Province Address
27 February 2007
Members of the media, Premier Thabang Makwetla in the State of the Province
Address outlined clearly the Government programme to accelerate service
delivery.
Today, the Social Service Cluster of the Executive Council elaborates on the
programme of action to realise the stated objectives.
The creation of a caring society is at the centre of our development agenda.
This agenda is contained in the January 8 statement of the African National
Congress which proclaimed 2007 as: "The Year To Intensify The Struggle Against
Poverty As We Advance In Unity Towards 2012."
To this end, the support for the families affected and infected by HIV and
AIDS, extreme poverty, violence and abuse will receive maximum attention
through close collaboration between communities, civil society and
government.
The Honourable Premier clearly stated our commitment to the emancipation of
"Not-So-Perfect Kids from the Not-So-Perfect families, who know how to grow up
unceremoniously with pain of deprivation of one kind or another." Accordingly,
the provincial government has set aside 60 operational Early Childhood
Development (ECD) sites for integrated plan in the province. In addition, 80
new sites will be created this year to cater for over 9 600 children at the
cost of R9,6 million.
The ECD programme will enhance child care and add necessary impetus on
Government efforts to create job opportunities in line with the Expanded Public
Works Programme (EPWP). In each site there will be a cook, gardener and a child
minder. Training will be provided for the above employees. The new sites will
be operational from 1 April 2007 and each region will have 20 new sites
including Bushbuckridge.
Training will also be provided for educators in HIV and AIDS. 309 Centre
managers and 1 050 members of Centre Governing Bodies will be empowered in
Management and Governance in 150 Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET)
Centres.
To make freedom a reality for those who were denied opportunities by
apartheid, we will enrol 26 000 participants in Adult Basic Education and
Training courses in 2007/08 at a cost of R90 million.
We have also set aside R40 million to support 175 Home Community Based Care
Centres that provide community level support to vulnerable families.
In further strengthening the contribution of the social sector to the EPWP,
600 learners will be trained in construction and 200 learners in Elconop II,
which is one of our ABET programmes.
The Social Services Cluster has the task of driving, Heritage, Greening
Mpumalanga and Tourism, which is one of the Flagships known as the Big Five.
This programme's goal is to preserve the heritage and environment of Mpumalanga
by optimising socio-economic development through the promotion of sustainable
and responsible tourism.
This programme has gone past the initial planning stage and has some of its
elements already being implemented. These include the Heritage Summit held last
year, the popularisation of the History and Heritage Report mentioned by our
Honourable Premier and the symposium on Stonewalling in Mpumalanga, which
continued to lay the foundation for further work on this programme.
We have indeed made strides in this regard and the programme of action will
be made available soon for the further roll out of the project. Plans will
include a dedicated website, identified heritage sites, consultation processes,
promotion and marketing of heritage icons and sites of the province information
on Cenotaphs, holding of Heritage Symposium, training of tour guides and
provisioning of promotional material.
This flagship will also see communities and staff planting trees and shrubs
in the province's schools, clinics, hospitals and parks. A budget of at least
R950 000 has been set aside for this project. The project brings together
provincial departments, local municipalities and parastatals to plan and
deliver services.
The Social Service Cluster in collaboration with the Department of
Agriculture and Land Administration and the Agricultural Research Council will
assist schools, health care centres and home based care centres to roll out
this initiative.
In our quest to further advance the objectives of the Big Five through
Greening Mpumalanga, the Social Service Cluster has in January this year
launched the Food Production Initiative in the three Regions. This will
continue in the coming financial year as directed by the Honourable
Premier.
This will further entrench a culture of food production for a better life.
It will also complement all other initiatives aimed at fighting poverty and
improving the environment.
Studies conducted by institutions such as the Food & Agriculture
Organisation, the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Health Organisation, show that hunger,
nutrition and poverty are strongly correlated. The same studies note that in
the world as a whole, hunger impacts negatively to the attainment of Millennium
Development Goals, namely universal primary education, gender equity, child
mortality, and maternal health.
All communities, labour, business and all other stakeholders are hereby
invited to be part of this innovative programme, which seeks to further
integrate our work on heritage with the beauty of our province which will add
to economic growth to be brought about by accelerated projects that will
promote Mpumalanga as the ultimate tourist destination.
In order to advance the province's social development agenda, the Siyadlala
Mass Participation Programme which focuses on rural communities, farms and
areas that were identified as crime hot spots, such as KaNyamazane, Vosman,
Siyabuswa and Embalenhle, the programme has R15,9 million to implement five (5)
community sport and recreation programmes in each district municipality.
We call upon our people to participate in sport, in all communities, schools
and hospitals of the province of the rising sun. This is in line with
Government healthy lifestyle campaign.
Currently the programme has 21 central points or hubs in 18 local
municipalities. A total of 144 volunteers have been identified and are
receiving a monthly stipend as part of job creation. Activities include
aerobics, general gymnastics, fun run/ big walk, street ball (basketball,
street soccer and street handball) and indigenous games (intonga, incuva,
diketo, morabaraba). Equipment for these activities is supplied by the Sport
and Recreation South Africa.
The target group is youth, women, and disabled people. The main purpose for
this programme is not only about promotion of mass participation but also an
attempt to combat crime. This will further ensure that there's a proper fan
mobilisation plan.
Furthermore the Social Services Cluster will spend R6,9 million to ensure
that school sport programmes are kept alive.
Sport assistants will be appointed and equipment procured for schools.
Capacity building will be provided for volunteers and educators and there are
currently 105 schools in the programme.
The Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation will soon employ the 2010
co-ordinator to enhance our readiness to provide quality 2010 World Cup
standards.
One of the cluster priorities is the reduction by 3% in the number of deaths
caused by communicable diseases, amongst which tuberculosis (TB) remains the
greatest challenge for the province particularly in the Nkangala District. A
budget of at least R94,6 million has been set aside for that purpose. This
includes the work that the cluster will do to combat TB, particularly Multi
Drug Resistant (MDR) and Extreme Drug Resistant (XDR) TB. The province has
succeeded in improving the cure rate of TB from about 34,5% in August 2006 to
about 50,5% at the end of December 2006.
On HIV and AIDS, Government commits itself to intensify the campaign against
HIV and AIDS and to improve the implementation of all elements of the
comprehensive approach such as Prevention, Home Based Care and Treatment we
shall also enhance partnerships with all relevant stakeholders.
The Social Services Cluster has been very forthright about challenges of
attracting suitably skilled people into our facilities, where more often than
not, we advertise posts but fail to appoint either because people did not apply
or could not get people with necessary technical expertise. Notwithstanding
this challenge, we have made some milestones in filling the vacant funded posts
in all levels in the member departments, more critically the professional posts
such as those we need in our libraries, hospitals, clinics and schools.
To achieve these noble objectives we will continue to rely on the wisdom of
our people to provide critical support to all these initiatives, but more
significantly to partner us by offering their insightful analysis of our
performance.
You and all communities are once more invited to be part of our effort to
provide solutions to challenges to take service delivery to greater heights in
Mpumalanga.
Thank you.
Enquiries:
Mr SW Lubisi
Chairperson: Executive Council Committee on Social Services
Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Ms Mamazane Mvubu
Communication Officer
Media, Governmental Liaison and Information Services
Tel: (013) 766 2256
Fax: (013) 766 2495
E-mail: mmvubu@mpg.gov.za
Issued by: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
27 February 2007
