Hon. Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Hon. Premier, Mr Cassel Mathale
Members of the Executive Council (MEC’s)
Honorable Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPL’s)
Chairperson and Members of the Portfolio Committee
Executive Mayors and Mayors
Director-General and Heads of Departments present here
Leaders of Political parties and formations Stalwarts and Veterans of our struggle
Our Esteemed Majesties
Traditional leaders and healers
Heads of institutions
Leadership of the trade union movement
Representatives of NPO’s and NGO’s present here
Leaders of faith-based organisations & religious formations
Management and players of Vha-Khegula Soccer Club
Members of the media
Comrades and friends
Hon. Speaker, This is the first time we stand on this podium to present budget vote 12 for the Department of Social Development as a separate department with its own administrative head. During the previous years, budget vote 12 only formed part of the Department of Health and social Development. However, Premier, Cassel Mathale found it appropriate to separate the two departments to focus on their key strategic mandates.
The Department of Social Development is currently undergoing a serious repositioning process towards realising the ideal of building a caring, cohesive and sustainable community guided by the theme “together we can build better communities. We therefore want to take this opportunity to thank you, Hon. Premier for the visionary leadership you continue to discharge. We strongly believe that this arrangement will assist us to strengthen the administrative capacity of the department to focus on the delivery of its key priorities, namely;
- Caring for and protecting vulnerable groups, especially children, women, and people with disabilities
- Strengthening families and communities
- Transforming social relations, with a specific focus on gender and victim empowerment
- Providing comprehensive social security, including income support, and a safety net for the destitute
- Strengthening institutional capacity to deliver quality services
- Reinforcing participation in key bilateral and multilateral initiatives that contribute to poverty eradication
We will continue to deliver on the mandate of providing social development services through the implementation of social security, welfare services and integrated development fully conscious of the fact that access to social assistance has increased dramatically in the last few years. We are aware that the scope of welfare services is also growing as we bring support to women and children in need; meaningful hope to young people in despair; empower persons with disabilities and sustain programmes to support the aged, most of whom are neglected by their immediate families. Hon. Speaker, we remain committed to provide a comprehensive integrated, sustainable social development services to the vulnerable individuals, households and communities in partnership with relevant stakeholders as expected, however the shortage of infrastructure and professionals in the sector is a challenge.
In our endeavor to address shortage of professionals in the social work sector the department has intensified its efforts to build skills in the sector by issuing bursaries to deserving students as part of our on-going recruitment and retention strategy. Since 2005 the department has increased the Bursary Budget from R1 million to R24 million, and a total number of nine hundred and thirty nine (939) students have since been awarded bursaries to enroll in the Social Work and Community Development related fields. Three hundred and seventy two (372) have completed their studies and are placed in permanent positions. During the 2011/12 financial year a further 301 students, all of whom will be employed by the department are expected to complete their studies.
Social Auxiliary Work Learnership
Honorable Speaker, the implementation of the Social Auxiliary Work Learnership initiative, targeting orphans and child headed families in order to propel them out of the cycle of poverty is bearing fruits. To this end, we have managed to finance about 430 students into the programme and a total of 178 competent candidates completed and are now in the employ of the department with further 250 learners expected to complete this year.
During the 2011/12 financial year, we intend to enlist a total of 250 learners into the programme as part of our contribution to fight poverty, underdevelopment and joblessness.
Hon. Speaker, the abuse of women, children, elderly and people with disabilities remain a challenge and should be a cause for concern to all us. The reality is that the abuse of the most vulnerable among us continues to rob us of the morality and the human dignity. Speaking at the Human Rights Day rally held at Athlone Stadium, President Jacob Zuma reminded us that all humanity has rights as enshrined in the constitution and that those rights must be respected. The President underscored the importance of the equality of the rights of women, children and workers, and called on all of us to “collectively unite in condemnation, whenever and wherever a woman is raped or beaten, when a child is abused or neglected…” I am sure Hon. Members will agree with me when I say, the greatest single resource we have in solving this challenge is the ability of all of us to work together. We have a duty to inspire hope to the marginalised among our people. “Hope that is not just a dream, but a way of making dreams becomes true”. We cannot stand idle when our people suffer this kind of dehumanization.
