Programme director,
Executive Mayor,
Mayor,
Coucillors
Traditional leaders
Community of Ga-Mashamothane
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good day,
Allow me to start off by expressing my gratitude to everyone present here, for making time available to be with us as we hand over officially an important project that guarantees our people access to sanitation.
This past weekend, was dedicated to voter registration countrywide and want to take this opportunity to thank all those who registered to vote in the 2014 general elections. We also want to thank those who registered in the past but took time to verify their details so that there are no hassles when it is time to vote.
You must remember that your vote is your voice. You will be able to tell the government of the day when things are not moving at the desired pace or when development is not taking place in your communities. Those who might have missed the opportunity, we urge you to visit Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) offices to register and contribute to making South Africa a dynamic democracy that is an envy to so many worldwide.
In 2009, people of South Africa renewed our mandate and we are gathered here to once again say to our people that we have as the African National Congress (ANC) led government, working with all of you, made South Africa a better place today than it was in 1994. In our province, over 250 000 low cost houses have been built, 86% of households have access to portable water,87% have access to electricity, 38% of households have access to sanitation and 22% have access to refuse removal.
We are saying that we shall continue to put sanitation and access to proper toilets at the centre of our development discussions throughout the province of Limpopo. Today we are handing over this project because it is fundamental to health, especially to children`s health.
In 1994 when the democratic government was elected, more than 18 million people were without sanitation and today we can all of us tell a different story, in fact, we can narrate a story of substantial progress and significant strides that has been made 19 years into our democracy. The handover today highlight the important work that we are doing to ensure that all South Africans have access to sanitation that safeguards the health of our people.
Lack of sanitation is a pressing challenge in many other countries and more than 40% of the world`s population, approximately 2.4 billion people still have no access to basic sanitation. Globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 1.8 billion people die each year from diarrhoeal diseases, mostly related to poor sanitation and hygiene. It is also estimated that 5 500 children die every day from diseases caused by contaminated food and water.
There is an international movement to address the lack of sanitation and the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, in adopting the Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000, agreed to halve the global backlog in sanitation by the year 2015. We supported the adoption of these goals as a country because we are part of this global challenge to address the sanitation backlog. Today is an example of our efforts to address the sanitation backlog.
Our national constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, guarantees everyone a right to access to basic water supply and sanitation services necessary for human health and well-being. We have since the dawn of democracy as the ANC led government served our people with basic sanitation facilities. It is clear that a significant number of our masses still do not have access to basic sanitation. There is still a huge task for government in partnership with communities and other stakeholders to increase the pace and address this backlog.
In the country, Limpopo is amongst the provinces with the highest households that still need to be provided with adequate sanitation services and we must increase from the current delivery rate. The substantial financial resources in the form of Municipal Infrastructure Grant from the National Government must not be returned unspent while our communities still lack household sanitation.
We need to give sanitation delivery a greater priority and it should feature with prominence in our Integrated Development Plan processes and it should not remain a stepchild on these development plans. We must also partner with other relevant departments that have the skills to provide hands on support in areas where as municipalities we struggle to cope with work that relates to sanitation provision.
We must strengthen the existing capacity. If we do that, we will be moving away from conventional delivery approaches and models to more vigorous approaches and best practices that will significantly increase service delivery.
We are surely making progress in our sanitation programme and today we celebrate our achievement here in Ga-Mashamothane. Let us celebrate with pride as government with this community to see our commitment being realised in this manner. We can only be pleased that the district municipality has prioritised sanitation and has taken all the necessary steps to initiate and complete this project for the people of this community.
Sanitation is commonly known as conditions that relates to improving public health. It does not end there and it can also improve the safety of women and girls, who are often targeted when they are alone outdoors.
In a larger sense, improving sanitation also promotes dignity, personal dignity of course. But also a sense of community pride, like this community that has seen the tangible progress of their hard work and the difference they have made in their own lives by participating in the project.
We urge you, as it is a matter of a community itself, to invest in achieving total sanitation by putting an end to the dangerous practice of open defecation and doing more to promote better hygiene. Sanitation does not succeed because we are building latrines; it can succeed if you, as a community talk about the problem.
In other words, elders reminding children to wash their hands. Neighbours challenging neighbours to change their behaviour and recognising that even a single family can endanger the entire community. We must openly talk about the problem and do something about it together
Job creation is a priority of government and key to the delivery of sanitation project such as the one we are handing over today is to ensure that local jobs opportunities are created. I am indeed told that jobs have been created in this project benefiting 1 800 local people. We must continue to work in this manner to maximise job creation on all sanitation projects as we forge ahead in addressing the backlog.
What is equally pleasing and worth noting is that women were also involved in this project and without a doubt they have gained technical skills and other valuable knowledge in an area seen to be a male field.
We must continue to ensure that there is equal work for women and men in all our projects and development work. We must emphasise that this equality must not only be in numbers but also the practical involvement of women in technical and management positions both in community development projects as well as within the workplace. We must not forget this element when we implement community projects.
You all know that a significant portion of the people who are not employed consist of the youth who must be part and parcel of our development programmes. They need to be taken on board so that they learn as much as possible for them to take development programme forward. Once again I am pleased to note that their involvement has been fully supported in this sanitation project.
Economic empowerment is another priority of government and I want to applaud the approach taken on this project for strengthening the economic base of the local suppliers thus contributing to the local economic development.
We are happy that the 4 100 households have been provided with the necessary training on health and hygiene to ensure that each family is conscious of hygiene as well as diseases. The fact that this project has been well received in this community tells us that they should be able to look after the infrastructure. The District municipality will assist each household by supplying honey suckers for emptying of pits once the pits are full.
There is a great deal of work to be done to ensure that everyone has access to basic sanitation services. The targets have been set and ours is to direct our focus on how we are going to realise the targets. We must, however, ensure that whilst we are rolling out the infrastructure programme, we do not compromise on sustainable job creation, women and youth involvement, and most importantly long term sustainability of our infrastructure.
There is a great deal of work that needs to be done going forward and without cooperation and well-capacitated municipalities, government will not be able to achieve its developmental goals and objectives of a better life for all. Let us all work together to accelerate sanitation delivery to those who do not have access. Let us focus our efforts more on reaching these communities. It is for the good of their health and dignity.
Let me conclude by quoting the great moral beacon of our times, Nelson Mandela when he said: "let us not judge the importance of an issue by how glamorous or attractive it is but by how much good it does for how many people".
I thank you!
