P Mlambo-Ngcuka: The Presidency Dept Budget Vote 2007/08

12 June 2007.
 
The President of the Republic, The Honourable Thabo Mbeki
Madam Speaker of the National Assembly
Madam Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Honourable Members,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Fellow South Africans,    
 
I am honoured to have an opportunity to engage with you on the occasion of the
Annual Debate of the Presidency Budget.

This Budget takes place during a special month. Our Youth month!

When we talk about the people of South Africa and Africa we are talking
about a population that is essentially young.

In Africa close to 30% of people are below 35 years of age. In South Africa
41% of our population is below the age of 35 years. This presents our continent
and country with an opportunity to shape the next generation, depending on what
we do.

In the 2007 SONA, the President announced that we need to look into the
matter of the wage subsidy, which is a facilitated entry into the labour market
by first time entrants, the majority of whom would be youth. Precisely because
we need greater certainty about youth absorption into the labour market and
their soft landing into the world of work, I noted with appreciation that the
Minister of Finance touched on this in his budget speech.  

As we build the fabric of this great nation, restore its soul and brighten
its future.

Unlike with the youth of 1976, this government is on the side of the Youth
of today, we are partners in reconstruction. The unfolding process to renew the
Youth Development Policy led by Minister Pahad will intensify how we confront
these vexing issues many of them are from the throes of our inherited tragic
history.

Honourable members, the needs of our young people are not abstract or a pie
in the sky. They are very very real. Most of our youth in South Africa just
need someone to give them 'a break'.

We also know this economy will never reach its full potential without the
full engagement of the younger citizens, our women and black people in general.
These are the people on whom growing the economy faster and more equitably
equally rests. An estimated 4 million of them are out of school, unemployed,
and with only 10 or less years of schooling. They too are part of the young
population that must be empowered to make our future bright, they need our
attention soonest. It is for that reason that we have done a study on private
sector funding of youth development, which is estimated to be at R7 billion.
Their funding and our own programmes as government do not target the above
category of young people well enough. This week we will meet to discuss how we
can target and design our programmes together for greater impact on these young
lives whose great potential we are denying ourselves. Abo Trompies e Mitchells
Plain, aboNtoko Emlazi kwa V, abo Bro Tsepo e Qwaqwa.

They are young able bodied and unskilled but trainable qha! They should not
be left to form the next generation of Second Economy citizens.

Thankfully our democracy has opened possibilities for millions of our Youth
who are slowly but surely making their presence felt in the public sector,
community, economy, science, education and many other fields.

It is important not to define success to our young people only in terms of
business and wealth accumulation; service, professionalism and academic
excellence are of equal value and most times even of greater virtue. When many
of you, honourable members, left school some of the careers and industries in
the market today did not even exist. In the next ten years there will be new
industries and careers for which new qualifications and skills will be needed
and for which our young and old must prepare. In the work we do in the Joint
Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) we align the economic growth
trajectory with skills requirements. We have already enabled at least five
thousand young graduates in training and employment placements in South Africa
and almost a thousand overseas. These placements are driven by the Independent
Development Trust (IDT), assisted by the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF), foreign
embassies, many departments including Foreign Affairs who in future will play
an even more significant role in international placements.

We have been pleasantly surprised to find Black young rural women with
amazing qualifications, eagerness and intellect. Some we have placed where they
can fast-track their acquisition of experience and skills. I would like to
thank many companies in South Africa and abroad who have assisted us in this
work. For young adults, on the margins, our Adult Basic Education and Training
(ABET) programme will also play a greater role when it is in full steam,
especially technical ABET. The National Youth Service will give them 'a
break'.

We are glad that the National Youth Service (NYS) will meet the target set
by the President in the state of the nation address. I would like to thank our
departments who have allocated resources to the NYS and some who have already
started with implementation. I would like to thank the departments of Public
Works, Defence, Home Affairs, Social Development, Health, Water Affairs and
Forestry, Housing, municipalities and many more for coming to the party.

