Honourable Speaker,
Members of the Executive Council,
Chairperson and members of the portfolio committee,
Honourable members of this august house,
Provincial Commissioner of the SAPS and the police management,
Provincial Heads of the Criminal Justice Cluster departments in the province,
Members of the provincial community police board.
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
In the spirit that has engulfed our nation, I wish to join the millions of our people in paying homage to our national soccer team, Bafana Bafana for their splendid performance in their confederations cup match against New Zealand last night. We also salute Bernard Parker who, last night, redeemed himself on the misfortune of our opening match against Iraq by scoring what might prove to be the most vital goals as we seek to advance to the semi-final of this tournament.
As we gather here today, a dark cloud is once more hovering over the provincial administration of Limpopo. Once again, death has robbed us of one of our rising stars in the leadership of public administration in the province. On my own behalf and of behalf the Head of department and staff, we express our words of condolences to the MEC and Department of Local Government and Housing for the tragic passing on of their Acting HoD, Ms Mihloti Hetisani. In this regard, we would also wish to pass our words of comfort and condolences to the bereaved family in this trying time. May her soul rest in peace.
Honourable Speaker!
80 years ago today, Jürgen Habermas, a German philosopher and social theorist as well as a leading representative of the Frankfurt School was born. This school of thought developed at the Institute for Social Research founded in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1923, and it introduced a style of analysis known as critical theory. Critical theory draws on the ideas of German political philosopher Karl Marx in its studies of the sources of domination and authority in society that restrict human freedom. We find it befitting that the budget of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison is presented on a day that marks the birth of this great philosopher.
In his article on communicative ethics published in 1998, Habermas states that "Discourse ethics correlates ethical and moral questions with different forms of argumentation, namely, with discourses of self-clarification and discourses of normative justification (and application), respectively. But it does not thereby reduce morality to equal treatment; rather, it takes account of both the aspects of justice and that of solidarity."
Almost two months since the people of Limpopo and the rest of South Africa came out in their millions to ensure a resounding victory and renewal of the mandate of their organisation, the African National Congress, I am humbled to stand here before you to present the budget of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison for the 2009/10 financial year. Through this budget, and the programmes that we would outline, we seek to demonstrate our resolve to fulfil the manifesto of the ruling party in terms of the five key priorities for the next five years. The intensification of the fight against crime and corruption is one of those priorities that the ruling party has identified. Working together with all our people, the department will spare neither energy nor resources in realising the vision of a South Africa where her people live in peace and harmony.
The current administration comes into office amidst the ongoing global economic meltdown that South Africa has not been immune to. While we are committed in our resolve to attain the priorities that we have set as the African National Congress, we wish to call on our partners in the fight against crime to pull our resources together in order to maximise our impact. We also wish to make a clarion call to the donor community not to forsake Africa in her greatest hour of need. In this regard, I am reminded of the words by the First Deputy President of the State Council and Council of Ministers in Cuba, His Excellency Mr Jose Machado Ventura during his address to the United Nations in September last year when he said: "It is time to stop the rhetoric. Africa's plight will not be resolved by condolences, lamentations and limited charitable aid, while the fortunes are spent in the North on luxuries and extravagance. The need is for new relations of solidarity and full cooperation with our African brothers."
1. Reflections on the past electoral mandate
Honourable speaker,
In the run-up to the third democratic elections, the ANC committed itself, working within communities and within government, to play its part in forging a people's contract for a better South Africa, inspired by its commitment to democratic consultation, mass participation and volunteerism, moral regeneration as well as people-centred and people-driven development.
At a national level, we committed ourselves to the deployment of more than 150 000 police in active duty, with better training, better management and more effect community liaison as well as ensuring efficient functioning of all anti-corruption structures and systems including whistle-blowing, blacklisting of corrupt companies, implementation of laws to ensure exposure of, and action against, private sector corruption, and quicker processes to deal with any corrupt civil servants and public officials.
We also committed ourselves to improve protection of borders to stem illegal migration, massively reduce cross-border crime, including meeting our obligation to South Africans and humanity in the fight against terrorism and to protect our marine resources.
As we entered the Second Decade of Freedom, at the core of the challenges we faced was the task to speed up the creation of work and further to strengthen the fight against poverty. Our goal was to create a South Africa in which all can experience an improving quality of life, enjoying equal human rights, with access to opportunities that freedom has brought us, and bound together as a nation by our humanity.