Drug and Substance Abuse
Drug and substance abuse, mostly by young people remains a cause for concern and hinders the ideals of building caring, cohesive and sustainable communities. We will continue to strengthen the Ke Moja: No Thanks, I’m fine without drugs campaign with the aim of educating our people about the dangers of drug, alcohol and substance abuse. In the past year, we reached more about 12 912 young people and during the 2011/12 financial year we intend to reach about 143 275 youth and 131 426 children through puppet shows. Hon. Speaker, we are aware that the fight against alcohol, drugs and substance abuse requires an integrated response by different stakeholders in and outside government with the Department of Social Development in the lead. We are pleased to know that government is behind us all the way and the Premier said construction of beer halls or shebeens next to schools, libraries and church buildings must come to an end. During his State of the Province address, the Premier said: “The process of reviewing the liquor license legislation has ensued… We must control how alcohol is sold in our communities”. Hon. Premier, I am sure you will be pleased to note that President Jacob Zuma shares your sentiments when he says:
“There are various measures we can explore as government to restrict the sale of alcohol in particular. The World Health Organisation states that reducing the availability and abuse of alcohol requires steps such as changing the minimum legal purchase age for alcohol and instituting restrictions on hours and days of sale. It also entails instituting restrictions on the number of liquor outlets in the area…“ In this regard, we are planning to host a Provincial Drug and Substance Abuse Summit to develop strategies to fight the evil of alcohol, drug and substance abuse and to mitigate its impact on social fabric of society.
Social Crime Prevention and Support
Hon. Speaker, I am sure you will agree with me that alcohol, drug and substance abuse contribute in part to the high crime rate, especially among the youth as they “loose the possibility to think and act rationally”. They commit crime and get arrested, however for children under the age of 18 go to secure care facilities and places of safety. About 2870 children in conflict with the law will be assessed during this financial year.
However, there is a critical shortage of probation officers at our facilities and we are unable to visit prison cells as we should. We are operating with only 37 probation officers at the moment and we envisage that the number will increase. In this regard, we intend to train a total of 110 Assistant Probation Officers to deal with this challenge effectively. We will further ensure that the number of children in secure facilities is reduced to 900 while increasing the referrals to diversion programmes to 2 350 in the same year.
Services to older Persons
Hon. Speaker, older persons like any other section of our population needs to enjoy fruits of freedom and liberation. In appreciating the contribution of older persons to society, the United Nations adopted a resolution referred to as United Nations Principles for Older Persons. In the resolution says: “Older persons should be able to utilise appropriate levels of institutional care providing protection, rehabilitation and social and mental stimulation in a humane and secure environment. Older persons should be able to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms when residing in any shelter, care or treatment facility, including full respect for their dignity, beliefs, needs and privacy and for the right to make decisions about their care and the quality of their lives”. In recognising this ideal, the Department of Social Development in Limpopo, Hon. Speaker continues to provide care to older persons but I am the first to accept that a lot of work still needs to be done in this regard. Although we continue to raise awareness on the rights of older persons within communities, the abuse continues.
We are subsidising about seven Old age homes and only one home is run by government with the combined bed capacity of 677 throughout the province.
In addition to the homes, we have facilitated the establishment of 144 service centres of which about 8 235 older persons are served. We have all the intensions to increase the number of service points and to provide our aged an opportunity to socialise and engage in skill development activities. The UN resolution further states that: “Older persons should remain integrated in society, participate actively in the formulation and implementation of policies that directly affect their well-being and share knowledge and skills with younger generation”. In this regard, we encourage families to take care of the aged and only refer them to old-age homes under exceptional circumstances. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate Vha-Khegula Soccer Club, our International Champs for raising the South African Flag even higher.
Services to Persons with Disabilities
Hon. Speaker, person with disabilities constitute the most vulnerable section of our society and they are often hidden due to fear of stigmatisation as disability is purported to be linked to poverty.
They are marginalised yet they also have potential to contribute to their development to change their conditions circumstances for the better. In 1997, the former Deputy President of the Republic at the time, Thabo Mbeki during his address to the Disabled People of South Africa at their National Congress said and I quote: “It is estimated that South Africa has a population of roughly six million disabled people. That is roughly six times the population of Swaziland. This stark statistic is an indication of how much of our human resource can be unleashed for the betterment of our country if we can succeed to help the disabled of our country to empower themselves”. The question that we must ask and seek to answer is whether we are doing enough over and above the provision of social services to persons with disabilities to help them “to empower themselves”. Our own answer is a resounding No!
However, as a department we are facilitating the establishment of Protective workshops, Community based rehabilitation and Stimulation centres to ensure that persons with disabilities are also engaged in developmental activities. These we will do in consultation with formations of persons with disabilities thus taking the rule seriously that “nothing for us without us”. To this end, 1 176 persons with disabilities were provided with sheltered employment in protective workshops. We will further fund a total of twenty-three (23) protective workshops during the 2011/12 financial year to serve 1 438 persons with disabilities.
