Programme Director,
The Honourable Premier, David Mabuza
Members of the Provincial Executive Council,
The Executive Mayor of Govan Mbeki Local Municipality, Honourable Cllr Lindi Masina
The Executive Mayor of Gert Sibande District Municipality, Honourable Cllr T.A Mnisi
Members of the Municipal and Local Councils,
Traditional Authorities Present,
Representatives from Organised Business,
Community Leaders, from NGO’s, Community Based Organisations and Faith Based Organisations,
Leaders from all political formations,
Members of the community,
Ladies and gentlemen,
All protocol observed.
I am very honoured and privileged to address this important gathering today. Each day our government strive towards the improvement of the lives of ordinary South Africans, government at all levels remain committed to improve service delivery to our people. The policies and programmes of government show great level of commitment to making South Africa a better place.
Programme Director,
On February 9 the President of the Republic of South Africa, President Jacob Zuma, delivered the State of the Nation Address, at 19h00 in the evening. This was the second year running where the President has delivered the State of the Nation Address in the evening.
Delivering the speech in the evening, has allowed the President to reach ordinary working South Africans, who otherwise would not have witnessed the event due to them being at work during the day.
During the SoNA the President, accounted to the Nation and outlined our plans, as government, for the year ahead. He also charged us, as his Cabinet, to write a new story about South Africa. Understanding that this new South African story needs to be written by all of us, collectively, the President has also instructed that we come to you, the people, so that you are on board in the writing of this story.
Today we are here to take, the people of Gert Sibande District along with us as we write this story.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I will now take this opportunity to engage, together with you, some of the most pertinent issues that came out of the State of Nation Address (SoNA).
Our government has been successful in a number of areas, including decreasing the unemployment rate – as indicated by the fourth quarter figures released on 7 February 2012, which indicates that the rate of unemployment has come down from 25% to 23.9% as a result of new jobs and during 2011, a total of 365 000 people were employed – the country’s best performance since the recession of 2008.Our Government has also developed a mining beneficiation strategy which seeks to provide opportunities in the downstream part of the minerals sector.
We have launched the New Growth Path framework and also identified job drivers as infrastructure development, tourism, agriculture, mining, manufacturing and the green economy.
According to the survey conducted by Statistics South Africa, the unemployment rate in this Province of Mpumalanga stands at 18.6%, and North West stands at 26.6% which is the highest in the country. In order to reduce these high unemployment statistics the President has outlined government plans and programmes that will reduce these numbers.
The President also announced an infrastructure plan which will be driven and overseen by the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Council (PICC), which was established in September, bringing together Ministers, Premiers and Metro Mayors under the leadership of the President and the Deputy President. The PICC has identified and developed projects and infrastructure initiatives from state-owned enterprises as well as national, provincial and local government departments.
The State has chosen also projects focusing on health and basic education, infrastructure, information and communication technologies and regional integration. The following projects are Major geographically-focussed programmes.
The development and integration of rail, road and water infrastructure: centred around two main areas in Limpopo: the Waterberg in the Western part of the province and Steelpoort in the eastern part. These efforts are intended to unlock the enormous mineral belt of coal, platinum, palladium, chrome and other minerals, in order to facilitate increased mining as well as stepped-up beneficiation of minerals.
In this province of Mpumalanga, there is going to be expansion of rail transport connecting coalfields to power stations. This will enable a shift from road to rail in the transportation of coal, which has caused a deterioration of the roads in Mpumalanga, I am certain that we are all aware that this Municipality has the largest underground coal mining complex in the world which makes it an important strategic area within the national context. This project will surely reduce the high rate of unemployment in this province by creation more job opportunities.
The Eastern parts of the North West province will benefit from the greater focus on infrastructure connected to mining and mineral beneficiation.
Improvement on the movement of goods and economic integration through a Durban-Free State-Gauteng logistics and industrial corridor: This project is intended to connect the major economic centres of Gauteng and Durban/Pinetown, and at the same time, connect these centres with improved export capacity through our sea-ports. The President announced the Market Demand Strategy of Transnet, which entails an investment, over the next seven years, of R300 billion rand in capital projects.
The Market Demand Strategy will result in the creation of more jobs in the South African economy, as well as increased localisation and Black Economic Empowerment. It will also position South Africa as a regional trans-shipment hub for Sub-Saharan Africa and deliver on NEPAD’s regional integration agenda. R200 billion is allocated to rail projects and the majority of the balance, to projects in the ports. Amongst the list of planned projects, is the expansion of the Iron Ore Export channel from 60 million tons per annum to 82 million tons per annum.
There are various improvements to the Durban-Gauteng Rail corridor and the phased development of a new 16 million tons per annum manganese export channel through the Port of Ngqura in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The State is also looking at the necessity of reducing port charges, as part of reducing the costs of doing business as this was raised sharply by the automotive sector in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage during the performance monitoring visit to the sector last year.
The Port Regulator and Transnet have agreed to an arrangement which will result in exporters of manufactured goods, receiving a significant decrease in port charges, during the coming year, that equals to about R1 billion in total.
The development of a major new South Eastern Node that will improve the industrial and agricultural development and export capacity of the Eastern Cape region, and expand the province’s economic and logistics linkages with the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
The state is committed to building a dam using the Umzimvubu River as the source in Eastern Cape, in order to expand agricultural production.
The implementation of the Mthatha revitalisation project is proceeding very well and this is a Presidential special project. Work is at an advanced stage to improve water, sanitation, electricity, roads, human settlements, airport development and institutional and governance issues. In the North West Province there is a planned expansion of the roll-out of water, roads, rail and electricity infrastructure and ten priority roads will be upgraded.
