S Moloto: Limpopo Office of Premier Prov Budget Vote 2007/08

29 May 2007

Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Honourable Members of the Executive Council,
Honoured Traditional Leaders,
Leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) and other political
parties,
Honourable Members of the House,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

Last Friday, the people of Limpopo joined other Africans in celebrating
Africa Day. This day, the 25th of May continues to occupy a special place in
the political calendar of the African Continent. Forty four-years ago the world
saw, on this day, the leaders of African people convening under one roof to
form what was then called the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Underpinning
this mission was a common desire to end the system of colonialism and to bring
about liberation, equality, justice and progress to the countries of
Africa.

United in action, the African people chose to fight for what is theirs and
march forward in peace towards freedom and liberation. Today as we meet here,
the significance of this historic effort remains forever etched in our
memories. We are a continent devoid of colonies and related forms of
subjugation. We have indeed taken charge of our own destiny in reconstructing
our continent and making it a better place to live in.

Through such programmes as Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), New
Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) and other means, we are doing well
in fostering good governance and socio-economic transformation of Africa. Our
peacekeeping missions and related interventions have begun to yield desired
outcomes if the developments in such countries as Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC), Burundi, Sudan and Ivory Coast are anything to go by. We are, indeed, on
the right track in rebuilding a continent from century-old wars, genocides,
disease, economic recession, and abject poverty and above all, the so-called
"dark continent."

Speaker,

Notwithstanding these milestones, hallmarks and achievements, there
continues to be concerted efforts by those opposed to progressive
transformation to reverse our gains in some parts of the continent. The lust
for power, disrespect for democratically elected leadership, corruption, greed
and general lawlessness have torn and continue to tear nations apart.
Day-in-day-out we see and read about innocent Africans being displaced within
their own countries or becoming refugees.

This phenomenon breeds hunger, disease, famine and ultimately death if not
dying from the war itself. Rebel movements have taken over the place of genuine
opposition in a normal democratic state. As opposed to constructive criticism
that any democracy requires, cheap propaganda and war rhetoric that breed
anarchy and these endless civil wars have become the daily life experience of
many Africans.

These people tend to believe that they can only be correct, revolutionary
and appeal to the so-called public opinion by differing with everything the
government of the day does, whether correct or incorrect. They choose to put a
blind spot on whatever achievements which would have been scored in order to
pursue their personal interests.

Speaker,

The continent is well endowed with mineral resources like oil, natural gas
and other precious deposits. Therefore these civil wars have got a direct
bearing on the exploitation of these natural resources. Many of our African
brothers and sisters are engaged in these wars unaware of the fact that they
are involved in fighting sponsored wars and in the process advancing interests
of other political powers whose aim is to pursue selfish interests.

Speaker,

Our lesson from these experiences is that every freedom needs to be
jealously guarded, consolidated and advanced. We believe that in South Africa
we have set out all the machineries to defend and advance our constitutional
democracy. We should consider ourselves fortunate that our people are well
educated to understand and detect any of the tendencies which are meant to
destabilise their hard won freedom and democracy. In this context we would like
to congratulate the parents in Moutse who in the light of disruptions stood up
to defend the education of their children. These they did because they
understood that education is a tool that can secure the future of their
children. We would like to encourage them to continue to defend this hard won
democracy and freedom.

Our constitutional state has afforded us channels, which everybody who has
grievances can follow. Our doors remain open to any stakeholder who might still
be having any grievance regarding the abolishment of cross boundary
municipalities. We therefore invite the Moutse Demarcation Forum and Moutse
community in its entirety to join us in our endeavour to create conditions for
a better life for all. Our belief is that we need all stakeholders to join and
support us in our efforts to make service delivery happen in all our
communities.

Speaker,

It is against this background that the Office of the Premier presents this
Budget Vote that in many ways mirrors the fruits of freedom our forebears have
sacrificed so much for. The Office has got as its central objective the
provision of good governance, integrated planning and sustainable growth. This
is realised through ensuring that there is innovative and strategic leadership
that is provided to provincial departments and society at large.

