the State of the Province Address, Lebowakgomo Legislative Chambers,
Lebowakgomo
22 February 2007
Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Chairpersons of portfolio committees,
The Chief Whip of the governing party,
Honourable Members of the House,
Leaders of opposition parties,
Members of the media,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We start off by taking this opportunity to express our words of sadness and
condolences to the families of the nineteen people who perished as a result of
the collision of two buses which occurred in Nzhelele in the Vhembe District
early on Monday. As it is the case with most accidents, the victims were mostly
workers and therefore breadwinners who were on their way to fend for their
families. Our prayers and thoughts go to their loved ones particularly their
dependants who had placed their hopes on them. We further pray for those who
have sustained injuries to recover speedily in order to rejoin their families
soon.
Without going into the details of this road disaster case, this particular
accident should immediately remind us of what we said during the State of the
Province Address regarding the need to jerk up our public road safety
campaigns. The fact that this accident in particular cost so many lives in just
two days of its occurrence, should perhaps be reason enough for us to forge
ahead with our envisaged all year-round campaign on road safety which involves
all the stakeholders. As we said in our address, this campaign must be a
people's campaign which also involves the teaching of road safety in schools as
part of the Life Orientation programme.
Honourable Speaker and members of the House, we have listened attentively to
all contributions made in this House and in the portfolio committee, including
those from the Leader of the Opposition, Honourable Holford and the United
Independent Front (UIF) leader Honourable Ike Kekana. We are satisfied that
most inputs were more of suggestions, concerns and points of emphasis than
divergent views on the issues raised. This in our view can only mean that we
are continuing to share common perspectives on the challenges facing our
province as opposed to pursuing narrow differences.
Regarding Honourable Ike Kekana's concerns, our view is that as a matter of
principle every South African has a right to work anywhere if he or she
possesses the necessary qualifications and competence for the job. There is
nothing wrong with the appointment of any person to a job as long as the
process of his or her appointment is procedural and above board. It can only be
a problem if a person does not have the required qualifications for the
position for which he or she has been appointed for. Public representatives on
the other hand must uphold the highest moral standards to ensure that their
next of kin have the necessary qualifications and competence to do the job,
before they get into the workplace as employees. This is important for the
purposes of maintaining the highest standards of integrity in our society and
in our public service in particular.
Honourable Speaker and Members of the House, in so far as the views of
Honourable Holford about the state of democracy in the province and in the
Legislature are concerned, our take is that we have always upheld democratic
values and positions both inside and outside of this House. Our understanding
is that the Honourable Holford has all the parliamentary privileges afforded to
him, as regulated by the rules committee, to raise whatever concerns he may
have about the lack of democracy in this House. We are happy that the
Legislature is looking at his concerns as the Deputy Speaker indicated and we
are prepared to monitor and follow this up to the end until his issues are
attended to.
Honourable Speaker and members of the House, in his opening of Parliament
early this year, President Thabo Mbeki spoke about the need to deal with all
what is ugly and repulsive in our society. These include the need to deal with
moral degeneration which unfortunately has led to the general disregard for the
law and lack of social cohesion and human solidarity amongst our people. In our
State of the Province Address, we devoted time on this question and observed
the fact that moral decay accounts largely to many economic and social
challenges we have as a society. As we have said, this moral decay manifests
itself in the form of crime, corruption, teenage pregnancies, women and child
abuse amongst others. We therefore agree with Honourable Shipalana that the
drop in crime statistics alone will never be enough to make victims feel better
nor address the crime situation itself. This is why we believe that without a
holistic approach that involves all sectors of society, including the religious
communities and moral regeneration movement, we will never succeed to stamp out
the causes of social and economic problems like crime and corruption in our
society.
Honourable Speaker and Honourable Members of the House, we are pleased that
all parties are agreed about the importance of building race relations and
reconciliation within the province. The reason why we continue to work with
white and Afrikaner formations in particular is because we recognise the
willingness on their part to join hands with us in bringing about racial
harmony in our province. We further appreciate as Honourable Shipalana has
observed that there is an increasing number of white people even outside of the
ambit of organisations we are working with, who remain committed and determined
to see our province and country succeed to bring about racial peace and
harmony. In this regard, we call on all political parties to commit themselves
and do their bit to contribute to this national effort.
Honourable Speaker, we cannot agree more with Honourable Malebana about the
need to address the challenge of job creation in the context of our growing
economy. In our last Exco Lekgotla we undertook to go deeper in probing the
reasons why our economy continues to grow without creating the necessary jobs.