Over the past fifteen years, working together, we have built South Africa into a land of peace and harmony and a land of expanding opportunities. We have built a stable and growing economy. We have created the possibility to release more and more resources for social and economic services, while building a modern and competitive economy.
The ANC speaks with confidence because it has been at the head of this national effort to change our country for the better. We know that together with you we can do more, better.
An analysis of the strides that we have made over the past electoral mandate gives us hope that indeed the tide has turned. During the first seating of the third democratic legislature, we presented before this august house a worrisome state of affairs in relation to the high incidence of social fabric crimes in the province. What made our presentation more worrisome was that at a national level, the majority of crimes for which the people of Limpopo were falling victim to were not high on the priority list owing to which the strategies that were developed at a national level were not responsive to our challenges.
As I stand before you today, I am proud to report that together with the people of Limpopo, the South African Police Service (SAPS), supported by the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison together with other partners have succeeded in reducing incidences of crime in 7 of the 10 high priority crimes in the country.
Significant in this reduction is that in all this, our rate of decrease is beyond the minimum national target ranging from 7,2% decrease in murder to 24,4% decrease in robbery with aggravating circumstances. While we celebrate the achievements of our people in reducing most of the crime incidents as reported, we remain deeply worried about the reported increases in Car-hijacking which has increased by 3,6%; Robbery at residential premises which increased by 96,9% and Robbery at non-residential premises which increased by 278,3%
In our endeavour to deepen our people's understanding of the work of this department and draw more people into our programmes offerings, we embarked on a programme of visiting traditional leaders across the province with a view to mobilise their support and that of their subjects in partnering with us in our undertaking in bringing about safety and security in our communities. We also adopted an approach of focused intervention programmes aimed at supporting the police in mobilising communities around specific crime incidences such as incidences of ritual murder in Vhembe and stock theft in the Sekhukhune districts.
The one area of concern that we have noted is our inability to make strides in getting the local government sphere to take its rightful place as a partner in the design and implementation of district and local-based crime prevention strategies. We have noted that we had turned our eyes out of the radar screen for a while in driving the establishment of district crime prevention forums across the province. To date, we only have one district crime prevention forum in Vhembe District. I have been given the necessary assurance that the process of establishing district crime prevention forums in the remaining four districts would be finalised during the current financial year.
Assisted by the Flemish government, the department established the Manyeleti Youth Academy with a view to use this as a means to divert young people from possible involvement into criminal activities. The Academy is designed to empower young people with skills that would make them to generate own business enterprises and own employment. I must report to this house that the Flemish partnership has since been replaced by an inter-departmental partnership between our department and the department of Health and Social Development.
To date, 202 young people have graduated from this initiative. Looking at the core mandate of the department, against the backdrop of recent developments in terms of establishment of a National Youth Development Agency whose mandate is more broader than that of the Youth Commission, we would very soon start with discussion between our department, Health and Social Development and the Youth Development Agency with a view to reconsider the location and coordination of the activities of the Academy. In the event that it continues to reside within this department, a much closer look may have to be given to the curriculum and the post-training role that these young people play in their communities in advancing the vision and mission of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison.
2. The Medium Term Strategic Framework and 2009/10 financial year
2.1. Crime prevention
Honourable speaker,
In his book, "Preventing Crime: What works, what doesn't, what's promising", L. Sherman of the National Institute of Justice in Washington states that "crime prevention is defined not by its intentions but by its consequences."
In its report to the 11th session of the United Nations in Geneva, in 2002, the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice states that crime prevention encompasses a wide range of approaches, including those which:
a. Promote the well-being of people and encourage pro-social behaviour through social, economic, health and educational measures, with a particular emphasis on children and youth, and focus on the risk and protective factors associated with crime and victimisation (prevention through social development or social crime prevention).
b. Change the conditions in neighbourhoods that influence offending, victimisation and the insecurity that results from crime by building on the initiatives, expertise, and commitment of community members (locally-based crime prevention).
c. Prevent the occurrence of crimes by reducing opportunities, increasing risks of being apprehended and minimising benefits, including through environmental design, and by providing assistance and information to potential and actual victims.
d. Prevent recidivism by assisting in the social reintegration of offenders and other preventive mechanisms (reintegration programmes).
The department has already laid a solid foundation from which concrete crime prevention initiatives could be launched. In the next three months, the crime prevention and community police relations branch will be collating all the discussions and resolutions of the various conferences and summits that were held in the province in the past 10 years in order to audit the extent to which we have gone in implementing decisions taken in those fora. Where necessary, and in the event that some of those decisions would have been overtaken by events, we will engage with various stakeholders within the safety and security sector and the broader criminal justice cluster to establish possibilities of refining such decisions.