Our training of artisans by both government and private sector and State
Owned Enterprises (SOEs) is another very direct response to the demands for
skills and gaps identified by JIPSA in our growing economy. With the R415,8
billion government expenditure committed for infrastructure, our government is
delivering on a key Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA) objective, which has also raised the investment levels in this economy
to significant new heights. As the President has stated, gross fixed capital
investments, much of which is in infrastructure, rose from 14.7% of GDP in 2002
to over 19.2% of GDP in the last quarter of 2006. SOEs are making progress,
Eskom's power stations have been approved and tenders for Independent Power
Producers (IPPs) have been approved. National public transport plan has been
finalised and approved. ACSA is on schedule. Transnet orders for locomotives
and rolling stocks are in the pipeline. This progress is a relief as
infrastructure is the largest component of money committed by government to
AsgiSA. We have a dedicated person in the Presidency who is monitoring and
liaising with colleagues who are working on the infrastructure programme.

We are worried about capital goods implications hence the Policy
Co-ordination and Advisory Services (PCAS) are working with the economic
cluster, to address this. I would like to thank the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) who has done a study on the exact capital goods requirements.
The study is now being discussed with the stakeholders.

Honourable members, we are seized with issues of poverty and we are putting
greater emphasis on eradicating poverty in a predictable manner. To date even
our worst critics agree that government's outreach to 13 million beneficiaries,
who are the poorest of the poor is unprecedented and is the only reliable
income for most extremely poor households, families, poor children, Gogos, and
disabled persons. Our critics also agree that our social wage, in its totality,
is very generous and also unprecedented for a developing country. That is why
we also know how to identify the unserved groups in the second economy who do
not receive any grants or education or pre-pensioned adults. We can target them
with a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, such that they will exit the
poverty cycle into self-reliance. It is not true that government does not care
for the poor; we did not manufacture the 13 million beneficiaries. Who else in
this country is doing so much with such dedication and is even committed to do
more? Our government will implement an interim anti-poverty campaign while it
is developing the comprehensive anti-poverty strategy and will identify
households and individuals in dire poverty.

We are committed to intervening in collaboration with the families through a
strategy for each family and individual. In that process we seek to empower
families to take responsibility to end poverty in their own family for
generations to come. The social cluster and PCAS are seized with this work of
empowering the family in the fight against poverty.

 We also acknowledge that provision of social protection through income
transfers is only an element but is the right choice.

Our commitment is also to end gender-based poverty, which is persisting at
the bottom of the poverty pyramid. These women and poor people, in general, are
the people who do not have jobs they are not in fortunate positions like you
and the many other who are employed by government, private sector, or self
employed. Our responsibility as this government is to ensure state resources
are spent in a manner that is not biased against the poorest of the poor
because they only depend on us for health care, for pension, for the child
grant, for free education, for free water, for basic infrastructure and they
have no bargaining power and nobody to bargain with. Those of us, the people
from my party who were voted overwhelmingly by the poorest of the poor must
balance between the needs of the poorest of the poor and the legitimate needs
of our salaried employees.

Honourable members, we made a commitment to achieve universal access to
basic services earlier than the timeframe set in the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), our targets for 2014 are more ambitious on energy, water,
sanitation and within tighter time frames. We have to defy the prediction that
all of Africa will not meet the MDG targets. That is not an option for us and
we believe it is possible for us to meet our targets. But to do that our red
tape in government especially where we are dependant on each other, must
GO!

Madam Speaker and Honourable President, I am now convinced that the work
done by Department of Provincial and Local Government (dplg), Development Bank
of Southern Africa (DBSA), JIPSA, the private sector, the excellent work by
Department of Home Affairs in facilitating permits so we can recruit foreign
skills, the returning South Africans from Diaspora, and retired professionals
is paying off.

With this mobilisation of skills for municipalities, we can end the skills
shortage and can end it in all municipalities. We can even do better with
secondmends. However, our own red tape among national departments, provinces,
within departments and inter-governmentally must GO! So getting rid of the red
tape needs as much attention as the skills issues.

Honourable President, Madam Speaker, Nani nonke Malunga ahloniphekileyo,
following the provincial visits I undertook with Director-General, Reverend
Frank Chikane, we have gained further insights into challenges faced by
provinces and their commitment to get it right! The process of eradication of
the bucket system remains a priority in all our provinces and impressive
progress is being made. I would also like to thank the Department of Water
Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) for their excellent work. We engaged very frankly
with colleagues in the provinces on the challenges. To date we have visited the
Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and North West focusing on the
performance of Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS), AsgiSA
projects, basic service delivery, human resource development (HRD), youth and
women's development, safety and social and governance issues!

