Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Members of the Executive Council
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Leaders of Political Parties
Honourable Members from the National Parliament
Honourable Executive Mayors, Mayors, Speakers and Councillors
Magosi a rona a a tlotlegang
Civil society organisations present
Director-General of the Provincial Administration
Heads of Departments and Senior Managers
Members of the media
The people of the North West
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
"Take your road and travel along" Gerhard Sekoto
The road that our society needs to travel remains one of the most fulfilling nation-creation and nation-building assignments. Our long walk to total freedom is still the most elusive in terms of the destinations that are continuously being redefined. The historical contours on the political frontiers are changing without any movement from the underlying rock formations.
It is these freedom redefining cross roads that instruct us as the ruling party to declare that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and that no government or 'force' can claim the right to define our path unless it is based on the will of the people. This principle applies for any environment that professes democracy as its foundation principles.
Honourable Speaker, it is also of interest that my budget vote happens during the Nelson Mandela birthday month. Whilst it was winter when the young Madiba graced our shores, 91 years ago, his birth was to define our summer even in the most unfriendly winters.
It is in this context that we will, as humanity, be joining our efforts in the not too distant a future to celebrate what this icon stands for. Without getting into too much detail, I want to isolate a specific value that the life Mandela should teach us and that is the value of selflessness.
Policies, programmes and institutions that we have established over the years have helped to accelerate our collective advance towards the realization of a better life for all. Each year that passed represented a significant and progressive advance towards the dream of a better life for all that the first democratic government defined to the nation in 1994.
In our tradition to define a vision for this country we said to South Africans in 1994 'a better life for all'; in 1999 we went on to say 'together fighting for change, a better life for all"; in 2004 we further said 'people's contract to create work and fight poverty"; and in 2009 we said 'working together we can do more'.
In all instances we kept on the central theme of creating a better life for all. The together sub-context of our message is based on the Freedom Charter preamble that defines who is a South African. Our paths are therefore historical and can never be off course until society (not only the ANC) has risen up to this notion of togetherness. It is for this reason that anyone that propagates a divisive path will be brutally punished by the electorate, both intra-party and outside the party. It is for this reason that Gerhard Sekoto instructs us to take our own road BUT we must travel along.
Honourable Speaker, I stand before this House to share with you how we hope to navigate the road that lies ahead. As we will be taking our dialectic road as a Province we will be travelling along with our compatriots in both the national and local spheres of government. Our intergovernmental co-operation is and will during my tenure be informed by the take your paths, but make sure that you travel along.
Special programmes: women, youth and children
We remain firm in our commitment to improve the quality of lives of women, children, youth and the elderly. We will mobilise all sectors of our society and strengthen government capacity to contribute towards the protection of the dignity and promotion of the rights of all vulnerable groups. A lot more still needs to be done to increase access to government services and to leverage substantive contributions through our partnerships with the private sector.
We will further continue strengthening our women managers to ensure a fairly distributed management representation at all levels for the future. We would also like to address the systemic problems in the structure of the public service to ensure that women, youth and disability sectors not only to meet the quotas but to ensure that the principles of fairness and equity are maintained.
We note with appreciation the initiative on the "take a girl-child to work" which has generated support throughout the country. Likewise we would like to focus on the boy-child as well to ensure that we develop a well balanced society and young men that are productive members of our society.
During this financial year; we will focus on the following programmes:
* Work on the establishment of a provincial data-base as a one-stop source of information to facilitate employment opportunities, skills development and economic participation for people with disabilities.
* Adoption of a provincial disability strategy to ensure that we implement both the national disability policy and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities.
* Working on establishing and launching the Provincial Children's Rights Advisory Council.
Honourable Speaker, the need to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities remains one of our priorities. Most Government departments have appointed disability focal persons to co-ordinate departmental disability programs, on an annual basis a provincial disability programme of action gets adopted by the Executive Council as part of our effort to meet the needs of the sector and a provincial disability forum has been formed to serve as a representative voice of persons with disabilities and to enhance government relations with their organisations. These are but some of the systems that have been put in place to ensure that people with disabilities equally reap the fruits of freedom. However, a lot more still needs to be done to increase access to our services and programmes.
