Chairperson of chairpersons,
Tonakgolo Mme Thandi Modise.
Honourable members of this august House
NCOP delegates present,
Councillors,
Maaparankwe a porofense ya rona,
Business leaders,
Leadership of different faiths,
Members of the ANC Provincial Executive Committee present in the gallery,
Leadership of various political parties;
Management and staff of North West Provincial Legislature,
NW Civil Servants.
Members of the media,
Distinguished guests,
Page 2 of 21
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and friends;
Good afternoon;
Modulasetilo wa baduladitilo, ntetlelele gore ke leboge Modimo wa boikanyo, yo o gogileng borraetsho mo dingwageng tsa lenyora, gore o ntse a re ba baletse rotlhe ba re tshelang, le rona are goga mo ditseleng tse re ditsamayang.
Ke leboga mothulwe yo o mokokotla o thupa, African National Congress, ka go re ikanya gore re ka tsweletsa pele lenaneo la tokafatso ya matshelo a batho ba rona. Ke leboga lelapa, le losika loora Mahumapelo, ka go tshegetsana mo dittirong, le go tswelela go tiya mo thapelong, gonne phenyo e le mo thapelong.Ka ntlha ya botlhoko jo bo re tlhagetseng jaaka losika, se-Mahaumapelo ga se a kgona go nna le rona mo letsatsing la gompieno, mme re a itse rotlhe jaaka baagi ba Bokone Bophirima gore re lelapa le le lengwe.
Chairperson of chairpersons, let me add my voice to the many voices of sound minded South Africans, by expressing disgust on the purported artistic depiction of the State President. We should condemn the vulgarity, insult and defamation of the president’s character; that has been disguised as a piece of art; an act of racism and disrespect of the highest office in the land to the extreme.
Dumelang;
Modulasetulo wa baduladitulo, ntetlelele gore ke leboge Modimo wa boikanyo, yo o gogileng borraetsho mo dingwageng tsa lenyora, gore o ntse a re ba baletse rotlhe ba re tshelang, le rona a re goga mo tseleng tse re di tsamayang.
Ke leboga mothulwe yo o mokokotla o thupa, African National Congress, ka go re ikanya gore re ka tsweletsa pele lenaneo la tokafatso ya matshelo a batho ba rona. Ke leboga lelapa, le losika loora Mahumapelo, ka go tshegetsa mo ditirong, le go tswelela go tiya mo thapelong, gonne phenyo e le mo thapelong. Ka ntlha ya botlhoko jo bo re tlhagetseng jaaka losika, se-Mahaumapelo ga se a kgona go nna le rona mo letsatsing la gompieno, mme re a itse rotlhe jaaka baagi ba Bokone
Bophirima gore re lelapa le le lengwe.
Chairperson of chairpersons, Proverbs 28: 27 reads thus: “He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses”. Politicians all over the world claim to be representing the poor, some claim to be representing the poorest of the poor. The extend of how true this is, will be measured by our own actions as members of this house, and as activists in our own communities.
Honourable members, the 2011 mid-year population statistics released by Stats SA estimates the North West province population to be 3, 252,390. Out of this figure it is estimated that:
- 2, 055, 000 are of working age,
- 250 000 is unemployed,
- a staggering 1 101 000 is not economically active,
- 251 000 are discouraged work seekers.
- Of the 704 000 who are employed, 38 000 is employed in the agricultural sector,
- 109 000 is employed in the mining sector,
- 56 000 is employed in the manufacturing sector,
- 3000 in the utilities sector,
- 46 000 in the in the construction sector,
- 152 000 in the trading services,
- 26 000 in the transport sector,
- 52 000 in the finance sector,
- 161 000 in the community and social services sector, and
- 60 000 in the private households,
Chairperson of chairpersons and honourable members, the general household survey of 2011, released by Stats SA in May this year indicates that the North West population is housed in 1 006 000 households. Out of these households.