In each province we have been assisted by the dplg and affected national
departments on the specific challenges of each province. Some of our general
conclusions from our visits so far include:
* Urgency to ensure hospital revitalisation in all provinces is given all the
support, especially where there are sound and agreed business plans and the
need for human resources in health.
* Provision of quality education and great need to ensure support at each of
the thirty thousand schools in the country, starting with the neediest.
* Filling of vacancies and need for better recruitment, retention strategies
and shared pools of skills including secondments and foreign skills.
* Financial management challenges, though improving, a lot of support is still
needed. The involvement of the National Treasury in the Municipal Public
Finance Management Act Unit is bearing fruit in some provinces.
Qhubekani!
* In Local Economic Development (LED) planning capability we see a glaring need
to ensure macro alignment of LED with macro-economic opportunities, it does not
mean LED is just about small projects. Otherwise, how else do we deal with
large unemployment in municipalities. We have not seen enough utilisation of
government business to initiate large-scale sustainable, low entry for small,
medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) such as in waste management.
We noticed improvements with regard to:
* Environmental Impact Assessment.
* HIV and AIDS management and efforts to manage tuberculosis (TB). There is a
greater need for support given urgency as explained by the Minister of Health
in her budget vote.
* Pockets of improvement in infrastructure roll out.
* Inter-governmental relations are much better.
* Improving food security especially because of the social grants.

We noted progress in AsgiSA projects such as the Dube Trade Port in
KwaZulu-Natal, Umzimvubu in Eastern Cape, Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) in
the North West.

Jobs for Growth is an attempt to grow local jobs, with an ambitious target
of creating jobs especially for women. We are thankful to the Independent
Development Trust (IDT) for its support in this work. Jobs for Growth offers
training to co-operatives and micro enterprises, capacity to produce commercial
articles and marketing. The majority of these entrepreneurs are in agriculture.
This programme compliments the work of the DTI. The work in the area of SMMEs
has to be in much larger scale than it is now to have the desirable impact.
Sectors in the National Industrial Strategy and large business are a necessary
link in the development of small businesses. We are awaiting the work on the
set-asides for SMMEs and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) from Government as
well as work on the timeous payment of SMMEs by government to be completed.

Like the President, I find it hard to believe that our economy is not
growing faster that the statistics indicate. Just the demand for energy tells
the story. I must add we need you to promote ENERGY EFFICIENCY.

As we grow, the challenge however, is how we unleash growth opportunities in
relation to needs of people in the second economy, in the most direct, quick
and sustainable manner. As Honourable Members know the Office of the Deputy
President is assigned to work on the complex matter of the second economy
together with all the clusters in government, as this work cuts across all of
government. This is work in progress and we will share with this house, once
the work is ready. That does not stop us from continuously addressing the
problems as we currently know them. I am particularly pleased to see how ICT
companies are drawing in young people from poor communities to provide them
with cutting edge skills.

In the ensuing collaborating approach within AsgiSA, we are seeing more
companies and provincial governments intensifying training of engineers,
artisans, project managers, information and communication technology (ICT) and
financial professionals. These initiatives will augment the numbers of
graduates expected from Universities as per the work done by the department of
education with Jipsa. I would like to thank the JIPSA Secretariat and the
participating departments for their hard work. Let me also thank the department
of labour for the progress made on the artisans. We must sustain the pace in
relation to the regulations that will define what an artisan is and we have to
bring to the close the issue of National Qualification Framework (NQF)
review.

We also encourage all of you, Honourable Members and the people in your
communities, to participate in the mentoring initiatives, under the theme
'every child is my child', where young people and adults, mentor younger people
and children. One such programme is the Big Brother and Big Sister programme
driven by Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission. We have a big
shortage of adult males as mentors and the young boys have asked us to find
them good male role models. Can all the good men in this house stand up be
counted! We also encourage corporates to initiate their own mentoring schemes
where their employees will be the 'Big' and we will supply them with the
'small'. All our children, especially, the vulnerable ones need special
attention. We need more middle class people to embrace this programme.

Leader of Government Business

As the Leader of Government Business (LOGB) we provide an interface between
the Executive and Parliament. I thank members of the executive and presiding
officers for raising sharply the issues that continue to bedevil effective
co-ordination in this area of our work.

We are all committed to solving these problems in both houses, to work
better where there is legislation that need collaboration between different
departments, therefore, different committees and to shorten the time it takes
to process that type of legislation.

I thank you for passing the Sexual Offences Bill in this house and we must
use the lessons learnt to work better. We must use this experience to expedite
the Child Justice Bill which the department of Justice is bringing back for
further consideration.