On Youth Day, the National Youth Development Agency was launched in Ekurhuleni. The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) will serve as a 'one-stop' shop for youth business initiatives. With the active involvement of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund into the new Agency, our young people will receive the much-needed financial assistance.
In August this year, we will initiate the process that will lead to the repeal of the North West Youth Commission Act of 1996 to make way for the Agency's inroads into the province. This will be done with a view to making improvements on the work done by the current youth commission. Directed by the Youth Development Agency we will also be giving content to the National Youth Service Programme as well as the establishment of a sports desk of the NYDA.
The sports desk must harness opportunities created by the Confederations Cup and the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Included in this instruction will be the creation of suitable conditions for this province to have a Rugby Provincial Team; I must here commend the Royal Bafokeng Holdings for making sure that our youth’s dream of playing in the best soccer league of the world are realisable through the Platinum Stars.
We commit to mobilise all other sectors in society, through the establishment of the Provincial Disability Machinery, to practically contribute towards the protection of the dignity and promotion of the rights of people with disabilities. A provincial database would also be developed to facilitate the employment opportunities, skills development and economic participation by persons with disabilities.
The NYDA sports desk must also ensure that the Province, within "the find your road and come along philosophy", sends to the next Paralympics as many athletes as their performance can allow. We want to receive Northwest based Paralympians from London in 2012.
Nation-building and moral regeneration
Honourable Speaker,
I wish to reiterate our commitment to build a united and cohesive society, a society in which there is peaceful co-existence within and between our communities, particularly in the context of deep historical social divisions.
We should develop programmes that are going to disable any potential for another Skierlik. Our provincial department of education and the NYDA have a job cut out for them, because I am charging them with the primary responsibility of creating infrastructure for seamless social cohesion. Our race-based template of social interaction should through our programmes be relegated to historical accounts and not future planning; the reality of non-racialism is with us and we should now institutionalise it.
We owe it to ourselves and future generations to create a caring society in which human dignity and life are respected and positive values are upheld. As an expression of this commitment, we will continue to promote responsible citizenship, nation building and patriotism through the above initiatives.
Through these programmes, we will pursue our goal of promoting high ethical standards in both government and society, as part of our determination to entrench responsible conduct and responsible stewardship of public resources.
In his address to the National Assembly, the ANC Chief Whip, directs that we should as a growing nation work on those things that make our humanity agree and resonate. My office will be starting on a programme to integrate the 'Afrikanner women group (vroue unies) and 'bo Mme ba Morapelo; because it is my thesis that if this country's mothers (I mean the immediate nurturers of a nation's value system) can agree on a particular set of values then the next generation is poised to succeed. I am therefore going to lead a non-racial effort to go for the sharpest end of any knife that delay or thwart our nation-building efforts.
Good governance
Honourable Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House that the North West provincial government is according to available data leading the country with regard to complying with anti-corruption measures. This was confirmed last year by the Public Service Commission during the anti-corruption summit in Durban.
The North West had 100% financial disclosure of financial interests by senior managers, compared to only 50% in other provinces. Disclosure of financial interests is one of the most effective tools to address possible conflict of interests. Declaration of conflict of interests is an important element in our fight against corruption, especially where managers have business interests in companies that have or intend to have business relationships with government.
The provincial government has also established the Provincial Forensic Committee which is chaired by the Director-General and constituted by the Auditor-General, Provincial Treasury and the Commercial Branch of the South African Police Service (SAPS). This committee assesses allegations of financial transgressions, orders forensic investigations and ensures that decisive action is taken based on available evidence.
In order to strengthen its capacity to build a corruption-free society, the provincial government has established the Provincial Anti-Corruption Forum. The Anti-Corruption Forum is a multi-sectoral forum consisting of government, civil society, business, religious formation and organised labour which emerged out of the recognition that if the war against corruption has to be won, the efforts of all people and their organised formations will prove decisive.