In the next five years, the ANC government both nationally and provincially will:
* Establish a new modernised, efficient and transformed criminal justice system to develop the capacity for fighting and reducing crime in real terms.
* Review the functioning of the police, the judiciary and the correctional services to achieve integration and coordination.
* Actively combat serious and violent crime by being tougher on criminals and organised syndicates. In this respect, we will increase the capacity of the SAPS through recruitment, rigorous training, better remuneration, equipping and increasing the capacity of especially the Detective Services, forensics, prosecution, judicial services and crime intelligence.
* Establish and strengthen the new unit to fight organised crime.
* Provide greater support for the SAPS, especially to combat the attacks on the members of the SAPS, Including through introducing legislative measures to protect law-enforcement officials in the execution of their duties.
* Combat violence and crimes against women and children by increasing the capacity of the criminal justice system to deal with such violence.
* Mobilise communities to participate in combating crime through establishing street committees and community courts, amongst others.
At a provincial level, the department would play a leading role in mobilising the criminal justice cluster and our social partners in ensuring that the commitments that government has set for itself as outlined, are realised.
Our approach to crime prevention over the next five years will hinge on a three pronged strategy. This are:
Primary prevention
Strategies directed broadly at the general public that seek to educate and inform as a means of reducing the possibilities of offending or victimisation.
Secondary prevention
Strategies intended to intervene with those believed to be at risk of involvement in crime or victimisation, with a view to intervening early and reducing the possibilities of further offending or victimisation.
Tertiary prevention
Strategies that are directed at those already involved in crime, that seek to prevent further involvement in crime.
For the period up to the end of this financial year, the department will develop plans around creating heightened awareness amongst our people to reduce the incidence of crime especially in areas targeted for various activities related to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We would be taking advantage of the hosting of the Confederations Cup in our sister provinces to benchmark ourselves in terms of our level of readiness in hosting this auspicious event. Conscious of the fact that tourism is one of the cornerstones of the provincial economy, it is our intention to assist in creating an atmosphere that would make our soccer guests to want to come back to the province to enjoy the hospitality of our people and to explore its fauna and flora. Together with the Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism as well as the Limpopo Tourism and Parks Board, the department would move with speed in cascading implementation of the tourism safety conference held in July 2008.
Honourable speaker,
One of the programmes that the department would be embarking on, together with the department of Education is a schools safety campaign. With this campaign, we hope to go to all our schools creating awareness on the issues of crime and the need to have schools as sites of learning and teaching and not breeding grounds for criminal activities. The issue of drug and substance abuse would also be high on our priority list as we visit schools. In this regard, the two departments would be hosting a summit on schools safety intended at bringing together all the role-players in the effective delivering of learning and teaching under one roof to find solutions to the challenges of crimes in our schools be it school vandalism or violence between learners and teachers or learner on learner.
A budget of R4 548 000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.2. Community relations
In his State of the Nation Address to parliament in 1995, President Mandela said: "The situation cannot be tolerated in which our country continues to be engulfed by the crime wave which includes murder, crimes against women and children, drug trafficking, armed robbery, fraud and theft. We must take the war to the criminals and no longer allow the situation in which we are mere sitting ducks of those in our society who, for whatever reason, are bent to engage in criminal and anti-social activities.
"With these words, the scene was set for the development and adoption of the National Crime Prevention Strategy which called on a multi-disciplinary approach to crime prevention. Whereas the National Crime Prevention Strategy is more than ten years old, our people may need to start evaluating whether this strategy is still relevant in addressing the challenges that we are confronted with today. In the spirit that guided the drafting and development of our beloved Magna Carta, the Freedom Charter, any review of the National Crime Prevention Strategy must be people driven and mass based.
Building on this firm foundation of the NCPS and with due regard to the provisions of the interim constitution and the SAPS Act that enjoined government to establish a partnership between the police and the community, Community-Police Forums were established throughout the country. Critical in the mandate at establishment was the need to mend relationships between the police and the community and to be an extension of the envisaged civilian oversight over the work of the police. 14 years into our democracy, the impact of the work of Community Police Forums has been well documented both in terms of its achievements and its limitations.