We are confident that factors inhibiting job creation will be identified soon
and dealt with appropriately. We further agree absolutely with Honourable
Malebana that government should not allow the communities around the mines to
deteriorate further just because mines are operating in those areas. We also
agree that mining houses should not occupy or destroy land designated for
subsistence farming without reasonable and fair compensation as this in many
cases result in lack of food security in these communities. We commit ourselves
as government to address the prevailing conflicts in the interest of both
parties, within the context of the provisions of the Mining Charter which sets
out clear parameters for win-win solutions between the mines and their
surrounding communities.
Honourable Speaker, we also value the suggestions by Honourable Machike
Thobejane to the effect that we should strengthen our institutional efficiency
and effectiveness in order to deal with impropriety and corruption of which we
all agree. In the same vein, we are also pleased to observe that members are
supportive of the view that we should discontinue the tendency of appointing
those who are less qualified in our provincial departments and municipalities.
As we have said in our State of the Province Address, these appointments are a
curse to our collective wisdom and go directly against the spirit of the
popular mandate we received in 2004 general elections and last year in the
local government elections.
We acknowledge the point raised by Honourable TT Cholo about the perceived
lack of adequate up-market hotels or accommodation around the province. As
stated in the State of the Province Address, the province is positioning itself
as a hub for sports tourism, business and also health and agri-tourism. We
believe that the development of tourism routes along these sectors will no
doubt boost expansions in our hospitality industry. The envisaged
infrastructural investment plans in the logistic cluster such as the
International Convention Centre (ICC), Polokwane International Airport
development and the Peter Mokaba sports complex will all necessitate the need
for new and vibrant investments in our hospitality industry. In our 2006 State
of the Province Address, we made mention of the huge interest shown by a number
of hospitality groups to build a 240 bed hotel in Polokwane as part of the ICC
precinct.
Honourable Speaker and members of the House, we genuinely accept the
challenge raised by the Honourable Shipalana regarding the question of
educators who are also working as municipal councillors. We have so far
received a set of recommendations from the Public Service Commission (PSC) to
the effect that those who are full-time councillors and educators at the same
time need to relieve themselves from their teaching responsibilities
immediately. We are processing these recommendations and will announce
appropriate steps to be taken in due course. In the meantime our position
remains that, part-time councillors may not perform their municipal duties
during schooling hours without permission as this compromises the culture of
teaching and learning.
The view by Honourable Shipalana that we are not doing enough to support
private schools because they perform better than public schools needs further
scrutiny and substantiation. As a matter of principle, government continues to
support registered private schools through grant allocations. This we do
because we appreciate the work they are doing in producing human resources for
the province and for our economy. However, it is a fact that not all private
schools are high performing schools as implied by the Honourable member. In
fact, the majority of learners who make the province proud and receive
distinctions in grade 12, come from our own public schools. However, despite
this, we will continue to offer our support to registered private schools,
particularly those that are doing exceptionally well.
Honourable Speaker, we fully accept that they may be schools which are still
dilapidated such as the one in Bela-Bela which Honourable TT Cholo referred to.
Our understanding is that the school in question is part of the 237 storm
damaged or dilapidated schools which the Department of Education is in the
process of rebuilding. As stated in our address, the construction work of 90%
of the schools in this category has already been completed. We hope the delays
around the construction of this school will also be expedited.
Honourable Speaker, we welcome the commitment by the MEC for the Department
of Sport, Arts and Culture to deal with the challenges raised concerning the
Mapungubwe Arts Festival. We have no hesitation in believing that this event
will once again rise and take its rightful place as one of South Africa's
premier international arts and cultural events. It is our pleasure to once
again take this opportunity to thank those members of the House who contributed
to the discussion fruitfully as they did. From where we stand, their inputs can
only help us to move forward in improving the pace of service delivery to our
people. It has always been our view, Honourable Speaker that these debates
should further serve to enhance the quality of our public discourse as South
Africans and therefore deserve to be taken seriously. It is important that we
keep them alive even in our own respective political parties and society at
large.
We assure this house that we have noted all the inputs made, and we will do
our best to ensure that steps are taken to address these matters by relevant
departments and other organs of State. Your goodwill and commitment to the task
of nation building is welcomed by our government and augurs well for the kind
of South Africa we are building everyday. The distinguished revolutionaries and
nation builders from our province, whom Honourable Cholo referred to, should
always serve as a guiding light and a source of inspiration to us all. The task
of building a caring nation cannot be left only to government. Each one of us
in our own ways has got a role to play. The horizon is clear, let's grab
it!
I thank you
Issued by: Limpopo Provincial Government
22 February 2007
Source: Limpopo Provincial Government (http://www.limpopo.gov.za/)
