Programme Directors (Hon T Memela and Hon N Ralehoko)
Members of the NCOP Steering Committee
Speaker of the Provincial Legislature, Hon L Maseko
Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane, Cllr K Ramokgopa
Hon Members of Parliament and Provincial Legislature
Councillors of the City of Tshwane
The people of Tshwane
Sanibonani!
I welcome the opportunity to give context and to explain the purpose of this public meeting today.
The meeting is part of the preparations for the visit of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), one of the two Houses of our national Parliament, to the province of Gauteng next month as part of the programme Taking Parliament to the People. The programme was initiated in 2002 with a view to enhance public education and public participation.
- The NCOP was established to represent the interests of the provinces and to provide a national forum for public consideration of issues affecting the provinces.
- Section 72 of the Constitution enjoins the NCOP to facilitate public involvement in the legislative and other processes. It further requires the NCOP to conduct its business in an open manner and hold its sittings and those of its committees in public.
- Section 66 of the Constitution authorises the NCOP to require a Cabinet member or Deputy Minister or an official in the national or provincial executive to attend its meetings or those of its committees.
- The NCOP Taking Parliament to the People programme is in pursuance of this mandate.
- As per practice, the visit of the NCOP in October has been preceded by a number of activities, including field research, and identification of sites and projects to be visited before and during the actual programme.
- This week Committees conducted oversight exercise in some of the identified areas.
- Today, as part of the process, we are holding a public meeting which will be used to determine the content of the visit next month.
- After this meeting, we will compile a report and send it to relevant departments in all the three spheres of government to enable them to respond to the issues and bring forward some of the projects.
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The actual programme will be used as a platform to report back.
We chose to come here because in all the provinces we visit as part of the Taking Parliament to the People programme we target areas that are rural or semi-rural. We focus on communities that greatly need services in order to assist them in their own development.
At the beginning of this term, government committed itself to deliver on key priorities. These are:
1. Health
2. Education
3. Fight against crime
4. Creation of decent work and sustainable livelihoods
5. Rural development, including land reform, and food production and security
We are interested to hear from you what you think has been achieved and also where there are still challenges. As you know, development is a process. Transformation and development is even a much more complex process. We want to hear from you because as Parliament we represent your interests.
As you reflect, you must keep in mind where we come from since 1994 when we started to build a new nation. For example, in terms of the latest national statistics, between 1996 and 2011, the number of households living in formal dwellings in the City of Tshwane as a whole increased by 207 per cent. There was also a significant increase in the number of informal dwellings between 1996 and 2011 (179 per cent). In contrast, in the same period the number of households in traditional dwellings (rural areas) decreased by 63 per cent (which means that people are moving to cities to look for opportunities and therefore the cities are battling with the increasing population and the ever-increasing need for services).
We must therefore work together to address the challenges that we face as the people of the City of Tshwane and the province of Gauteng.
We have seen in the other provinces that we have visited through this programme that when we work together there is a lot that we can achieve. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
When we come in October we will bring Ministers, MECs and Councillors together to come and tell you what they are doing, or they have done, with the issues you raise today.
I thank you.
