State of the Province Address, Provincial Legislature
15 February 2006
Madam Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Honourable Members
I would like to thank the leaders of political parties, colleagues in the
Executive Council and Honourable Members for their various contributions to the
debate of this year's State of the Province Address.
My inclination is to avoid getting into polemics of political point-scoring
that sometimes characterise debates like these during times of elections. I
would not be able to respond in detail to all the issues raised by members in
their inputs. These details will be delivered by MECs when they table their
departmental budget votes for this year.
Instead, Madam Speaker, I will dedicate this time to respond to pertinent as
well as provocative inputs by Honourable Members that relate to the critical
challenges of service delivery and improving the lives of our citizens.
Indeed, I concur with Honourable Makume when she says we should not be
ashamed of trumpeting our achievements as a young democracy, particularly in
the areas of gender equality and equity, disability and youth development.
The points that Honourable Makume raised can never be over-emphasised and we
will spare no efforts in addressing them, as she said herself that "speed is
the core of efficiency". Many of those are intended to and will be raised
sharply in the Premier's budget vote and all departmental policy speeches; in
addition to what Honourable raised.
Honourable Matladi, Matlholwa and Hattingh raised certain concerns about
issues that may suggest administrative instability in the Department of
Agriculture, Conservation and Environment. I believe Honourable MEC Mayisela,
was able to sufficiently respond to all these issues during the debate.
Nevertheless, let me emphasise what we said during the State of the Province
Address and that is to say, we have put plans in place to improve, amongst
others, performance on expenditure.
As stated during the State of the Province Address, we will ensure that we
monitor the situation in the department on a monthly basis.
Regarding the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process in our province,
we would like to say that we are satisfied with the process as it unfolded.
Even though other racial groups did not participate, we believe the outcome and
report of this process was a fair representation of the majority view of the
people of the North West Province.
We must however continue to ask ourselves why some of the representatives of
these minorities in this House do not ensure such participation.
As we celebrate the tenth Anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of
the Republic of South Africa this year, we would like to reiterate that what we
are building is a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, home to
all her people.
Like Honourable Matladi, Matlholwa and Makume we are also concerned about
the drop in the Matric pass rate. It should be noted however that this decline
was in quantity, while there was improvement in quality. The quantitative drop
and qualitative improvement was by no means unique to our province, as the
entire country also experienced it.
However, this year we will increase funding towards, among others, the
improvement of results. Honourable MEC Tselapedi will elaborate on the details
during the Departmental budget vote.
Honourable MEC Mangqo was spot-on when she said the South African Social
Services Agency (SASSA) could not have come at a better time as we believe it
will assist us greatly in the complex task of delivering social services to our
people.
We agree with Honourable Mangqo that some of the critical challenges that
her Department will have to address this year include the late transfer of
conditional grants, lack of capacity by communities to absorb grant funding,
lack of human and material resources leading to backlog on foster care
placement of children.
All these issues have been clearly identified and will be dealt with. As it
can also be noted, they are raised by the relevant MEC and that is an
indication that we are not hiding behind strange excuses but face challenges
head on.
As Honourable Gerber asserted that, we must continue to consider other
sustainable options and develop a qualitative strategy to address poverty and
potential growing dependence on social grants.
Honourable Members will recall that a directive was issued last year through
the State of the Province Address to convene a Social Indaba where this issue
would be dealt with. However, due to reasons stated in the State of the
Province Address, the Social Indaba will now take place this year. This will
give us adequate time to craft a qualitative strategy to address these
matters.
Responding to Honourable Matlholwa, our take is that the Expanded Public
Works Programme (EPWP) is meant to create short-term jobs with long-term
employment opportunities.
The EPWP is a short-term intervention to create labour-intensive, as opposed
to capital-intensive job opportunities to expand our job creation envelope. It
is just but one of a broader range of job-creation and investment mechanisms
inclusive of permanent jobs, all of which must drive us towards our target of
6% economic growth.