The improvement of infrastructure to unlock this potential, which includes the expansion of the iron-ore rail line between Sishen in Northern Cape and Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape, which will create large numbers of jobs in both provinces. The iron-ore capacity on the transport-side will increase capacity to 100 million tons per annum and this will allow for the expansion of iron-ore mining over the next decade to feed the developing world’s growing investment in infrastructure and industrial activities.
The Social infrastructure projects include projects aimed at laying the basis for the National Health Insurance system such as the refurbishment of hospitals and nurses’ homes.
Mpumalanga is one the provinces that has been ear marked to build an institute of higher learning, which will benefit the communities of this province in many ways, the young people of this province will benefit immensely through education and much needed jobs will be created. A total of 300 million rand has been allocated for the preparatory work towards this massive project.
South Africa champions the North-South Road and Rail Corridor, which is part of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Presidential Infrastructure Championing initiative. This massive investment in infrastructure will industrialise the country, generate skills and boost the much needed job creation.
Later in the year The President will convene a Presidential infrastructure summit to discuss the implementation of the plan with potential investors and social partners.
There are five (5) new water augmentation schemes that are on schedule, and these are:
- Olifants River Water Resource in Steelpoort in Limpopo province
- the Vaal River Eastern Sub-System in Secunda in Mpumalanga
- Komati Water Augmentation Scheme in Nkangala in Mpumalanga
- the raising of Hazelmere dam in KwaZulu-Natal
- the Clan William Dam in Clan William in the Western Cape.
And in addition, nine out of 25 dams have been rehabilitated across the country. By the 2nd quarter of the 2011/12 financial year, the infrastructure sector of the Expanded Public Works Programme had created 241 177 work opportunities out of the 440 000 targeted for the 2011/12 financial year, and chief amongst this is the contribution by the Community Works Programme which created more than 79 000 work opportunities in the same period benefitting women and the youth particularly from the poor rural families. In addition, the Human Settlements Programme created over 50 000 direct jobs, 4 653 indirect jobs and 21 446 induced job opportunities.
Being a gateway to other African markets, South Africa is an important emerging economy that must work more on supplying energy, transport, communications, ports, rail links, pipelines, road and rail infrastructure and investment in the continent.
South Africa’s R300 billion public infrastructure programme, including those projects mentioned above will surely unlock key mineral resources and export opportunities. When we touch on the education side we see that the matric percentage pass is on an upward trend and more efforts will be made in continuing to invest in producing more teachers who can teach mathematics, science and African languages.
A call to teachers to be in school, in class, on time, teaching for at least seven hours a day remains pivotal to success. A major achievement is the doubling of Grade R enrolment, from 300 000 in 2003 to 705 000 in 2011. There is a clear sign that the target of 100% coverage for Grade R by 2014 will be met.
To fight poverty and inequality and to keep learners in school, over 8 million learners attend no-fee schools while over eight million benefit from government’s school feeding scheme. Last year, national government instituted a Section 100 (1)(b) intervention in the Eastern Cape, to assist the department of education to improve the delivery of education. The implementation of the intervention will continue and all is working well with the province in this regard.
Our records indicate that school attendance in the country is now close to 100 percent for the compulsory band, 7-15 years of age. But there is still a concern regarding the report of the General Household Survey in 2010 that just over 120 000 children in that band are out of school and Grade 10 drop outs appear to be a problem, particularly in the rural and farm areas of the Western Cape. The national Government will work closely with the Western Cape government, to trace these learners and provide support so that they do not lose their future.
With regards to higher education, government has exceeded targets, close to 14 000 learners were placed in workplace learning opportunities over the past year, and over 11 000 artisans have completed their trade tests. As government we strongly encourage our young people to take the education opportunities presented to them to get quality education, because they are the future leaders of this beautiful country.
On the Municipal Infrastructure development the following strategic objectives were put in place:
- To support municipalities to effectively undertake Comprehensive Infrastructure Planning
- To support municipalities to effectively and efficiently procure and develop their infrastructure
- To support the management of (infrastructure) operations and ensuring a proper maintenance programme for municipal infrastructure;
- To provide specialised technical and management support to municipalities to ensure accelerated delivery of municipal infrastructure and service provision;
- To develop and coordinate the strengthening of technical capacity in municipalities and within the sector as well as facilitate increased access to funding;
- To monitor the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of infrastructure projects and support initiatives.
Cooperative governance is the key towards achieving the goals that we have set for ourselves as government. We all need to embrace the spirit with which the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTS) was conceptualised, the main strategic objectives of LGTS are to, Restore the confidence of the majority of the people in our municipalities, as delivery machine of the developmental state at local level; re-build and improve basic requirements for a functional accountable, responsive, effective, efficient developmental local government.
The local or cooperative governance sphere is a sphere where all of us, have a role to play. We are all players in cooperative governance. There are no reserves and no bystanders. We take this opportunity to acknowledge the good performance by the Provincial Government of Mpumalanga in forming partnerships with stakeholders which continues to strengthen democracy and community participation.
We are also acknowledging those municipalities like Govan Mbeki Local Municipality who have performed well over the past financial period, in which they received an unqualified audit report from the Auditor-General. We are aware that some of the municipalities in this province did not do badly themselves even though there are still areas of improvement.
As I conclude, the government call on all of us to take responsibility of our destiny and promote social cohesion and let us write the story of this beautiful country together!
Once again I wish to declare that “Together We Can Do More”.
I thank you!