Mindful of the resolutions of the Stellenbosch conference of the ANC which called on government to expand the role of the Community Police Fora and the Community Safety Fora, to empower them to play a more meaningful part in the safety and security of communities and, in accordance with the Mafikeng resolution, the department would, in the next three months refine and rollout implementation of the provincial conference on Community Policing and the summit on Community Safety Forums held in February 2009 and in 2006 respectively.
Whereas we are still awaiting the legislation of Community Safety Forums by the Minister, and taking into account that these initiatives have already been piloted in some of our provinces, the department will take all necessary steps to speed up the establishment, management and funding of CSFs in the Province and this would be kick-started before the end of December 2009. It is our belief that when these structures are rolled out throughout the Province, they would surely assist traditional leaders and communities to resolve some of the petty crimes in our communities.
A budget of R3318000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.3. Monitoring and evaluation of the SAPS
Honourable members!
We are enjoined by Section 206, sub-section 3 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to:
* monitor police conduct
* oversee the effectiveness and efficiency of the police service, including receiving reports on the police service
* promote good relations between the police and the community
* assess the effectiveness of visible policing.
In this regard, the department has developed a monitoring tool that we use as a basis of our ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the South African Police Service both in terms of the service they render, as well as the extent to which those services are both responsive and satisfactory to our people.
Last financial year alone, we used this tool in monitoring no less than 40 of our 93 police stations. Whereas the monitoring tool is a good start and has assisted us in the past to identify areas of possible intervention that the SAPS may need to focus on, the tool would continue to be refined in order to assist us in collating enough information to give more impetus to the four areas of responsibility assigned to each province. In this regard, we would await, with keen interest, the development and refinement of the government-wide monitoring and evaluation systems that the newly appointed Minister and his team would be developing so that we could do proper alignment of our monitoring systems.
Chairperson and members of the portfolio committee,
The South African Police Service has indeed undergone a serious metamorphosis both in terms of its orientation and the services it provides to our communities. In the course of their responsibilities, from assisting at an accident scene, visiting a household of a burned down family and interacting with victims of all forms of violence, members of the service are exposed to situations that expose them to serious trauma and psychological pressures. Through our monitoring and evaluation, we would be evaluating the extent to which the police service is providing counselling and spiritual services to debrief our members so that they could be able to effectively handle the challenges of their job. We are also calling on our people to provide both moral and spiritual support to our police officers. Whilst we may have to criticise when we are not happy with the service provided, we equally need to have the courage of conviction to complement when our police officers would have done well.
In full recognition of the challenging environment in which our men and women in blue operate, and for purposes of creating a sense of pride and service excellence in their work, the department would continue to recognise those within the service who have gone beyond the call of duty in their respective areas of work. We wish to use this platform to call on the corporate world to come in as partners and make these awards more fabulous.
A budget of R3 135 000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.4. Research
Research would continue to be the bedrock on which the rest of the initiatives of the department would be driven. In partnership with our institutions of higher learning, and in particular, the schools of criminology in these institutions, the department would be putting its energy into knowledge production and knowledge management to serve as a resource to our 30 Municipalities as well as other partners that may want to draw from our expertise in the areas that are core to our mandate.
In the next eight weeks, a draft plan would have been finalised in the department that would serve as a roadmap for the mobilisation of the criminal justice cluster to define and concretise the type of initiatives that we may want to implement in the Greater Giyani Municipality in response to President Zuma's declaration of the area as a presidential pilot project for comprehensive rural development. Whereas this area is a national pilot, it is our view, honourable speaker that since our province is predominantly rural; the experience of this pilot could be harvested for implementation across the province. With participation and support of our people, it is our wish to pilot how best the indigenous knowledge system in terms of crime prevention and resolution of disputes amongst members of the community could be used to reduce the burden imposed by petty crimes on our court roll and in our correctional centres.
A budget of R2 449 000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.5. Communications
Due to the unique mandate of our department, the bulk of the work that we do, especially in terms of our interactions with communities, is about communications. In this regard, our communications sub-programme would continue to identify new platforms that the department can use to disseminate its messages to our target audience.
This directorate would develop a stakeholder management strategy that would serve as a platform to leverage more funding and new partnerships for the programmes of the department. Our stakeholder management and engagement programme should assist in opening opportunities for advocacy and in turn assist us in attracting some specialist support for the various programmes that the broader Criminal Justice Cluster may want to implement, including attracting some retired professionals into the work of various departments in the JCPS.