Nevertheless we pride ourselves for the fact that EPWP assists the
beneficiaries to acquire skills that will allow them eventually to be absorbed
by the job market. MEC for Public Works will elaborate on these issues during
his policy speech in this legislature in a few a weeks.
Madam Speaker I would like to re-emphasise that the Provincial Government
will support all our municipalities including Mafikeng in ensuring that roads
are upgraded and maintained. The budget for road infrastructure will be
increased this year as will be seen in the Budget Vote of the relevant
department.
Honourable Hattingh the African National Congress (ANC) in the North West is
intact and on top of the political management of the province. We would prefer
to focus on pertinent issues of service delivery and improving the lives of our
citizens.
We view the statistics that you churned out with utter scepticism. Ignorant
of the source and veracity of your crime figures, we nevertheless stand by our
genuine assessment that crime levels in the province are going down. We base
our assessment on the official figures given by our law enforcement agency, the
South African Police Service.
Despite Honourable Hattingh's rather alarmist depiction of a province and a
country that is essentially crime-infested, inherently corrupt, unstable, and
run by incompetent black people who have no interests of the people at heart,
we want to set the record straight: Crime is indeed going down in the North
West Province! This country is in good hands; we deal with crime and corruption
decisively and not like the previous white minority government used to do. The
economy is growing and there has never been such a confluence of possibilities
for all our people in this country.
We will not, as Honourable Hattingh implied, prioritise Khutsong to the
detriment of the rest of our municipalities. What we said in the State of the
Province is that; "We will prioritise Khutsong in our efforts to build cohesion
and engender a new developmental consciousness to build our localities."
This is by no means a suggestion that we will solely focus on Khutsong to
the exclusion of other municipalities. What it does mean is that the ruling
party has developed a plan to make local government work better for all the
people of the province, including Khutsong.
Honourable Gwabeni, I would like to say that we are happy indeed that today,
unlike the late former ANC President DT Gumede, we do not have to endlessly
relate pity stories where we are slaves in our own country.
Instead, as Honourable Gwabeni reminded the House, today South Africa
belongs to all who live in it, black and white. Thank you Honourable Gwabeni
for highlighting the importance of our governance structures such as School
Governing Bodies, Community Policing Forums and Ward Committees. These remain
critical to a people-centred democracy that we are building.
We believe, like Honourable Groenewald, that there will be peace in
Khutsong. We would even venture to say that business and normal life will
thrive in Khutsong after current interventions by both National Government and
the two Provincial Governments of Gauteng and North West. We will assess the
extent of damage to business-related property and based on the availability of
resources, we will decide on the appropriate interventions.
We would like to refer Honourable Groenewald to what we said regarding the
FIFA 2010 World Cup: 'We call on our provincial 2010 team to mobilise all our
people in particular the small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to
identify ensuing business opportunities*and ensure that the legacy of 2010
World Cup lives beyond the tournament for the people of the province".' Our
preparations for the World Cup 2010 are therefore not only about building a
strong Bafana Bafana.
We share Honourable Groenewald's concern about our school children walking
on the side of national roads. To this effect, we announced in the State of the
Province Address of this year that we would continue with the Scholar Transport
Programme that caters for farm and rural schools in particular and that the
Departments of Transport and Education would finalise and implement the
strategy for multimodal transport in this coming financial year.
To Honourable Mayisela and Vilakazi, a genuine word of gratitude for their
true perspectives on the agricultural sector and local government respectively.
Like Honourable Mayisela, we view agriculture as one of the key pillars of our
economic growth and development and as such, agriculture must not be used as a
political ping-pong ball in the quest for votes in the local government
elections.
Along with Honourable Vilakazi, we embrace the challenge of eradicating the
bucket system by 2007. Victory in this regard is more than certain. Our plan
for local government includes approaching the next term of local councils with
a more developed sensitivity to the matter of local government's need for
enhanced institutional capacity, clear support and intervention mechanisms if
need be.
