Chairperson
Honourable Minister of Social Development
Honourable Members of Parliament
MECs for Social Development
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my honour to deliver this address as the Deputy Minister of Social Development.
Budget Vote 16, as highlighted by the Honourable Minister, responds to the call made by the honourable President, for us to give effect to our commitment to creating a better life for all. During the 52nd Conference of the ANC in Polokwane, in December 2007, the ruling party observed that our society is still faced with many challenges and resolved to confront them head on. The ANC recognised that poverty, violent crimes against women and children, increasing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children, and the increasing levels of substance abuse in our communities remain areas of major concern that deserve our immediate attention. Our work during the current MTEF period will seek to address these challenges.
The work of transforming our society from the social ills caused by centuries of apartheid social engineering will take more than just government to accomplish. Honourable members, I was humbled on Wednesday, this week, when I was invited to speak at the 17th Biennial conference of the National Association of Child Care Workers (NACCW), an association that is working to promote care and support for orphaned, vulnerable children and youth through interventions such as the Isibindi model. I would like to commend NACCW and its member organizations for the significant contributions they continue to make towards changing the lives of many children in our country. This initiative, together with many others by various organizations throughout the country, recognizes the reality that the protection of the rights of children is indeed a national challenge which cannot be addressed by government alone.
We acknowledge and thank our many partners, and in particular the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs) and faith-based organisations (FBOs) that form a crucial link in the chain of social service delivery. I say to these organisations, some of you were in the trenches dug by the ANC in the struggle for liberation against apartheid. Today, although consequences of past policies still remain with us, our main enemies are the twin monsters of poverty and underdevelopment. Through our united action, we defeated the heresy of apartheid in 1994. Today, through unity of purpose, we must prepare to implement our progressive social policies embodied in the provisions of various pieces of legislation that were passed over the past fifteen years, and the last three years in particular, in order to deal with service delivery backlogs. The pieces of legislation concerned include: the Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act, Older Persons Act and the Children’s Act. In addition to legislative interventions, our programmes also respond to the challenges faced by women, children in conflict with the law, people with disabilities and the challenge of HIV and AIDS.
Our society faces the scourge of drug abuse that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of our society. To date, our country has the highest number of methamphetamine users in the world, especially among people under the age of 20 years, with the highest number recorded in this province (Western Cape). This is an indicator of a crisis. We cannot accept this, and we will not allow it. The 52nd National Conference of the ANC in Polokwane recognized this threat and called for the “Co-ordinated national drug campaign [to] be intensified to fight substance abuse”. The Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act No. 70 of 2008 is a response to this crisis.
Our focus will be on reducing the demand for drugs and support for treatment. In this regard, we will continue with our effort to strengthen the implementation of our drug prevention initiative, the “Ke moja” - I am fine without drugs campaign, which targets young people through arts, sport and the transfer of critical life skills.
The struggle to reduce the demand for drugs and other harmful substances is a war that we must continue to wage collectively. This means engaging and encouraging everyone: parents, teachers, community leaders, and most importantly me and you, to play our part in full; together we can achieve most.
Chairperson, we are committed to the creation of a society that cares for and protects the rights of older persons. The honourable Minister has referred to the equalisation of pensionable age between men and women for the exercise of their right of access to social security, as determined by the 52nd ANC Conference in Polokwane, in 2007. In order to complement that resolution, during this financial year, we will expedite the implementation of the Older Persons’ Act of 2006. As part of implementation of the Act, we will operationalise the country Plan of Action on Ageing to give effect to Madrid Plan of Action commitments.
While delivery of social services to older persons is crucial in the work of the department, programmes that are designed to ensure that our elderly are not alienated from the normal community life are regarded as equally important by the Department. The Department is engaging with community based organisations with the aim of strengthening or establishing intergenerational programmes at community level as well as to support older persons in their effort to participate in various community activities.
The involvement of older persons in community activities will also elevate the role they play in communities with regards to the caring for and socialisation of children and intergenerational transmission of positive cultural values which contribute towards social cohesion in families and communities.
Chairperson
Gender equality and empowerment of women is a developmental goal that cuts across all our objectives. The 52nd ANC Conference in December 2007, in Polokwane, resolved that gender equality is the cornerstone of our overall social transformation. In this respect, the Department of Social Development, will continue with the gender capacity building focusing on mainstreaming, masculinity and ensuring equity in budgeting. These initiatives will re-enforce our programmes to close the income gap, the gap of representivity at management and social status gap between men and women. In addition, appropriate empowerment interventions demand that we address women’s general and specific needs in the workplace.
