Draft notes for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC, Willies Mchunu, during the debate on the 2015 State of the Province Address, KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, Pietermaritzburg
Madam Speaker;
Honourable Premier, Senzo Mchunu;
Honourable Members of the Legislature;
Colleagues in the Executive Council;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;
It isan honour to rise and join in the debate on the very brilliant, informative and instructive State of the Province Address (SoPA), so eloquently presented by our honourable Premier, Senzo Mchunu, in the House last week. Congratulations Premier. The 2015 State of the Province Address was delivered against the backdrop of significant historical epochs in our country which place the province and the country on a new trajectory in our quest to deliver better lives to the masses of our people.
It, fittingly, came at the time when we are celebrating 103rd anniversary of the founding of our glorious liberation movement, the ANC. Equally, the 2015 SoPA happens as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. Our Freedom Charter remains the living document which continues to outline, in no uncertain terms, the route we have to take in full-filling the aspirations of our people, both Black and White and building a national democratic society. In his address, the Premier, underlined and alluded to the importance of these historical moments in the life and history of this province and this Government.
Madam Speaker and Honourable members, the Premier declared that 60 years after the founding of the Charter, this Government remains steadfast in its resolve and commitment to pursue the noble goals of ensuring that the people shall govern, have equal rights and are equal before the law. These, he said, should take place in an environment of peace and friendship, free of crime and other challenges that impact on the ability of our people to achieve their aspirations.
These commitments, contained in the Charter and other important Government policy documents such as the National Development Plan (NDP) and our own Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) constitute a social contract between our Government and the people.
As the Premier pointed out, these are the commitments and the contract that this Government is prepared to fulfill despite the negative impact imposed on us by the global economic down - turn.
Madam Speaker and Honourable Members, the Premier’s Address made a sober analysis of the challenges and opportunities that face this province head -on. Colleagues, the debates on the SoPA have tended to be characterised by political grand-standing and name-calling.
I wish to humbly submit that this is, indeed, no time for breast-beating but rather a time for a sober look at the province and the work that lies ahead of us as we enter the second phase of our transition from apartheid colonialism to the building of a national democratic society.
We, on this side of the House, - while we seek “to claim no easy victories and intend to tell no lies (as Amilcar Cabral advised) - we remain convinced that we have delivered and we continue delivering on the commitments made by the Premier in his June 2014 Address to this august house. While continuing to deliver, we are conscious of the fact that the Government alone cannot be the sole provider for all our needs. This explains why we are seeking partnerships with our people in all our delivery efforts.
The Government, in its quest to strengthening this partnership, remains ready to create policies and legislative frameworks that are conducive to the strengthening of this partnership. As pointed out in the NDP, we are mindful of the fact that the people of the province could only be able to achieve their developmental potentials and aspirations in an atmosphere that is free of crime and criminality.
Therefore, we remain committed to reducing the levels of crime in the province through the mobilisation of communities in the fight against crime and ensuring effective community crime fighting partnership. As the Premier pointed out, we will also strengthen crime fighting efforts through the monitoring of policing and evaluation of the functioning of police stations.
Our partnerships with the CPF’s, the voluntary crime fighting organisations and the police in the fight against crime are beginning to make desired impact. But more needs to be done in this regard. Honourable members, we remain convinced that the fight against crime and all other social ills remains our collective responsibility.
Fraud and corruption
The Premier has indicated that this Government is not only committed in words to root out fraud and corruption but has put structures in place to deal with this scourge. The Office of the Premier has set up the Integrity Management Unit, which works with the specialised SAPS units, to fight fraud and corruption in the province. Working with the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Government, the Asset Forfeiture Unit recovered R434.5 million between January 2014 and December 2014. So far in 2015, more than R100 million has already been forfeited.
We are, indeed, the Government that is on the forefront of fighting fraud and corruption, both at provincial and municipal levels. The work of the Integrity Management Unit, which targets corruption in the provincial and local governments in the province, has seen a decline newly reported cases and dockets opened in connection with fraud and corruption. For instance, in 2010/11, there were 1024 cases of fraud and corruption opened. However, these have dropped into just 42 cases in 2013/14. Equally, there has been a significant reduction in a number of cases involving public servants involved in fraud and corruption. These have declined from 50.92 percent in 2010/11 to 24.32 percent in 2013/14.
Also, there has been a noticeable decline in cases involving public servants against the number of private individuals involved in fraud and corruption. In 2012/13, the number of public servants involved in fraud and corruption were 278 against 268 private individuals. However, this has changed in 2013/14 with only 9 public servants involved in fraud and corruption while there were 28 private individuals involved.
Also the rates of convictions for fraud and corruption- which acts as an important deterrent- has increased significantly from 72.66 percent to 88.10 percent between 2010 and 2014,6 A lot of work is being done to tighten and strengthen our system to be able to detect and fight corruption at an early stage. Right now the Government is reviewing its Anti-Fraud and Corruption Strategy.
The first draft of this strategy has already been produced. This is, indeed, the Government that is policing itself as it seeks to ensure that value is derived from the public funds entrusted to it. While still on this subject, we have noted a chorus of calls by the opposition that this Government should do something about the KZN Commissioner, Lt General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, for some alleged corrupt activity.
The reality though is that there are some Government agencies that have dealt with this matter. We, therefore, are not in a position to replace these processes undertaken by these agencies, including SAPS’s internal processes. Also on the positive, we wish to express our satisfaction that the province has largely been stabilised by the programmes of this Government and is now free of inter party political violence experienced in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
We are now worried by intra – political tensions and conflict. These remain the responsibility of individual political parties. We have been able to successfully hold relatively free and fair elections in the province in the past ten years. Right now, working together as political formations as well as with the police, we must be embarking on a process to prepare the province for the 2016 Local Government Elections.
We all have a role to play in this regard. Without your involvement and through the multi-party political intervention committee, we would have no hope of positive interventions in political conflict. Importantly, the Premier Mchunu also alluded to the daunting challenge of transporting leaners using unsafe transport, the bakkies.
As you would know, this has resulted in unfortunate loss of innocent lives in the recent past. The Government is committed to dealing with this challenge head-on. In this regard plans have been discussed at the cabinet level. Departments of Transport and Education are working flat out to deal with this situation. In conclusion, Madam Speaker, Honourable Members, the Premier has eloquently set the tone for the province of KwaZulu-Natal in 2015.
Plans for the province have been clearly defined with set deadlines and time frames.
The Premier has provided us with the roadmap for moving this province forward. It is, indeed a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap towards placing KwaZulu-Natal on the radical economic footing. Its strategic objective is to ensure that, indeed, the people shall govern.
Now the challenge for all of us in this House is to rise to the occasion and live up to the expectations of the electorate by playing our roles to take this province forward. Now is the time for action for all of us.
I thank you.