Education
An estimated 1 090 000 children of school going age resides in the province, 1 066 000 attends educational institution including ABET and literacy classes.
Health
52 ,0% of the recipients of healthcare services from the public health institutions indicated that they are very satisfied with the service they received compared with 85,9% of those receiving similar services from private health care institutions.
Housing
18,5% of the North West population live in informal dwellings. Of those living in RDP houses 17,6 % , have complained about the weak wall structures of their houses, while 17,8% have complained about weak roof structures.
Water access and use
The statistics reveal that 89, 6 of our population have access to pipe or tap water in the dwelling, off-site or on-site. However, 50.2% of the North West citizens are least likely to rate the quality of their drinking water as good.
Energy
While the statistics for number of houses connected to the mains electricity supply stands at an impressive 86,2%; 10, 9% of the North West populations still uses paraffin for cooking, and 10, 7% wood.
Sanitation and refuse removal
Estimated 5,5% of the province’s households have no toilets.
Only 50,5% of the of the province’s households have refuse removal service of at least once per week.
Household sources of income
25% of North West’s households list social grants as their only source of income.
Access to food
The Stats SA study has indicated that the problem of access to food affects about 32,9% of the population of the province. The province is the worst in this regard as compared to the other eight provinces.
Agriculture
Only 23,6% of households in the province are involved in agricultural activities.
9. I have mentioned these statistics as I believe they are most relevant to the work we do in this house, which is oversight over the Executive, the local sphere of government, and other organs of the state. In the past two weeks, this house has been passing different votes and approving different annual performance plans. It is this house that is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that those plans and budgets are utilised to bring the difference in the lives of the people of the North West. It is the duty of this house to ensure that the North West citizen’s dignity is restored by ensuring that all spheres of government provide prompt, quality and sustainable services.
The same oversight should also be done to ensure that different sectors of our economy in the province perform to their full potential in order to alleviate the hardships experienced by the people of this province. We should be able to ask and receive information with regard to activities that are taking place within the mining, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and all other sectors operating in the province. This house should do what is necessary and in its power to ensure that legislative environment exists to allow for growth and investment into these sectors.
Chairperson of chairpersons, allow me to quote Kahlil Gibran (a Lebanese-American writer who lived between 1883-1931) who said; “Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our knees before emperors; but today we kneel only to Truth, follow only Beauty, and obey only Love.”
Honourable members, in our endless pursuit of truth, beauty and love, we must ensure that our people are not robbed of their hard won freedom by greed and corruption which is rapidly becoming an earnest threat to our democracy. “Greed and the pursuit of personal gain will be the downfall of any governmental system”.
Therefore as honourabl members, bequeathed by the citizens of this province with the responsibility to work for them, we must at all times work hard to act in exemplary manner in line with our code of ethics. This is one thing we must enforce as a collective.
The President of the Republic of South Africa, President Gedleyihlekisa Jacob
Zuma, had this to say about corruption, “We have equally identified corruption as a key threat to achieving government objectives. Our goal is to build a performance oriented state that is free of fraud and corruption.
Corruption within the public sector undermines the moral authority of the State. It inhibits socio-economic development and contributes to delays in delivering services to our people”.
As the legislature, we will within what the law empowers us to do, work with all law enforcement agencies and institutions to ensure that we continue to score decisive victories against corruption without winking an eye. Re tshwanetse re lelekisane le ba apei ba ba le botsang phokojwe ka pitsa yotlhe ya nama, kwa bofelong, baagi ba rona ba sale ba ba le basetlha, ba iphotlhere e le gore bo tlharantlhophe le bo nkgate ke kaname ba ile ka lenga la seloko. A re seka ra nna batsumi bao ba yang letsomong ba tshwere letswai.
Working together with the broader civil society and other organs of the state, we should scrutinise the motivations for corruption, and thoroughly study this phenomenon, and eliminate the foundation that allow it to exist. As members of this house we should ensure that our province and country do not enter into a period of complacency and close their eyes to public and even private sector corruption. Let us build corruption free society, and build a society that will never tolerate corruption and glorify greed, resulting in conspicuous consumption tendencies and lifestyles.
