst them. Simultaneously we
will reserve 60% of road maintenance EPWP jobs for women and as a further
contribution to women will upgrade Mowbray Maternity Hospital to the value of
R20m by August 2006.

4. Health:

Minister Uys' contribution to youth will be to recruit, train and deploy 4
876 HIV and AIDS peer educators, working with non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) in communities and classrooms, guiding and counselling young people on
the prevention of disease and the adoption of healthy lifestyles. With regard
to women, by August 2006, we want 24 508 women between the ages of 30 and 59 to
report to their nearest primary health facility for a pap smear as the key
action in preventing cervical cancer.

5. Social Development:

Minister Mqulwana, following our anti-drug campaign in 10 areas, has
identified the need to recruit 1000 community-based fieldworkers to support
substance abusers after their first phase of rehabilitation to prevent as much
as possible the chances of relapse. She is doing so by increasing the substance
abuse budget by 40% to a total of R32m. In reducing poverty for women, 500
women from Langa, Nyanga, Athlone, Gugulethu and Mitchell's Plain will be
recruited into the Afro-chic garment industry. To facilitate this, she has
budgeted R2m.

6. Economic Development, Environment and Planning:

Minister Essop has set aside R2 million to support 60 sustainable youth
enterprises, R4 million for women's enterprises, and R3 million for natural
resource management and sustainable livelihood programmes aimed at both youth
and women. She also aims by August 2006 to ensure the coordination of Apex,
Mafiso, Umsobomvu and Khula in the Western Cape to support youth and women
entrepreneurs better.

7. Agriculture:

Minister Dowry has undertaken to convene 50 camps for 10 500 youth for
training in climate change, pollution, bio-diversity and soil erosion. For both
youth and women, he will, by August make available 25 bursaries and 40
learnerships for scarce skills in the agricultural sector.

8. Education:

Minister Dugmore believes that the greatest contribution he can make to
youth now is to implement the No Fee Schools system at deserving schools to
ensure greater access to education and to provide R25m as bursary loans for
access to vocational training in FET Colleges. His contribution to women will
be the training of 900 ECD practitioners, mostly women, to drive our campaign
to get children learning from an earlier age.

9. Local Government and Housing:

Minister Dyantyi will make the Youth Commission very happy with his
undertaking that local Youth Units will be rolled out in each of the 5 District
Councils and the Metro by August. He also undertakes to recruit 200 youth for
learnerships in Disaster Management given the fires and floods we have been
subjected to. With regard to women, Minister Dyantyi has prioritised, within
the general Councillor training programmes, that by August 2006, the 50% entry
of women into local government will be strengthened with special leadership
development training programmes and the recruitment of women in senior
management in councils.

10. Cultural Affairs and Sport:

And finally, Minister Jacobs has the responsibility to co-ordinate the
celebrations and commemorations of the 50th Anniversary of the Women's March
and the 30th Anniversary of June 16. But in addition to this, his drive to get
youth involved in sport will now see him prepare for the first time a Sports
School for the Western Cape in Kuils River. These deliverables are more signs
of commitment from the provincial government to create a better life for all in
the Western Cape. This is an invitation to all our partners, civil society,
labour and business to help move us from the threshold of prosperity to the Age
of Prosperity.

Thank you very much.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
10 February 2006
Source: Western Cape Provincial Government (http://www.capegateway.gov.za)