Child Care and Protection
Hon. Speaker, it is said that “children are the future, the leaders of today and tomorrow”. If we really believe that indeed children are the future we must therefore do everything in our power to ensure that they are indeed cared for and protected from abuse, child poverty, neglect and any sort of harm including exploitation. The Department of Social development has so far managed to place 6 426 children who were abused, neglected and orphaned in foster care, however we are unable to find suitable foster parents to care for children as the number of orphaned children continue to escalate. We are intending to facilitate the placement of 7 860 children in foster care during the 2011/12 financial year. We are therefore not shy in stating that all of us need an ongoing programme of education, mobilisation and organisation to appreciate the significance, worth and advantages of foster parenting. However, the department has managed to facilitate the establishment of five shelters for street children in the province.
I am also pleased to announce that 1 740 Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres are registered with 1 126 ECD centres subsidized and 3 378 care-givers are employed in those facilities. Access to ECD centers will increase to 90 000 children with a total of 3 818 ECD practitioners and we are in the process of registering programmes at this centres as dictated by the Children’s act.
Care and Support to Families
Hon. Speaker, family units constitute the nuclear of a community and therefore must be cared for and supported particularly during the time of distress. In this regard, department has provided 2 106 and 4 688 families with social enrichment services and social relief of distress in the form of food parcels and pauper’s funerals respectively. During the 2011/12 financial year we will provide 4 100 families with social relief of distress while a total of 15 732 families will participate in family preservation services.
Hon. Speaker, for us to provide meaningful care and support to destitute families means we must also respond to some of their basic and critical needs. We are told that young women and girls, particularly from child headed families and the poor go to an extent of skipping schools when they are menstruating due to lack of sanitary towels. In this regard, in response to president’s call to supply sanitary towels to women, we will mobilise the business community and all other concerned groups of people and individuals to assist us in finding sanitary towels to supply the needy. This we will do in an endevour to restore the dignity of our women, particularly young women before they loose hope.
Victim Empowerment Services
Hon. Speaker, the Department of social Development has an obligation not only to provide counseling and debriefing services to victims of crime and violence but also to provide infrastructure in respect of Victim Empowerment Centres. Although some strides has been made in terms of counseling and debrief services a lot still needs to be done in the establishment of Victim Empowerment Centres in the province. Hon. Members would remember that last year during the presentation of the Budget Votes in this house the MEC for the Department of Safety, Security & Liaison, lamented the lack of Victim Empowerment Centres in the province and requested Hon. Members to consider alternative ways to fund the establishment of these centres from the provincial budget.
The challenge remains the same; however, I am sure Hon. George Phadagi will be pleased to note that the Limpopo Department of Social Development will this financial year build two Victim Empowerment centres in Sekhukhune and Vhembe districts respectively. It is not enough though as the demand for these centres keep growing as most women continue to suffer abuse and humiliation in our society. To this end, there are only four shelters and 82 Victim Empowerment Centres in the province yet the need is huge.
Together with other relevant departments, we will embark on an intensive needs analysis exercise and engage the National Department of Social development accordingly.
Funding Management and Support of NGO’s
Hon. Speaker, funding of Non-Governmental organisation remain our major focus with the objective to take social development services closer to the people. We will continue to fund NGO’o and NPO’s, however we will also enhance monitoring to ensure that public funds are utilized properly and for the purposes intended for.
HIV and AIDS
Hon. Speaker, as we said earlier during budget vote for the Limpopo Department of Health, the scourge of HIV and AIDS including the impact it has on the poor and the marginalised remains a challenge to the delivery of social services in the province. We will therefore continue to work closely and in sync with the Department of Health to provide psycho-social services to all people living with HIV and AIDS while at the same time doing all we can to contribute to the halving of new infections, particularly among young people in both urban and rural areas, including farm communities.
For this reason, we support the HCT campaign and we will continue to encourage our clients to test in order to know their HIV and general health status.
We will also continue to facilitate the establishment of Home Community Based Care Centres (HCBCS), Drop-In Centres and Support Groups throughout the province. To date, we have reached 65 956 people through the Home based care services with 44 115 children receiving services at Drop-In centres. We are having a total of 2 814 caregivers on our database and as a token of appreciation for the job well done; we are giving them a stipend. However, we feel that more still needs to be done to ensure that they are also propelled out of the cycle of poverty.
Integrated Community development
Hon. Speaker, in his book entitled The End of Poverty; Jeffrey Sachs argues that “The key to ending extreme poverty is to get the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development”. We agree with Mr Sachs and we further believe that development should be predicated on the freedom of the individual to determine his or her destiny. Ours as the department is to create a conducive environment for development to take place even at community level. In this regard we will continue to enhance youth empowerment; Sustainable Livelihoods; Institutional capacity building and Expanded Public Works programmes within the social sector.