Modulasetilo wa baduladitilo; mo porofenseng gona le batho ba ba tshelelang mo tshimong ya tshenyo, tlhakatlhakano le mmudubudu. Mo go bona tlhakatlhakano ke setlhare se se tona se o ba tshwaraganetseng go se nosetsa ba se nonotsha gonne e le maungo a bona a katlego.
Mme rona re tshwanetse go rotloetsa go nna le masimo a ditlhare tsa kago seswa, maungo a ntshafatso, maungo a lorato, a kagiso, a kitlano le katlego, maungo a boitumelo, maungo a popagano. Re nne le boineelo mo go direng tseo re tshwanetseng go di dira ka go nne re sa tshwanetse gofapoga go dira tseo re sa tshwanelang go di dira.
Chairperson of chairpersons, the focus of this year’s budget is on strengthening public participation and our oversight mandate. To this end, the legislature will develop awareness campaigns and educational programmes aimed at learners, educators and civil society as a whole. It will also broaden the general knowledge about the role of the North West Legislature in the lives of the people of this province.
Chairperson of chairpersons, this house has adopted a slogan of an “Activist Legislature”. The ANC, in its paper to be discussed at the National Policy Conference in June says “Legislatures should be felt by people. It must be visible through its representatives and have a meaningful impact upon the lives of the people, so that they can practically feel and see in practice the concept of “the People shall Govern” entrenched in the freedom charter.
In the same breath, we in the ANC acknowledge that legislatures in their very nature, are a forum for the battle of ideas. An arena where debates and engagements take place. We appreciate the contributions that the opposition parties are making to debates in this legislature, and wish to assure the house that the robust debates will continue. We hope that all parties represented the legislature will not do their work in a manner that contradicts this noble objective.
“O re bone re go bone,”
Legislature’s Public Participation Programme
True to what the people’s organisation has observed and true to our slogan of an
Activist Legislature, we would be rotating the sittings of this house to our municipalities. The aim of the exercise is to ensure that the people of the province experience firsthand the workings of this house, and witness for themselves the debates that affect their lives. It is also to allow members, as activists of activists, to unearth the problems of our people and resolve them directly.
The North West Provincial Legislature has been declared a national key point.
This means that the security status of the Provincial Legislature should be upgraded to comply with the national standards. The process to improve security and develop a policy plan will commence, and we hope that we will be able to go into full scale implementation thereof in 2013/14. We intend to fully comply with the national standards by the end of the financial year 2013/14.
Chairperson of chairpersons, I am pleased to announce that an amount of R53 million has been allocated in 2012/13 and R15 million in 2013/14 for the implementation of national key point imperative and the refurbishment of this house. The allocation is held by the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport. We look forward to working with the Department to ensure that the work commences in the current financial year without any delays..
Similarly, we should engage with the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport over Lowe Parliamentary Village. The maintenance and security of this entity leaves much to be desired. Members of the house are living in danger of attacks and burglary due to poor security arrangements.
The village itself is becoming a health hazard to members due to continuous maintenance and other problems. Honourable members, we will work on fixing these challenges and don’t run out of words to express your displeasures concomitant with your living environment.
The Auditor General has given our legislature an unqualified report albeit with matters of emphasis for the year 2010/11. Our quest remains to receive a clean audit. The matters that the Auditor General emphasised are being attended to in order to achieve the clean audit report that we are aiming at. We have developed an action plan that will address these matters and ensure that they are cleared.
Honourable members, the NW Provincial Legislature continues to provide strategic leadership and efficient management of administration affairs in order to support MPL’s in carrying out their responsibilities. A strategic planning session was held to develop the 2012/13 annual performance plan. Members of this house approved this plan on the 10th May 2012. The plan amongst others establishes four strategic pillars, being;
1. Effective and efficient oversight over the executive and all organs of state, so as to ensure necessary accountability and delivery on its mandate.
