Budget Speech for Vote 13 delivered by the MEC for Social Development, Mrs Weziwe Thusi, at the Provincial Legislature on the 5th of May 2017
Chairperson
Honourable Premier and Honourable Members of the Executive Council
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature
Honourable Chairperson of the Social Development Portfolio Committee
Organs of Civil Society and our social partners
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Honourable Chairperson, I rise to present the 2017/18 Budget and Programme Plans of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development.
I deliver this speech during the year of Oliver Tambo, one of the greatest leaders our country has ever produced. Of course, Tambo never got to enjoy the fruits of his toil.
However, he envisioned a free and a prosperous South Africa. Our democratic government has done a lot to ensure that the legacy that Tambo left us is preserved for future generations.
I also deliver this budget speech whilst our country and province is engulfed by a number of social ills, chief among them is drug abuse, which breeds a number of these ills such as sexual molestation, social crime and break down of family units, among others.
One will be elaborating further on programmes that the department will be rolling out to mitigate the challenges one has highlighted.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development is guided by various legislation and policy mandates, including key planning frameworks such as the National Development Plan Vision 2030, the Medium-Term Strategic Framework 2014-2019, the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Growth and Development Plan 2016.
The mandate of the Department remains that of providing developmental social welfare services and community development interventions, particularly to vulnerable groups such as children, youth, women, older persons, people with disabilities and people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Honourable members, I now present the programme plans aligned to the 2017/18 Budget Vote:
The department remains committed to the realisation of the objectives of “Building a Capable State” as outlined in Chapter 13 of the National
Development Plan and “An Efficient, Effective and Development Oriented Public Service, “the Government Outcome 12 as articulated in the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2014-2019.
As part of realising these objectives, the Department remains steadfast in improving governance and management practices during the 2017 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period.
On human resource management, I approved the revised organisational structure of the Department, which is in line with the budget programme structure of the Provincial Departments of Social Development that was introduced in the 2014 MTEF.
We will also improve our human resource capacity using the recently-introduced Social Worker Employment Grant amounting to R53,4 million.
This grant will assist the Department to reduce the backlog of social work graduates who remain unemployed after completing their government-subsidised education.
I am pleased to report that the audit outcome in the Department has improved from a qualified audit opinion in 2014/15 to unqualified in 2015/16.
The department remains on track to further improve its audit outcomes. Read more…[PDF]