The 52nd ANC conference in Polokwane recognizes that children are the future of our country and therefore measures to invest in their development have to be given priority. Our contribution to this commitment is geared towards tackling child poverty and provision of child protection services.
The department will implement the new Children’s Act which introduces fundamental changes with regard to the protection of the Constitutional Rights of children in South Africa.
The increasing number of children who are orphaned in this country require us to utilise all available options and resources to provide these children not only with alternative care as in the form of foster care and residential care but with stable permanent home environment, such as adoption. Our intake on adoption in this country is very low. In order to address this we will develop a strategy that will encourage South Africans to adopt children that need permanent placement with suitable families or individuals. A register on adoptable children and adoptive parents is also being developed. This will ensure that all children that are vulnerable and eligible for adoption are known and matched with prospective parents in South Africa. We are also undertaking research to determine the reasons for the low interest by South Africans in adopting children.
Chairperson, the protection of orphans and vulnerable children is of great significance to us. In this respect, we will continue to work with our partners through the National Action Committee for Children Affected by HIV and AIDS (NACCA) to improve the quality of our services to children affected by HIV and those living with AIDS. We will also develop strategies which outline the kind of support we will lend to child headed households.
The Early Childhood Development (ECD) is one of the strategies to tackle child poverty and contributes towards human capital Development. Although progress has been made with increasing the number of children who are receiving ECD services, we need to improve on the accessibility of this service to children in rural areas. Our plan is to mobilise rural communities in order to support them in the establishment, registration and subsidization of ECD centres and programmes.
The 2009 FIFA Confederation Cup and the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa raised various concerns about the possible increase in the abuse, neglect, exploitation and trafficking of children during the event. Although there were no reports of child trafficking during the FIFA Confederations Cup, it is expected that 2010 FIFA World Cup can create conditions that will increase the vulnerability of children and provide opportunities for abusers, exploiters and traffickers to meet the perceived increased demand for cheap labour and the sex industry. The Department together with other stakeholders developed an action plan to prevent the exploitation of children during this event.
To deal with the issue of children in awaiting trial in prison, we will strengthen probation services by developing a social crime prevention strategy and diversion accreditation framework. We will also evaluate the results of a pilot programme on diversion that we conducted jointly with Khulisa in six correctional facilities.
The full integration of people with disabilities into the mainstream of society remains uppermost in our minds, and plans are underway to develop strategies to implement policies on disability. The recent evaluation report of the Africa Decade called for a more systematic and concerted efforts from all sectors of society to sustain the progress made in making disability rights human rights. In this respect, we will work jointly with our partners in the disability sector to expedite implementation of these commitments, especially in rural areas.
A recent study by the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) shows that the government policies are beginning to have a positive impact on the reduction of HIV infection rates. The results of the third national HIV prevalence, incidence and communication survey indicates that infection rates in the teenage population aged 15-19 years has declined significantly. To build on these successes and to contribute to the national strategic goal of reducing new infections, we will implement the social development prevention strategy and provide support to non-governmental organisations in the sector.
Non-profit organisations play an important role in the provision of social services to the most vulnerable members of our society. To ensure compliance to the NPO Act we will enhance systems that seek to monitor compliance. Similarly, we will heighten the speedy registration of NPOs and ensure that we register all applications for registration within two months. Given that NGOs are key part of our value chain, we will implement programmes to improve the capacities including the governance and accountability.
In conclusion,
On the 18th of July 2009 South Africa will be celebrating the first Mandela Day, which, will also be commemorated internationally. On this day we are asking all South Africans to emulate the sacrifices and services of Nelson Mandela and his peers towards ushering in our democratic society. Our contribution will be easier in comparison, in that we will be required to contribute 67 minutes of our time on that day. Please use those 67 minutes to improve the lives of the poor and vulnerable. Go out and paint and renovate Early Childhood Development facilities, old age homes and facilities that support the disabled. Go out and volunteer at a shelter that supports abused women and children and allow that brief period of volunteerism to infuse a renewed spirit of reciprocity in our communities.
Honourable members
The primary reason for our achievements over the years has been the hard work and sacrifices of our predecessors, the Honourable Dr Zola Skweyiya, and Dr Jean Swanson-Jacobs, and the commitment of many unsung heroes and heroines at both national and provincial levels. We also realise that we would not have achieved so much, if it was not for the patriotism and the proud history of service to our nation by the non-governmental organisations, both big and small, and many volunteers who form the backbone of our service delivery.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Social Development
3 July 2009