The North West Provincial Government continues to call on all citizens to become the ears and eyes of government in the fight against corruption. Corruption is the enemy of the poor because resources that were meant for the poor are diverted to the pockets of corrupt individuals. The government believes that to defeat the scourge of corruption, we need all hands on deck.
In pursuit of good governance, clean administration and quality service delivery, we will implement training programmes that promote a culture and ethics of service delivery in the public service and offers a viable career path for the individual.
In addition, the rendering of integrated and efficient corporate services such as human resource management and development and legal specialist support must receive attention for purposes of greater cost savings in the budget.
Building a developmental state
Guided by our resolve that a developmental state is one that has an approach premised on people-centred and people-driven change, and sustained development based on high growth rates, restructuring of the economy and socio-economic inclusion, we will be streamlining our capacity to lead provincial initiatives in the definition of a national agenda and in mobilising society to take part in its implementation. We will invite all relevant social partners in this endeavour to create a developmental state.
We would therefore like to give our full commitment and support to the national government's initiative of establishing a National Planning Commission underpinned by a Monitoring and Evaluation Ministry in the Presidency.
We intend to follow very closely these developments as they unfold at national level. We have already positioned ourselves within the provincial government to respond quickly and with determination to improve service delivery and promote integrated and sustainable growth and development in the province. Attention is already given to improve our structures and decision making capacity through the cluster system and PGDS working Groups and to introduce planning and implementation appraisal and management systems that deliver sustainable outcomes.
We will be establishing a provincial planning commission with a monitoring and evaluation capacity similar or modelled along the lines of its national counterparts. This space will be one of the most active given that the President will be signing with me a performance contract. I will be defining my performance outputs and outcomes based on what Members of the Executive Council would have defined to me. This is a leadership imperative that President Zuma is compelling us to follow. His message was clear at the National Cabinet Lekgotla; "shape up or ship out".
The Office of the Premier, as the nerve centre of the provincial government, will spare neither strength nor effort to ensure that all institutions of government discharge their responsibilities consistent with our programme of action.
Our nerve centre role is both constitutional and logical. The IGR Framework Act has imposed on us the task of being the apex of all intergovernmental relations in the province. We will review the workings of the Premier's IGR Forum with the aim of making it to be responsive to Local Government challenges as well as the interdepartmental co-ordination challenges associated thereto. Our provincial integrated development planning process that culminates into a PGDS is dependent on our capacity to interact and transact with other organs of state at national and sub-national level.
The IGR unit will consequently be strengthened to scientifically guide the entire service delivery machinery of the state across the province. An IGR strategy with defined deliverables will be developed as part of the monitoring and capacity building mechanisms to predict local government challenges. This function will be one of the most visible collaborative efforts between district municipalities and my office.
In this regard, we remain determined to strengthen our capacity to monitor the performance of government departments as part of our objective to improve governance and service delivery.
Honourable Speaker,
Communities across the country see izimbizo as a platform for effective interaction with government. They see it as a trusted forum for public accountability by the executive because it brings the elected leadership into direct interaction with them. Izimbizo are therefore a form of interactive governance and participatory democracy.
Over the last few years, we have witnessed the overwhelming enthusiasm and zeal with which ordinary people across the province embrace the izimbizo concept, through the huge numbers that participate as well as the number and quality of issues raised and questions posed.
We are keenly aware that, unless government responds directly to issues raised by our people, the izimbizo will not be what they were meant to be, and the objective of making ours a truly participatory democracy shall not have been advanced. We are mindful that this can lead to communities losing confidence in the ability of government to positively address their concerns. We are, accordingly, improving our capacity to respond timeously to the issues that our people raise. We will be using an electronic action list to effectively track issues resulting from Izimbizo and improve the quality of communications.
As this platform of popular participation moves forward, government will continuously strive to respond faster to the people's immediate concerns. The people must have confidence that the issues they raise will focus the attention of government to their needs. We dare not fail them.
