It gives me great pleasure to share with you the synopsis of the newly proclaimed Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation budget vote speech prior to the delivery of the main speech this afternoon.
As you are already aware, the President announced the reconfiguration and reorganisation of a few departments and it included this particular one I am leading. These changes include the merging of the National Planning Commission Secretariat in the Presidency with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to form a new Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. A process facilitated by the Department of Public Service and Administration to give administrative effect to this change, is currently underway. This process will deal with transferring budgets, staff and assets from Vote 1 to Vote 6. We envisage that this process will be completed by the end of October.
These changes are meant to integrate planning into a core function of government. In its election manifesto, the governing party committed the 5th administration to ensuring that planning is institutionalised in the state. This is but one way in which we are giving effect to this commitment. We will also use the opportunity provided by these changes to create capacity for more effective planning, monitoring and evaluation.
The National Development Plan (NDP) is our roadmap towards 2030. It is our plan to address poverty and unemployment, thereby removing the suffering experienced by our people; it is also our plan for reducing inequality. We know that our post-apartheid achievements are not enough as long as some of our fellow citizens go to bed hungry, receive inferior education and are subject to poor quality health care. We also know that we will always fall short of our aspirations if we do not address the constraints to economic growth such as energy, and do not radically transform our economy.
This budget vote gives effect to the commitments made by the President in the State of the Nation Address that this administration will be characterised by implementation, implementation and more implementation. It gives details of how we will implement the NDP through the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2014 - 2019. We have said repeatedly that many priorities in the NDP are not about new policies and programmes but rather about giving effect to existing laws and policies and improving their implementation. We will be giving highlights in the speech of areas where implementation is taking place to illustrate the point that the NDP train has left the station and is moving at high speed.
This MTSF serves as a 5-year building block towards the achievement of the vision in the country’s long-term plan. It incorporates the outcomes-based planning methodology developed during the previous administration and provides more details that will assist departments to develop their own strategic plans that are aligned to the MTSF.
Measures have been put in place to ensure that the 5 year strategic plans and annual plans of all national and provincial departments are aligned to the MTSF, and therefore to the NDP. The Treasury Regulations have been amended so that all departments submit their draft plans to DPME, in order to enable DPME to review whether the plans are in line with both the spirit and letter of the MTSF before they are submitted to Parliament.
There are a number of initiatives between government and other sectors of society that are already underway that are inspired by the Plan and I would like to mention a few to highlight our strength in working together.
- The National Education Collaboration Trust
- The Mpumalanga Land Reform Project
- Harambee Project adopted by Business Leadership South Africa
- Strategies to Overcome Poverty and Inequality
- Operation Phakisa, which was launched by the President over the weekend.
The detail of all the programmes will be unpacked in the Budget Vote Speech this afternoon.
In pursuit of the overall goal of government of providing a better life for all, through alleviating poverty and reducing inequality, Stats SA has worked tirelessly to provide statistical information in response to the Medium Term Strategic Framework, the millennium development outcomes, and the National Development Plan.
I would also like to add that I will be responsible for Statistics South Africa, under the leadership of the Statistician-General Pali Lehohla, and thus, today’s budget vote speech includes their budget as well.
Some of the priorities for Statistics South Africa include:
- Coordination of statistical production
- Improve the use of statistics in planning monitoring and evaluation
- Promoting international collaboration and participation
- Review of legislation to improve production of statistics across government departments
- Creating a new home for Statistics South Africa.
The budget allocation of the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation for the 2014-2015 financial year is R208.2 million. The budget is divided into three programmes:
- Administration: R63.8 million
- Outcomes monitoring and evaluation: R78.2 million
- Institutional performance monitoring and evaluation: R66.2 million
The budget for the NPC for the 2014/15 financial year is R113.4 million. This amount will remain on Budget Vote 1 until the NPC budget is formally transferred to Budget Vote 6.
The budget allocated to the Stats SA for the 2014/15 financial year as stated in the ENE is 2.24 billion rands, which is divided to the programmes as follows:
- Administration R 934.7 million, two thirds of which is for the new building and leases for the existing buildings
- Economic Statistics R 210.5 million
- Population and Social Statistics R 117.9 million
- Methodology, Standards and Research R 65.5 million
- Statistical Support and Informatics R 245.1 million
- Statistical Collection and Outreach R 524.5 million
- Survey Operations R 144.3 million.
For the outputs of Stats SA to have relevance for development and to strengthen accountability and democracy, the use of statistics for evidence-based policy-making, planning, monitoring and evaluation must be advanced. The responsibility of Stats SA is to ensure that the necessary statistics are available, verifiable, meet internationally set standards, as well as being responsive to the needs of the state, business and the public at large. Looking forward in strengthening the state's capacity to deliver, government needs a system of evidence that is transparent, accountable, results-based and transformational.
The Deputy Minister, Mr Buti Manamela’s part of the budget vote speech will touch upon the existing programmes of the department that is: Presidential Hotline, Management Performance Assessments, Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring, Local Government Monitoring, Citizen Based Monitoring and Presidential Siyahlola Monitoring Visits. This phase of these monitoring programmes will be characterised by robust implementation of government policies and programmes geared towards the achievement of our long goal of the National Development Plan-Vison 2030.
Ladies and gentleman, as you can imagine, we have a mammoth task ahead as a department to ensure that government delivers on its mandate to its people. We depend on you to get the word across and I am looking forward to a fruitful and an engaging relationship with you, as you hold us accountable in moving South Africa forward.
I thank you.