2. Enhancing the policy and legislative capacity of the legislature in order to pass transformative legislation.
3. Promoting good corporate governance.
4. Enhancing public awareness and effective participation of the public and stakeholders in the legislature activities and business.
The plan will go a long way in assisting this legislature to achieve its vision of eing an “Activist legislature Geared Towards Political Stability Through Participatory Democracy”. This we do because we are the revolutionary frontline troopers of the democratic gains of the people’s struggles.
Modula setilo wa baduladitilo, ka re itse fa lemme le sa bolae, tekanyetso kabo ya rona e eme jaana;
Chairperson of chairpersons and honourable members, the budget of the North West Provincial Legislature for 2012/13 is R165 310 000.00. This budget has been allocated to the different programmes of our legislature as follows;
Progamme 1: Administration (R64 474 000. 00)
This programme is aimed at rendering support that will enable members to fulfil their constitutional obligations. The allocation covers the activities of the Office of the Speaker, the office of the Secretary, financial management services, corporate services as well as the internal audit service.
The bulk of this budget will be spent on training of members and staff, the upkeep of the premises as well as other day to day administration services of the North West Provincial Legislature.
Programme 2: Members Salaries (R24, 859, 000)
The aim of this programme is to allow us to meet the legislative imperative of the
NW Provincial legislature towards its members as prescribed annually in the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers Act.
Chairperson of chairpersons, I am pleased to announce to this house that our salary expenses stands at 39% of our budget currently, and we will work very hard to ensure that it remains there or gets even lower. The intention is that the bulk of our budget should be spent on the core mandate of this house, which is law making, oversight and public participation.
Programme 3: Legislature Operations (R75 977 000. 00).
This programme ensures that the legislature operates effectively and efficiently by exposing Members of the Provincial Legislature to parliamentary systems and legislatures of other countries. It also enables to undertake public hearings and oversight visits, and to engage on NCOP activities.
The focus this financial year will be on the implementation of programmes of this legislature, and the implementation of among others, sectoral parliaments to ensure that the legislature reaches the wider and diverse groups of our society.
Already, the Public Participation and Petitions division is in the process of conducting 20 workshops across the province on the legislature and its mandate, the petition system and national and provincial symbols. We will also continue with the Speaker’s Forum in order to forge cooperation with the local sphere of government.
Chairperson of chairpersons, let me reiterate the budget as allocated to this
Legislature;
Programme 2012/13 Estimates for outer years 2013/14 2014/15
Administration R64, 474, 000 R67, 930, 000 R74, 097, 000
Members salary R24, 859, 000 R26, 226, 000 R27, 668, 000
Parliamentary Support
R75, 977, 000 R79, 797, 000 R82, 535, 000
Total R165, 310, 000 R173, 953, 000 R184, 300 000
Chairperson of chairpersons, the budget will also allow us to focus in revamping our systems internally to ensure continuation of the real transformation and that we improve efficiency, turnaround time and improve professionalism amongst ourselves and staff members. We will improve our performance systems, and ensure that they are geared towards optimal service delivery on our mandate.
Our website will be improved and its content will be updated regularly to reflect the hard work that the members of this house are doing for the people of the North West. We will ensure that reports of all committees and their interaction with the public are published. We view the North West Provincial Legislature website as an important tool for communicating with the North West populace.
We will during the current financial year, develop and adopt a proper and credible job grading system that will help to address once and for all discrepancies that are in our organisational structure, and bring about stability in the workplace.
We will also be in a position to implement the recently adopted oversight model framework, adopted at the national level, and adapted to our situation in the province. This model however has greater human and financial resource implications, which may not be met in the current budget. Necessary motivation will be made to the Treasury to be a little pragmatic in this regard.
