The Editor and Management of New Age,
Fellow South Africans,
Good morning to you all!
I appreciate this opportunity to give an update on work we have done since the State of the Nation Address in February this year.
Our primary goal as government is to improve the quality of life of all our people, especially the poor.
We have adopted five key priorities to help us meet this goal: education, health, crime fighting and prevention, rural development and land reform as well as job creation.
You will recall that we declared 2011 the year of job creation through meaningful economic transformation, in order to arrest the levels of unemployment, inequality and poverty in our country.
We said the jobs campaign would be a collaborative effort, and held helpful discussions with business and labour early this year.
Meaningful consultations also continue through National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), among the social partners.
We are implementing our plans in a difficult economic climate at the moment. The slow growth in the European Union and the United States, which seems unavoidable in the coming year, is bound to affect us.
We already feel the impact through the slowdown in manufacturing and mining in the past few months, causing job losses.
We need to work harder and more creatively as labour, business, government and the community sectors, to alleviate the impact of the current climate.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are pleased to report progress in the implementation of undertakings made in the State of the Nation Address.
With regards to employment creation, we established the nine billion rand Jobs Fund to encourage new initiatives both inside and outside of government.
The programme to provide R20 billion in tax incentives for large businesses was implemented as undertaken.
New regulations under the Preferential Procurement Act will come into effect in December.
These will increase government’s commitment to buy locally manufactured goods in order to stimulate employment and production.
We also continue with our infrastructure development programme.
Estimates suggest that current plans for large-scale developments such as electricity plants, rail and road upgrades and water management, will sustain between 50 000 and 100 000 jobs in construction up to 2015.
With regards to the social economy, over 300 cooperatives have been established under the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme. And the Department of Trade and Industry co-operative incentive scheme has generated more than a thousand direct permanent jobs.
The Department of Economic Development has established a partnership with the University of Johannesburg to support social enterprises.
There are various other initiatives which together, add up to an array of opportunities for our people to earn much-needed income.
A Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission chaired by the President, and a Short-term Job Creation Commission chaired by the Deputy President have been established.
The commissions will unblock obstacles to the delivery of infrastructure and short term jobs.
Meanwhile, the public sector continues to be a stabiliser for employment.
The sector has increased jobs from the end of 2008 despite sharp declines in private employment over most of the period.
This was particularly important for women, for whom the public services provide the main source of formal employment.
The Expanded Public Works Programme created new employment opportunities for an additional 34 000 people compared to the previous year, providing opportunities and income for a total of 280 000 persons.
The Community Work Programme provided job opportunities for more than 80 000 people.
Ladies and gentlemen,
To protect vulnerable workers and enforce employment standards, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act Amendment Bill was approved by Cabinet and is currently being discussed at NEDLAC.
The Bill seeks to improve the working conditions of amongst others hospitality industry workers, taxi drivers, contract cleaners and domestic workers.
To boost skills development, a ground-breaking Skills Accord was finalised, committing business and the state to enrol at least 30 000 artisan trainees over the next 12 months in training programmes.
Business agreed to make at least 17 000 internship places available for young persons who need work experience as part of obtaining their formal qualifications.
Government has also set a target of three per cent of employment for internships.
Organised labour committed to accept that such additional persons would be regarded as trainees and not as employees, and thus there would not be an expectation that they be employed and covered by collective agreements.
It was agreed that Further Education and Training Colleges will be prioritised and business will form partnerships with individual colleges.
In addition, a Basic Education Accord was concluded that commits business, labour and community organisations to a number of undertakings.
These include support for dysfunctional schools to get basic teaching and learning restarted, to ensure that textbooks are delivered and used, to help ensure that school governing bodies are functioning and to change mind-sets among teachers, learners and parents at schools.
Dialogue is continuing on further actions that can be taken to support basic education.
All these collaborative efforts confirm our belief that working together we will do more to build a great South Africa, and that improving the quality of life remains the glue that binds us all.
We are also focusing intensively on education in the Eastern Cape as stated in the State of the Nation Address reply in February.
I have established a task team made up of Ministers and MECs to support the province to implement a Cabinet intervention and achieve a turnaround.
Compatriots,
To hasten land reform, we have published, for public comment, the Land Tenure Security Bill, which seeks to promote and protect the relative rights of persons working and residing on farms, as well as those of farm owners. The Bill has already generated a lot of debate.