A budget of R2 959 000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.6. SAPS transformation
A cost-benefit analysis of the call centre that we had set up as a department would be undertaken in order to give us a sense of whether the resources attached to the management of the call centre are being used in an effective, efficient and economic way. For the year ending March 2009, the departmental call centre processed 196 calls of which only 39 were relevant to the purpose for which the call centre has been established. This translates to 3,8 calls per week out of which only 0,75 of the calls per week are relevant calls. In his State of the Nation Address to parliament on 3 June, President Zuma said that "since the implementation of our programme will take place in the face of the economic downturn, we will have to act prudently - no wastage, no rollovers of funds - every cent must be spent wisely and fruitfully. We must cut our cloth according to our size.
"For this reason, if our review of the call centre points to the fact that it is a nice to have, we will not hesitate in negotiating with our sister departments, including municipalities to check if none of them would be interested in this infrastructure. We would however continue with this facility if our analysis points to internal weaknesses that we might not have focussed on in terms of maximising the usage of this facility.
One of the areas of interventions that we would be looking at during the term of this government would be the issue of transformation within the South African Police Service in terms of deployment of Africans in particular in the various specialised units in the province. Given the demographics of our province in particular, we cannot continue to have specialised units as a preserve of some groups one and a half decade into our democracy.
A budget of R7 284 000 has been provided for this sub-programme
2.7. Administration
Honourable Speaker and honourable members,
In the past three years, the department took a decision to decentralise some of its functions into the various districts in order to bring our service more closer to our people. Whereas we were clear in our belief that the decentralisation of services is the route to go, we will continue to monitor the extent to which this decision is impacting on our ability to effectively deliver on our mandate especially given the unique legislative responsibilities entrusted to this department.
This department like the rest of the departments both in the province and national is equally expected in its programmes, policies and practices to respond to some of the challenges facing public service administration in our epoch. I am proud to report that the department is currently standing at 40 % women representation in senior management service and that in terms of our employment equity plan; we are convinced that the national target of 50% gender representation is within reach. We are however still lagging behind in terms of employment of people with disabilities with our current percentage standing at 1,1 %.
In the last financial year, the department appointed an independent service provider to assist in the skills audit of our members of senior management service. In this regard, a report has already been tabled and together with the Head of Department, I will be studying the report so that appropriate decisions are taken in consultation with SMS members in order to take full advantage of their capacity while addressing the gaps that might have been picked up by the report.
In compliance to the directive of President Zuma to cut our cloth according to our size in the context of the current global economic meltdown, we would be analysing the report of the auditor general insofar as it relates to our adherence to the provisions of the Public Finance Management Act so that we could identify areas where more improvement is required to manage the public purse better.
A budget of R22 112 440 has been provided for this sub-programme
3. Reflections on the functioning of the broader Criminal Justice Cluster
3.1. The South African Police Service
Honourable speaker,
I wish to use this platform to extend our words of appreciation to the work that our men and women in blue are doing under the able leadership of the Provincial Commissioner and his provincial management team. The South African Police Service went through a Business Process Re-engineering that resulted in a decision to disestablish Area offices in order to maximise the deploy of human resources in areas where they were needed most, at an operational level.
Out of this process, the area management has been deployed to units and components where their skills could be better utilised, the majority of who were deployed to station level. In our province, the impact of this is part of our everyday lives as indicated earlier on in my speech; we have witnessed a drastic reduction of crime beyond the national average even though we still have areas that need special attention.
It must be stated honourable members that the success of the South African Police Service has been achieved even though our police-population ratio is the highest in the country at 1 police official for every 526 citizens compared to 1 police official for every 286 citizens in the Western Cape and 1 police official for every 197 citizens in the Northern Cape.
We remain optimistic that the commitment both to recruit more police officials as well as to mobilise young people as volunteers in partnership with the police will go a long way in addressing the human resource capacity constraints that the SAPS in Limpopo is currently suffering from. It is our view that as we continue advocating for the release of police officials from doing administrative work into hard core police functions, more warm bodies would become available to provide safety and security in our communities.
3.2. Justice
In partnership with the Independent Development Trust, the department of Justice has already set the ball in motion to build a high court in Polokwane. This will go a long way in relieving our only high court in the province which is currently housed in Thohoyandou.
Through our continuous engagements in the JCPS cluster both in the province and nationally, we will continue to advocate for the transformation of the judiciary both in terms of its composition and in terms of how it responds to the socio-economic factors that gives rise to crime as represented in its sentencing approach. Whereas we are mindful of the principle of separation of power as enshrined in our constitution, we remain adamant, however, that the underpinning principles of sentencing is to create an atmosphere for those of us in conflict with the law, to go through a rehabilitation process.