I concur with Honourable Gerber that we must adhere to policies that will
lead to growth and prosperity in our province. I would also like to assure
Honourable Gerber that in reviewing the willing-buyer willing-seller approach
to land redistribution, government has the best interests of both white
commercial farmers as well as the majority of the black people who were
dispossessed of their land.
I must stress that we will always need white farmers. For starters, we need
them to mentor upcoming farmers on matters of productivity. We do not seek to
upset the streams of production. However, having observed the slow pace of land
reform, absentee farmers, inflated prices, it would be helpful if farmers could
be alert to these realities so that they assist government in the land reform
process.
We believe the slow pace of land reform poses a clear and present threat to
our democracy.
On reassuring Honourable Gerber and members of our farming communities, we
look no further than President Thabo Mbeki's words during the State of the
Nation Address in which he directed the Minister of Agriculture and Land
Affairs to "review the willing-buyer willing-seller policy; review land
acquisition models and possible manipulation of land prices; and regulate
conditions under which foreigners buy land". This, the President said, will be
done in line with international norms and practices.
As government we will continue to ensure that the land redistribution
programme is aligned to our Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS)
and the Integrated Development Plans (IDP) of our municipalities, as well as
attend to the proper use of the funds that have been made available for the
productive utilisation of the land.
Thanking and echoing Honourable Mokaila's input during the debate, we would
like to conclude by saying that Government will neither shy away from
challenges nor fail to trumpet our achievements in the space of a few years we
have had to rectify anomalies that ensued for more than 300 years in our
country. As Honourable Mokaila observed, our macro-economic growth is
unprecedented in the history of our country.
I also agree with Honourable Mokaila that any economic policy that does not
translate to better living conditions for our people is doomed to fail. Hence
we have Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA) which
emphasises shared growth.
Amongst others, he posed this critical question: Will our state-owned
enterprises in the province be amenable to growth as dictated by the
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA)?
Although the roles of our state-owned enterprises have been adequately
defined in relation to our PGDS, we believe that there is cause for review on
whether they lend themselves immediately amenable to the needs and urgency of
ASGISA.
Our belief is that we need to redefine the mandate of some of North West
state-owned enterprises in the context of ASGISA. The Executive Council will be
looking into this matter during the coming financial year.
The issue that Honourable Mokaila raised about the proposed merger of
Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission is a very important one.
We will certainly begin discussions in line with the national processes.
Honourable Members, we note the issues that were raised in relation to our
schools infrastructure programmes, sanitation backlog in schools and the
Primary School Nutrition Programme (PSNP). These will be adequately addressed
by Honourable Tselapedi during his Departmental Budget Vote in this House.
Madam Speaker, before we close this debate I would like convey to the soccer
fraternity and the entire family of Dr Irvin Khoza, Vice-President of the South
African Football Association and Chairperson of the FIFA World Cup 2010 Local
Organising Committee (LOC), our heartfelt condolences for the departure of her
daughter, indeed a daughter of this nation, Zodwa Khoza on Monday 13 February
2006.
In closing the debate, we would like to reiterate our firm conviction that
the North West Province is now on an irreversible path of growth and
development that will benefit all our people. There is indeed tangible evidence
that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. This year we will again increase
our efforts at building a North West Province that is a pride of our nation
South Africa.
We would once more like to urge our people to assume their crucial role in
the strengthening of our democracy by voting in the Local Government Elections
on 1 March 2006.
We now take this opportunity to thank and recognise the support as expressed
by political parties and by all honourable members who participated in this
debate. We are most appreciative of the inputs of those that shared the
possibility of success in our programmes. We therefore value their
contributions and believe they underline the unmistakable maturity of our
democracy.
Kea leboga, thank you!
Issued by: North West Provincial Government
15 February 2006