The government's Comprehensive Rural Development Programme is currently being implemented at 65 sites across the country.
In the period under review, 33 560 hectares of agricultural land were acquired to provide emerging farmers with access to land.
In order to enhance the productivity of farms transferred to beneficiaries, 116 farms have been recapitalised, through the provision of funds for, amongst others, infrastructure, mechanisation, seeds, livestock and the transfer of skills by commercial farmers.
We urge communities to support the land reform programme and not resell their land or farms back to previous owners as has happened in some instances.
With regards to the health care, we are making substantial progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS, although a lot of work still needs to be done.
Empirical evidence suggests that the mother to child HIV transmission rates have significantly declined from eight to three point five per cent nationally.
In addition, a total of 14,7 million people have taken the HIV test, as part of the HIV and AIDS Counselling and Testing campaign that we launched in April last year.
Equally important, the Department of Health has recently published for comment the green paper on the National Health Insurance (NHI).
We remain confident that once implemented, the NHI will make health care a right for all rather than just a privilege for a few.
The Department of Health has also recently announced the reduction of prices for anti-TB medicines and antibiotics, resulting in major savings for government and improved access to these drugs by our people.
On basic services, municipalities have completed 54 500 new electrical connections from February to the end of August 2011, while Eskom has completed 34 045 new connections.
The target is 150 000 connections per year.
In addition, 120 000 households have been supplied with access to water between January and September this year.
The Informal Settlements Upgrading Programme has exceeded its target by providing services in 52 383 sites against a target of 27 054 sites.
Clearly, we are steadily making progress in various areas.
Compatriots,
The Minister of Police reported recently the positive news that we are making headway in the fight against crime, with reductions in various categories of crimes. We congratulate the police service, community safety forums and many other sectors such as Business for this achievement.
In the fight against corruption, the Anti-Corruption Task Team has made significant progress in its joint operations.
The team includes the National Prosecuting Authority, the Hawks, Financial Intelligence Centre, National Treasury, South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the Special Investigating Unit.
To date, 116 suspects are appearing in courts relating to 42 cases. A total of 579 million rand worth of assets has been seized.
The suspects face charges relating to fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering, mostly relating to irregularities in government procurement.
We have given regular updates on the Public Protector reports relating to the police and public works departments. We will continue to follow due process in the processing of the recommendations and findings.
With regards to the Commission of Inquiry to investigate the Strategic Defence Procurement Packages, commonly known as the arms deal, we will release further details as soon as we have concluded the preparatory process.
The return of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to the border is yielding results in the fight against crime.
Some of the items seized to date at ports of entry have included hand weapons, drugs, cattle and stolen vehicles.
The SANDF has also arrested 451 suspected criminals and more than 20 000 foreign nationals trying to enter the country illegally.
We are also succeeding in efforts to improve the efficiency of our courts and to reduce backlogs.
The number of outstanding cases on court rolls has decreased from 218 660 to 197 391 from March to June 2011, a 9,7 percent decrease. This further decreased by 4 905 cases between June and July 2011.
We congratulate the judiciary for this successful backlog reduction programme.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On the international front, we had a successful meeting with the European Union early this month at Kruger National Park.
We will continue to work together to expand trade relations and also cooperate on the five priorities of our government.
On 18 October, we will host the fifth India-Brazil-South Africa forum in Pretoria. We look forward to a successful session.
On science and technology, we are working with eight African countries in our bid to host the world's most powerful radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array.
Hosting the telescope in Africa would mean an investment of about two billion US dollars during the construction phase and about 200 million US dollars per annum over a 30-50 year period, most of which would be spent in Africa.
The winning bid will be announced in February next year. We urge South Africans to rally behind our hard working bid team!
Ladies and gentlemen,
In seven days time Census takers will be knocking on your doors.
Let us cooperate with the Stats SA teams and support Census 2011.
Let me remind you as well that South Africa will host COP17, the United Nations conference on climate change and CMP7, the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol, from 28 November to 9 December 2011 in Durban.
We are making preparations to run a successful conference, building on our track record of hosting major international events.
Later this month, government will release a mid-term Budget that will be aligned to the set priorities.
Compatriots,
We thank labour, business and the community sectors for the significant support we have received thus far as government, in working to improve the quality of life of all.
Working together we will continue to do more!
I thank you.