Against the backdrop of overcrowding in our correctional facilities from time to time, we will be steadfast in our quest to explore alternative means of dispute resolution, including the usage of traditional courts especially as it relates to petty crime. In order to ensure that courts function optimally we aim to fill all the 99 vacant posts in our courts by end of August 2009.
The department will work with the Department of Education on exposing learners to court processes through the Moot Court project. A competition at the conclusion of the project will be held for winning schools- whereafter a visit to the Constitutional Court will be arranged for the learners. In partnership with South African Women Lawyers Association, the Criminal Justice System departments will also conduct outreach and public education campaigns on the Bill of Rights in domestic violence hot-spots under the theme 365-days campaign on no violence against women and children. The Department will be prioritising cases involving children and ensure a turn-around to ensure that such cases do not remain on the court rolls for longer than six-months. This will be driven through the Provincial Child Justice Forum which is an interdepartmental forum established by the Department of Justice.
3.3. Correctional Services
Honourable Speaker,
The outcry that followed the decision of the Zonderwater Correctional Supervision and Parole Board to release one of the convicts in the Tshepo Matloga murder case, Mr Riaan Botha a day before the inauguration of the President of the Country demonstrated to most of us the degree of information gap between the department and the citizens with regard to the services of this department, its policies as well as the programmes that the department is running. For this reason, and in the spirit of our ongoing engagements with our communities to make them aware of and appreciative of how the criminal justice system operates, we would be doing more public education and awareness on the programmes of this department as well as how members of the community can get involved in its programmes.
In partnership with the department of Correctional Services, the department of Safety, Security and Liaison will also be focussing on inmates as part of our tertiary crime prevention in order to complement the rehabilitation work that the department is doing with a view to minimize recidivism. In this regard, much emphasis would be given to young offenders as well as to first time offenders. We call on our communities and the corporate world in particular, to welcome and reintegrate released offenders into our communities as well as taking advantage of their new found skills to allow them to make a productive and meaningful contribution to society.
Conclusion
Citing once more from the words of Habermas: "What is not at our disposal here is the moral point of view that imposes itself upon us, not an objective moral order assumed to exist independently of our descriptions. It is not the social world as such that is not at our disposal but the structure and procedure of a process of argumentation that facilitates both the production and the discovery of the norms of well-ordered interpersonal relations."
"The social world, as the totality of legitimately ordered interpersonal relations, is accessible only from the participant's perspective; it is intrinsically historical and hence has, if you will, an ontological constitution different from that of the objective world which can be described from the observer's perspective. The social world is inextricably interwoven with the intentions and beliefs, the practices and languages of its members."
I wish to express my commitment and that of the department to working together with the newly constituted portfolio committee in defining the structure and procedure of a process of argumentation that will facilitate both the production and discovery of the norms of well-ordered interpersonal relations. Together with our people and all organs of civil society, we will ensure that the social order of our interpersonal relations is not only accessible from the perspective of the participant, but also from the objective world which can be described from the observer's perspective.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the newly appointed Head of the Department of Safety, Security and Liaison, Ms Mabel Makibelo and the rest of the management and staff of the department moreso that you have demonstrated during our recent strategic retreat that you are a team of dedicated women and men committed in their resolve to bring an improved quality of life in our people.
My words of appreciation also go to the leadership of the broader Criminal Justice Cluster in the province who have once more declared their support and commitment towards the attainment of the vision of government in terms of the criminal justice system. I wish to mention the names of Advocate W. Sonti from Justice; Advocate Rapetsoa, Mr Madingana and Mr Weademan from the prosecutions authority; Mr Tshinavhe from Border Control Co-ordinating Committee; Colonel Faul from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF); Mr Mabunda of Home Affairs; as well as Messrs Sello and Mbewe from Correctional Services for their sterling work in leading and coordinating the work of the Criminal Justice Cluster in the province.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank my husband and my family for the continuous support they have given throughout the years that I was deployed into various areas of responsibility. Most importantly, I wish to thank the family for their understanding in advance, of the implications of my deployment to this portfolio in terms of its implications on visits during the festive seasons.
Honourable speaker and members of this august house, a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved. A work well begun is a work half-done. It is my pleasure to table the budget for Safety, Security and Liaison for the consideration of this house.
Let us all get down to work.
I thank you.