We appreciate the interest Members show in the work of government through
the questions posed to the executive, myself and the President. There is room
for improvement to ensure that Questions are tabled for a useful purpose.

I am pleased that Parliament is close to finalising its approach to its
oversight work. From the Executive side, more work needs to be put into
ensuring that the Executive responds to issues raised by Parliament in their
oversight work and particularly in reports adopted by the House. The LOGB Unit
in the Cabinet office will be crucial in this regard.

I wish to thank Ms Vanessa Calvert and Ms Judy Cornish, from the support
office in Parliament of the Leader of Government Business for the important
work they perform in this area. My Parliamentary Counsellor, Ms Dorothy
Motubatse is on extended sick leave and we wish her a speedy recovery. In her
absence, John Jeffery, President's Parliamentary Counsellor provides an
excellent assistant service to my work.

South African National AIDS Council (SANAC)

Madame Speaker, the fight for a healthier nation, free of preventable
diseases continues to be a shared vision by many South Africans. This has been
aptly demonstrated through the vigorously restructured and reinvigorated South
African National Aids Council (SANAC).

I would like to thank the leadership of the Department of Health, other
national departments, professionals, civil society and all those who have
contributed to this process which has led to the consensus that we have on the
National Strategic Plan.

Madame Speaker, I am certain that in both word and deed, Honourable Members
will be found in the forefront of this battle against HIV and AIDS.

Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM)

South Africans must also work together on rebuilding our society. The
majority of South Africans are committed to a shared and better future. We urge
civil society, professionals to work for social cohesion to plough back in the
communities. To fight against the few, in our communities, who engage in
criminal activities. We need to reclaim our neighbourhoods. The MRM initiative
in our communities, therefore, deserves our support and involvement.

2010

Like MRM, the 2010 FIFA World Cup is rooted in a broader project of
nation-building.
 
Our President remarked, in a letter to FIFA President Sir Joseph S
Blatter, that "the fundamentals of this bid lie in our resolve to ensure that
the 21st century unfolds as a century of growth and development in
Africa".
 
Fact is that we can report that this FIFA World Cup is already the most
successful FIFA World Cup ever. It has generated a massive 3.2 billion US
dollars in signed agreements – more than any other World Cup. In addition FIFA
has donated 70 million US dollars towards the legacy programme, our government
has approved R19 billion worth of infrastructure and that South African
companies have invested more than R700 million into this event.

We stand in front of you here today, proud in the knowledge that the jobs
that are being created are benefiting the poor around the country. Our hearts
are warmed by the construction worker in Port Elizabeth who said that the job
she has building the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is her first since 1989. We
rejoice in the statement of a worker at Soccer City who said that he was not
just building a stadium, but that he was helping to build our country. That is
the spirit!
 
We will unveil opportunities for SMMEs at the 2010 Business Opportunities
Conference to be hosted on 19 June 2007. Government will partner with the FIFA
and the LOC in this event. Did you know that:
 
* We chose our host cities one year ahead of schedule?
 
* We completed our legislative programme to give effect to the Government
Guarantees much earlier than any other host nation?

* We are nearing the final stages of our selection process for the location
of the International Broadcast Centre?
 
We will have an opportunity to repay this confidence when the world descends to
Durban in November 2007 when the first big associated event will be held on
South African soil. The Preliminary Draw will bring together nations from
around the world after they signed up in record numbers to participate in the
2010 FIFA World Cup TM in South Africa. No less than 204 countries signed up
for this competition – a record in FIFA's books.

Conclusion

I want to conclude by reminding the house that the people of South Africa
have given us an overwhelming mandate to address the agenda of the poor while
we unite the country.

Moral regeneration remains a concern of all our people, rich and poor, and
different race groups. We need to put greater effort into this agenda.

I have no doubt that in the work that PCAS and the social cluster is
undertaking on comprehensive anti-poverty strategy and ways of driving
pro-employment growth, we will emerge with second economy interventions that
respond to the needs of the poor. Nothing is more important to us than cracking
this complex challenge that is not unique to South Africa.

I want to thank you Honourable Members and Presiding Officers, the acting
Chief whip of the ruling party for your support, colleagues in the executive,
our team in the Presidency led by Reverend Chikane, the advisory team, the
excellent service provided by the team from PCAS led by DG Joel Netshitenzhe,
the protecting team, Minister Pahad and the Chief, you Honourable President and
lastly my family and friends for their support,

Issued by: The Presidency
12 June 2007