Honourable Speaker,
The importance of making this province a destination of choice for tourists and investors will permeate all of our governance initiatives. Local Government stability in economic growth areas such as the greater Bojanala District Municipal area is therefore critical.
The local economic development initiatives of municipalities will for the first time now enjoy the attention of both the National department of Economic Development as well as their provincial counterparts.
Honourable Speaker,
We endeavour to meet the demand of the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) to generate the right skills that are required by the provincial economy. We have clearly defined and assessed our skills shortage in terms of priority skills, critical skills, and scarce skills. The Government Programme of Action also aims to improve the capability and capacity of the public servants to deliver on the goals of the Developmental State by offering relevant training and development programmes.
In the 2009/10 financial year, we will strive to achieve the following:
* Continue to host the Provincial Skills Conference to review progress made to achieve set skills development targets.
* Meet the target of registering 2335 unemployed youth in skills development programmes in the PGDS/ Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) Strategic projects.
* Register more unemployed youth in line function learnerships and internships programmes.
* Co-ordinate training of Senior and Middle Managers to close the skills gaps and also place SMS at the coal face to improve on service delivery.
* Manage the Provincial bursary scheme and form more partnerships to increase skills development targeting scarce skills in the province.
* Increase participation of employees and the unemployed in the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) programme to reach the provincial annual targets of 10 000 and 2 000 respectively as a contribution to the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS 2010).
* Investing in a co-ordination mechanism that will monitor the province's performance in the acquisition of priority skills that include:
* Improving our performance in maths, science and technology.
* Significantly expanding the resources devoted to our capacity as a people for knowledge production and expanding the resources devoted to innovation and research, including through an innovation management framework which includes the promotion and development of indigenous knowledge.
* Improving our entrepreneurial, business and financial skills, and building our public and project management capacities. We will in this instance focus on creating collaborations with the North West University’s entrepreneurial initiatives.
* Reviving the role state-owned enterprises in skills development and training, and building partnerships between the state, parastatals, the union movement and the private sector in the quest to improve skills.
* Placing Further Education and Training colleges at the centre of a popular drive to transfer skills to our people including by providing these institutions with more resources. Our training should also factor FET’s as a key component of Public Service Reform.
Access of the unemployed especially those in rural areas and the youth have gained improved access to skills development through the PGDS. The National Skills Authority is considering the resultant intervention model for replication throughout the country.
Honourable Speaker,
As a province, we will be adding our voices to that of the President of the Republic of South Africa to observe Nelson Mandela Day. The contribution made by this icon of liberation struggle and the father of democratic South Africa is immeasurable and unparalleled. In paying tribute to this living legend, we call on every citizen of our province to do something that will ease the burden of pain and poverty on the shoulders of the poor, by among other things, performing some form of community service for 67 minutes on 18 July 2009.
Our most recent directive from the President of the Republic on the content defining the Nelson Mandela day directs that "The gist of Nelson Mandela Day should lie in the Life, Values and Ideas of Madiba and not only lie with the activities that will be done on the day, but should be about the imprint they will live behind in the memory of those who participate.
We are living in a world where competition is being fostered as the pursuit of human fulfilment. The ideals of "Knowing Thy Neighbour" and "lending a helping hand" as expressed by President Zuma in his State of the Nation Address (June 2009) are daily being trampled. The spirit of "working together for the common good of our nation through community and common organisation are threatened by individualism, personal glory and moral decay.
All of this means that the very celebration of Nelson Mandela Day needs to be defined in terms of the values that we seek to foster as Government amongst South Africans. These values and ideas are:
* dedicating ourselves for the advancement of our communities
* defending our democracy and the democratic institutions that Madiba has fought for, for more than half of his life
* fostering moral regeneration, especially amongst the youth of the world and ensuring that we promote the values of uBuntu as espoused by Madiba
* ensuring that we help one another to whether the storms created by the economic crunch
* fighting for the liberation of others without consideration of the barriers created by the borders
* loving one another as humanity, and ensuring that we bring hope to the hopeless and courage to fight against any form of oppression as Madiba did
* working for the realisation of the values as enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Bill of Rights as espoused by Madiba and his peers
* Creating sustainable livelihood for all of humanity
* Visits to family courts and juvenile correctional service centres."