Speaker,

In addition to our central co-ordination role, the Office is also required
to implement all policies and laws within the functional areas listed in
schedule 4 and five of the Constitution. Central to this task is the
harmonisation and alignment of the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy
(PGDS) with the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) of municipalities; the
National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP); the Accelerated and Shared
Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) framework; as well as the United
Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals.

Guided by the objectives enshrined in the Provincial Growth and Development
Strategy (PDGS), the Office is committed to bringing quality service to the
people of Limpopo through co-ordination and marshalling of the performance of
the provincial departments and state owned enterprises to equal the tasks at
hand. The strategic plan and the annual performance plan of the Office of the
Premier for 2007/08 have all been drawn up to ensure that the objectives we
earlier referred to are realised. We have also developed an operational plan
that would guide us on a monthly basis in the implementation of both the
strategic and the annual performance plans.

Human Resource Development (HRD)

The provincial Human Resources Development Strategy has been aligned to the
PGDS. The long term plan with baselines on current and required skills and
annual targets to address skills gaps has been finalised and approved. A
dedicated unit in the Office of the Premier has been established to implement
the strategy and we will ensure that departments are supported to develop their
sectoral plans on the HRD Strategy.

The Project Management Unit (PMU) is interacting with Further Education and
Training (FET) colleges to ensure that their ongoing curriculum content,
restructuring and development addresses the skills needs of the province. We
are also delighted by the recent announcement of Anglo Platinum about the
imminent establishment of a R283 million Mine Training Centre in our province.
The focus of the centre will be on practical underground training in a working
environment, infrastructure development skills, supervision, maintenance, and
above all, equip trainees with conventional and mechanised skills to match the
spread of mining techniques employed by various mines in the province. The
centre will benefit no less than 2 000 trainees per annum. We believe this
initiative will go a long way towards helping produce highly skilled artisans
our economy needs at the moment.

Honourable Speaker,

On the other hand, our skills development programmes such as internship and
learnership have begun to make the necessary impact. The internship programme
has seen the number of interns increase by 206 from 1 124 in 2006 to 1 330 this
year. There is also a steady progress made in ensuring that interns are placed
in vacant positions existing in government departments. In the previous
financial year 168 interns were absorbed. In the same period we awarded
bursaries to 2 256 candidates in areas of scarce skills.

Special Programmes

Speaker,

We are proud of the enormous strides made by all departments to improve the
provincial equity status which has seen more women and people with disability
benefiting from transformation. It is highly encouraging to note that all
departments have heeded our call on this matter and are now above the 30%
required target of women representation. We have recorded a noteworthy
improvement in the representation of women in senior management service (SMS)
level from 32,7% last year to 37% this year. Despite this significant
achievement, we remain concerned about the low representation of women managers
in Municipalities which is still far below 30%. We wish to take this
opportunity to implore on our municipalities to emulate the good example shown
by our provincial departments in this regard.

As we have announced in the State of the Province address earlier this year,
the province has also reached the required 2% target of people with
disabilities in the SMS band of our public service, making us one of the few
provinces in the country to comply with the National Economic Development and
Labour Council (Nedlac) resolution on this matter. We have now set for
ourselves to reach the target of 2,4% of disabled employees at SMS level by the
end of 2007/2008 financial year. Overall, we commend all departments for
leading by example in transforming the character and the outlook of our public
service.

Youth Development

Honourable Speaker,

We have successfully launched the provincial chapter of the National Youth
Service Initiative and we hope to recruit more young people to participate in
the programme. The province has taken a deliberate decision to increase the
number of our intake from the initial 1 000 to 3 000 in order to respond to the
President's call for 20 000 volunteers to be enlisted across the country.