Youth Development
We believe that young people have a positive contribution in their own development and therefore for them to “get their foot on the ladder of development” we initiated a number of interventions. One such intervention is the Masupa Tsela Youth Pioneer Programme which is yielding results. This programme which seeks to make young people active agents of their own development will continue its work in the 2011/12 financial year. To date, we have managed to provide 4180 of our youth with capacity building in vocational, entrepreneurship and life skills while on the other hand getting about 1 000 young people to participate in the National Youth Services.
Sustainable livelihood
Hon. Members, development is about sustainable livelihood and in our endevour to with the fight against poverty and underdevelopment we are embarking on a profiling exercise to determine the strength and potential that resides in our communities. To this end, we have profiled 103 880 households in seventy (70) wards to determine the magnitude of vulnerability as so to come up with appropriate interventions.
The findings suggests that indeed the situation is dire and therefore we will be facilitating the participation of 30 000 households in food production initiatives and the establishment of 55 cooperatives as our contribution in the fight against poverty.
Job Creation
The President has declared that this is the year for job creation. The Department of Social Development has been entrusted with the responsibility to coordinate Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) initiatives in the social sector. Inspired by the successes we recorded in the 2010/11 financial year in creating 25 150 work opportunities with 9 061 beneficiaries trained through social sector EPWP, we will continue on that trajectory with the aim of creating jobs. During the 2011/12 financial year we will surely create 29 000 jobs with 10 000 people receiving training in the social sector. We now know what works and I am pleased to report that Makotse Women’s Club is one of our success stories in the social sector EPWP. In March this year the project received national recognition as the best project in the HCBC category at the National Kamoso Awards. Our focus from this financial year is to ensure the sustainability of all the projects we funded in the past. We will do the best to link some of these poverty alleviation projects with the markets and institutions of government in the province.
It is our believe is that their sustainability depends on us procuring goods from them than to keep pumping money into their operations. For our part, we will link poultry, bakery, sewing and gardening projects that we funded with the Limpopo Department of Health to explore the possibility of procuring goods and services from these projects. The process will commence with immediate effect. This financial year we will only fund new projects at a minimal. Our focus will be biased to resuscitating those projects that have potential but are struggling to attract the market.
Facilities management
Hon. Speaker, during the 2010/11 financial year we embarked on an intensive infrastructure development programme and had since completed ten (10) staff accommodation units including two (2) Community Rehabilitation centres at Capricorn and Sekhukhune and Gundo Drop-In Centre in the Vhembe district. Similarly, 16 more staff accommodation units in the Sekhukhune; Waterberg and Capricorn districts and a Drop-In Centre including four (4) Integrated Social development Facilities in Vhembe and Waterberg are due for completion in the 2011/12 financial year:
During the 2011/12 financial year, we will further embark on multi -year infrastructure development projects focusing on the completion of Substance Abuse Treatment Centre in Capricorn, Vukuzenzele CBR in Mopani and a total of three Children’s homes of which two are located in the Vhembe district and one in the Mopani district. 19
The commencement of the first phase of the Youth Care Centre as well as the construction of various office accommodations will start in earnest during the 2011/12 financial year. Hon. Speaker, it gives me great honor to present to this house budget vote 12 of the Department of Social development for consideration. The overall budget for the Department of Social Development for the 2011/12 financial is R1.159 billion as announced by the Hon. David Masondo, the Limpopo MEC for Provincial Treasury. During his budget speech, the MEC said “some of the key priorities catered for in the department’s budget include support to early childhood development, home community based care, support to older persons, sustainable livelihoods and substance abuse programmes”. Indeed, this budget will be utilised for the purposes intended for and we will surely account for every cent spent.
Hon. Speaker, allow me to appreciate all institutions and individuals, particularly care-givers who continue to work tirelessly with and to assist us to deliver effective social services to our people. We trust that they will continue to do so in the coming financial year inspired by the theme: “Working together we can do more”. “The progress we make in the betterment of the condition of life of the people finds a sterner judgement when evaluated against the progress we make in improving the condition of those who move from the starting point greater disadvantage. It is they who deserve our unqualified attention”. The delivery of social and welfare services is a collaborative effort. Government cannot do it successfully alone, given the magnitude of societal problems we are facing as a people. Hon. Speaker, I am sure there are unstoppable desire and a sense willingness in our hearts and minds to deliver on the mandate of eradicating poverty and underdevelopment in our society.
I thank you!
Source: Limpopo Social Development