We are creating a task team to define the Provincial Government Specific programmes. The above will in the main be instructive to the programmes.
Conclusion
For this office to discharge it's responsibilities for the financial year 2009/10, we requested an amount of R189 736 000 (one hundred and eighty nine million seven hundred and thirty six thousand rand) which will be allocated as follows:
Programme 1: Administration (R50 100 000) fifty million one hundred rand
Programme 2: Institutional Development (R89 125 00) eighty nine million one hundred and twenty five rand.
Programme 3: Policy and Governance (R50 511 000) fifty million five hundred and eleven thousand rand.
These programmes are made up of the following sub-programmes:
Programme 1: Administration
1.1. Premier support: R20 510 000 (twenty million five hundred and ten thousand Rand)
1.2. Executive Council Support: R3 809 000 (three million eight hundred and nine rand)
1.3. Director General Support R8 035 000 (eight million and thirty five thousand rand)
1.4. Financial Management: R17 746 000 (seventeen million seven hundred and forty six thousand rand)
Total: R50 100 000 (fifty million one hundred rand)
This programme supports the Premier and Director-General with strategic leadership and knowledge management and assists the Executive Council with the co-ordination and monitoring of policy and strategy formulation and feedback through the cluster system and by departments. The programme also renders core financial management services within the department to assist the accounting officer.
Programme 2: Institutional Development
2.1. Strategic Human Resources: R34 637 000 (thirty four million six hundred and thirty seven thousand rand)
2.2. Information Technology: R4 678 000 (four million six hundred and seventy eight thousand rand)
2.3. Legal Services: R11 386 000 (eleven million three hundred and eighty six thousand rand)
2.4. Communication Services: R26 782 000 (twenty six million seven hundred and eighty two thousand rand)
2.5. Programme Support: R7 642 000 (seven million six hundred and forty two thousand rand)
Total: R89 125 000 (eighty nine million one hundred and twenty five thousand rand)
The programme is primarily mandated to facilitate and render corporate support services on request to provincial departments and to co-ordinate and consolidate reporting on corporate support services on behalf of the provincial government. The Programme is also mandated to render core management support within the Office of the Premier. Strategic leadership, knowledge and management capacity have further been established to initiate special strategic and priority interventions regarding information technology and communications and the promotion of security and anti-corruption in the provincial public sector.
Programme 3: Policy and governance
3.1. Special Programmes: R5 929 000 (five million nine hundred and twenty nine thousand rand)
3.2. Intergovernmental relations: R4 830 000 (four million eight hundred and thirty thousand rand)
3.3. Provincial Policy Management R30 200 000 (thirty million two hundred thousand rand)
3.4. Traditional Affairs: R0 (nil)
3.5. Premier Priority Programmes: R7 515 000 (seven million five hundred and fifteen thousand rand)
3.6. Programme support: R2 037 000 (two million and thirty seven thousand rand)
Total: R50 511 000 (fifty million five hundred and eleven thousand rand)
This programme is mandated to promote international relations and intergovernmental co-operative governance across all three spheres of government. The programme is also mandated to ensure that strategic policy thrusts and ethical norms and the interests of special groups feature adequately in the formulation and implementation of growth and development initiatives. The programme is finally mandated to contribute information and knowledge with provincial growth and development policy and strategy formulation and to render results based management services with the accelerated implementation of the provincial strategy and plan.
Honourable Speaker, you will note that with the reconfiguration of government departments that I announced following the April 22 elections, the Chief Directorate dealing with institutions of traditional leadership has been transferred to the new Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs. I take this opportunity to thank the staff in this Unit for having served the Office of the Premier with diligence and commitment. I am confident that they will continue to display the same level of commitment in their new department.
Within the Gerhard Sekoto's paradigm we will 'take our road and travel along' with the entire nation. This we will do being conscious of the Ngugi instruction, that 'success is born trying and trying.'
I thank you for your attention!