In the last budget vote, we promised to launch the Premier's Youth
Excellence Awards to recognise the contribution and the many talents of young
people in the province. We have since given recognition and honour to a total
of 21 deserving young people who are the pride of our province. The awards will
continue every year and are intended to honour and encourage those young people
who demonstrate innovation and courage in the face of adversities.

Thusong Service Centres (TSCs), Community Development Workers (CDWs) and
Batho Pele

Our continued endeavours to realise the goal of bringing government and its
services closer to the people is on track and continues to bear fruits. At the
end of 2006/07 financial year, the province had already established 17 Thusong
Service Centres, formerly known as Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCCs).

The recent study conducted by the Government Communication and Information
System (GCIS) on the effectiveness of TSCs or MPCC points to the fact that many
people are making use of the services offered at these centres although there
are also a number of challenges. Besides Home Affairs and social services that
are provided in these centres, our people have identified other needs, which
would include youth empowerment and economic advisory services. The other
services which still seem to be out of reach of our people, which these Thusong
Service Centres can provide include banking services, justice, correctional and
policing services.

From the recommendations of the study and our general observation, it is
quite clear that more efforts are needed to promote integration of services at
these centres for better and sustainable service delivery. These centres have
proven to be critical for service delivery and we are going to ensure that we
meet the set target of one MPCC or TSC per local municipality by 2014.

Honourable Speaker,

In addition to the Thusong Service Centres programme we have just referred
to, our CDW programme continues to make a dent in our endeavour to bring
government services closer to the people. According to the recent official
records in the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), CDWs in
Limpopo have been identified as the best performing CDWs in the country in
terms of meeting the challenges that they are confronted with.

Since the establishment of the CDW programme in the province over 13 308
cases have been attended to; 7 071 of these cases have been successfully
resolved and the remaining ones have since been referred to line function
departments. Several road shows have been conducted during the previous year to
promote mutual partnership and understanding between CDWs and their Ward
Councillors and Ward Committees on the other hand. This we hope will lay to
rest, fears and misunderstandings that may still exist between CDWs and their
Ward Councillors.

Policy development and co-ordination in government

Speaker,

The impact of the Provincial Planning Unit is beginning to be felt. We are
observing a remarkable improvement in the quality of Departmental Strategic and
Annual Performance plans. There is also an improvement in terms of integration
of the Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) of municipalities and developmental
plans of both provincial and national government.

In the same vein, all our District municipalities, have been assisted with a
budget of R40 million to do forward planning for capital projects to be
implemented this year. Of this amount Mopani District benefited R6,121 million
for water works and supply in the areas of Maruleng, Modjadjiskloof and Middle
Letaba. Sekhukhune District utilised R19,5 million for farm town planning
services in Steelpoort and the planning of roads in Burgersfort town. Capricorn
District on the other hand benefited for the augmentation and development of
Oliphant River Water Resource to the value of R3 million, while Vhembe district
received R5,4 million for the Kutama Sinthumule Regional Water Scheme (RWS)
bulk supply and pump station phase two. Further planning support will be
provided to provincial sector departments and municipalities in the 2007/08
financial year to prepare plans for implementation in 2008/09 financial
year.

Communication Services

Speaker,

Access to information has been identified as one of the key principles of
Batho Pele. This requires of us to ensure that our people know what the
government is doing, including the impact of government programmes and services
on their daily lives. Our provincial government is nevertheless still
experiencing difficulties in communicating its messages to our people. Systems
in some of our departments and municipalities require a complete revamp if we
are to adequately respond to this challenge.

We have identified outreach programmes such as "Izimbizo and Executive
Council (Exco) meets the people" as a crucial platform. As a measure of
strengthening our communication, we have established solid and working
partnership with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in the
province. We are also engaging other media institutions to join hands with
government in this regard.

We should also hasten to mention that we have engaged institutions of higher
learning in the province for the development of a skills programme for both
communicators and media practitioners in the province. The University of
Limpopo-Turfloop Graduate School of Leadership has agreed to partner with us in
the delivery of the first programme this year.

Through the CDW programme and the envisaged partnerships we are looking
forward to improving communication systems in the province, particularly at the
local spheres of government.

Provincial Government Information Technology Officers (PGITO) System

Honourable Speaker

Our endeavour to implement an e-government strategy is still being pursued.
We have already started to initiate a series of plans towards implementing the
strategy that will be embarked upon during the course of this financial year.
We live in an evolving information society which demands societies everywhere
to adjust their roles and responsibilities in accordance with the needs of a
globalising and enterprising world. In this context, the Information
Communication Technology (ICT) is fast becoming a must in our daily lives, let
alone in the performance of the affairs of the state and the corporate
sector.

Here in our own country and indeed in the province, there is an increasing
awareness of the need for data communication infrastructure to be shared not
only between various spheres of government, but also with the public,
educational institutions and communities at large. The challenge that we face
is to ensure that citizens benefit on a wider scale by taking part advantage of
information superhighway which can then enable them to take part in democratic
processes and economic opportunities that are now available.

This has been confirmed by the choice that the people of Dipichi made when
they were asked about the services they need in one of the Presidential Imbizos
in 2005. They prioritised the tower for the coverage of their cellular phones
instead of basic services such as water and electricity. This shows that our
people take communication and information more seriously.

Speaker,

Learning from the experience of Dipichi, the public service could explore
the possibility of using cell-phone communication through SMSs over and above
the conventional methods of circulars. If this proves helpful within the public
service, possibilities could further be explored to communicate with members of
the public. We believe this could go a long way in ensuring that our people
derive maximum benefits from ICT and experience the information superhighway
that we always talk about.

Legal Services

Speaker,

The Office of the Premier is the axle on which the legal responsibilities of
the province hinge. The Executive Council has confirmed the need to explore the
establishment of the State Law Advice Office to advise departments on legal
matters. This will see closer liaison and convergence amongst all the
departments on matters relating to legislation drafting, legal research and
litigation challenges. This will mean that the cases that are in various stages
of completion in various departments will be monitored at a common point and
that departments will have compliance officers to offer immediate support on a
daily basis.

The Office of the Premier has not as yet reached the ideal of making sure
that the State Law Advice Office carries all its responsibilities particularly
in the area of litigation. Government continues to lose many cases in court,
because of poor co-ordination, lack of records and administrative
inefficiencies.

Labour relations

The provincial government enjoys relative labour peace and stability. This
is historically largely attributed to our consistent and timeous handling of
grievances and disciplinary cases. In order to sustain our labour peace and
stability, we shall pay attention to the implementation of a Case Management
System this year.

These efforts may however be undermined by emerging signs and potential for
labour unrest that we have begun to witness as a result of the number of cases
that are still pending. This potential for labour unrest would obviously stem
from the fact that procedures from the Labour Relations Act and the Code of
Good Practice are not adhered to by our labour relations practitioners. The
other challenge we are faced with which is linked to the one we have alluded to
earlier on, is the continued reliance and usage of private legal firms in the
resolution of labour disputes. We urge both the executing authorities and
accounting officers to pay attention to this area.

Traditional affairs

We have just emerged from a successful Traditional leadership summit which
was attended by stakeholders from various walks of life. The purpose was to
establish a common programme and to share with Traditional Leaders thoughts and
experiences on how best we could work together to improve the lives of our
people. We have all agreed that transformation of our country and its economy
in particular require our traditional leadership to occupy the centre stage.
Government on the other hand is committed to continue providing the required
support to this important institution so that our traditional leaders are in a
better position to discharge their responsibilities.

Honourable Speaker,

The implementation of the Limpopo Traditional Leadership and Institutions
Act, 2005 and the Limpopo House of Traditional Leaders Act, 2005, have begun in
earnest. In the last four weeks we constituted all five local houses of
Traditional Leaders in our districts. We have also elected the new provincial
leadership of the House of Traditional Leaders in line with the new Act. I
would therefore like to take this opportunity to congratulate and welcome the
newly elected leadership of these important institutions of our people.
Furthermore we also wish to congratulate Khosi Kutama on his recent election as
the new Chairperson of the national House of Traditional Leaders in our
country.

Speaker,

As promised, we undertook an audit of all traditional authority offices with
the view to identify their capacities and constraints in the administration of
traditional affairs. The audit process is almost complete and has since
revealed a number of weaknesses. These include non-compliance with Public
Finance Management Act (PFMA) and other government regulations. We are already
in the process of implementing some of these recommendations, particularly on
financial management and placement of personnel into the mainstream public
service. As required by the Public Service Act and regulations the existing
personnel in these traditional authority offices will have to comply before
they are appointed.

We are mindful of the fact that some staff members may not qualify to be
placed as a result of age and other factors. The Office is putting together a
well considered social plan to take care of the personal development needs of
the affected employees. The capacitating of both the traditional leaders and
their support units will continue to receive our priority attention even this
year going forward.

Honourable Speaker,

We are delighted to announce progress that is being made in the building and
renovation of a number of Traditional Council offices such as Mphephu, Ngove,
Tshikonelo, Marota Marulaneng and Matlala Dichueung Traditional Council
offices. These offices are almost complete with one that has already been
handed over by the Department of Public Works for habitation. During the
2006/07 year, the offices of Matlala Ramoshabo and Bantoane Traditional
Councils were transferred from Mpumalanga Province to Limpopo and had to be
reconstructed.

For the year 2007/08 the following offices will be built or refurbished:

* Kutama Traditional Council
* Mphanama Traditional Council
* Bakgaga ba Mothapo Traditional Council
* Ramauba Traditional Council
* Homu Traditional Council.

We hope as stated in the State of the Province Address that the Nhlapo
Commission on Traditional Leadership of Disputes and Claims will report on the
first phase of their work in the first quarter of 2007. This will put to rest
our anxieties regarding to the existence of Kingships and paramount-ships in
the province.

Speaker,

It is my honour and privilege to place before this house the 2007/08 Budget
Vote of the Office of the Premier for appropriation:

Budget and programmes structure per Economic Classifications 2007/08: Office
of the Premier

Budget 2007/2008

Administration:
Compensation of Employees: 69,686
Goods and Services: 41,418
Transfer Payments: 5775
Capital Payment: 3,198
Total: 120 077

Corporate support
Compensation of Employees: 44,404
Goods and Services: 38,641
Transfer Payments: 2,793
Capital Payment: 8,316
Total: 94 154

Policy and governance
Compensation of Employees: 145,264
Goods and Services: 65,238
Transfer Payments: 22,046
Capital Payment: 1,654
Total: 234 202

Compensation of Employees:
Goods and Services:
Transfer Payments:
Capital Payment:
Total: 448 433

Programme 1 (Administration)
Budget 2007/08
Statutory

Programme 1 (Administration): Premier Support
Budget 2007/08: 14 026

Programme 1 (Administration): Exco Support
Budget 2007/08: 3 380

Programme 1 (Administration): Director General
Budget 2007/08: 54 443

Programme 1 (Administration): Financial Management
Budget 2007/08: 48 228

Programme 1 (Administration): Total
Budget 2007/08: 94 154

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Human Rights
Budget 2007/08: 19 514

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Inter-Governmental Relations
Budget 2007/08: 13 511

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Provincial Policy Management
Budget 2007/08: 47 179

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Traditional Affairs
Budget 2007/08: 106 371

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Premier Special Programme
Budget 2007/08: 47 627

Programme 2: Policy and governance: Total:
Budget 2007/08: 234 202

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Limpopo Provincial Government
29 May 2007