Most of the work of the legislature takes place in committees. Therefore committees will continue to be our key area of focus when coming to implementing the work of the legislature. We must continue to work with our local university and other research institutions to strengthen the research capacity of the legislature. The invitation to university and other institutions to work with us will assist in coming with creative methods of promoting oversight and public participation in a more effective way. We will open our doors to the students of our universities to be able to gain work experience at the legislature.
The plan is also underway to establish the North West Provincial Legislature offices to correspond to municipal boundaries. This too also aimed at strengthening oversight and ensuring speedy and real time resolution of issues that needs our oversight. This process will start at district level and cascades to locals in the following financial years.
We also intend to establish a call centre, which will assist the public to report matters that are relevant to this legislature. We will in due course provide the necessary details on this objective to this house.
We will also develop a proper resolution register, which will help us track the resolutions taken by this house, whether they were communicated to those affected, and progress regarding their implementation. This is another form of strengthening of our committees, allowing them to play more meaningful and informed oversight role. We should focus on ward to ward in relation to the programme to better the lives of the people. Regular monthly meetings of the Councillors, and their attendance of all Council meetings.
The legislature will continue with the training programme to capacitate members.
This will include the initiation and formulation of legislation by members. Law
is one of the most critical tasks and mandate of the legislature. We however have been weak in this regard, with almost all legislation passed in the house initiated by the Executive. We will in this regard strengthen our legal unit by appointing a collective of well qualified and relevant legal experience to drive the process of law-making, and hopefully safe us from embarrassment as we were recently when a law passed by this house was nullified by the courts.
Chairperson of Chairpersons, we will continue to take part in other national and international fora. This helps us to enhance our work, our knowledge and expertise. We will improve our participation in Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the APAC and other continental and international structures. We continue to relentlessly augment funding of our programmes with funding from structures like European Union and Association European Parliamentarians for Africa.
Public participation forms one of the core activities of the legislature. This unit will be strengthened to reflect the strategic position in the legislative processes of the
North West. We will ensure that the feedback mechanism on the programmes of the legislature is improved by ensuring that all issues raised in the house during sectoral parliaments are attended to and feedback is relayed back to the attendants. We will also ensure that we improve how petitions are handled to allow for a proper feedback to the petitioner and proper closing of the petition. In this regard, we will also create a deliberate platform for the people and institutions to advise us on how we can continue improving our work as the legislature.
Tonakgolo Thandi Modise attested last year at a communications lekgotla of the province to the fact that North West is a beautiful province and full of talented people. She told the Lekgotla that; “The truth must be told that our province is not well branded because we are known as a bad province full of corruption, potholes, full of racism etc. The picture that is painted about our province is not a true reflection of what the North West Province is all about”. The Premier has also alluded to the need to reposition the province during the recent reshuffling of the cabinet, and I quote in part “the pace of delivery needs to be redoubled as we shed our image of disunity and corruption and nepotism and reposition ourselves to transforming the socio-economic and political landscape of the province and position it to a centre for excellent and decision makers’.
One of the most recent examples is acknowledgement in the national newspaper that we are setting the pace in so far as health care is concerned, and commended our hospitals for their cleanliness. The paper went as far as labelling our hospitals, hospitals of the future.
The North West Provincial Legislature has an unavoidable responsibility to lend a hand in the rebranding and repositioning of the North West Province. In this regard the legislature is undertaking a research to determine how the people of the province and those outside the province view us. The report will be tabled and discussed in this house to debate the negative perception that may have been picked and to recommend the steps to be taken to correct them. Included in this must be a discussion relating to a perception or reality that, our province constitute parts of South Africa refusing to shed practices of deep seated racism disguised in different forms. It is important for us to build province in a way that will create a new approach of “Go North West”.
Part of improving our image includes relationships improvement. This starts at how we relate with one another from this house.
Ga re senye balekane ba rona maina ka go ba bitsa bo belerutwane. Re dumalana gore nyalelano, tsamaelano, le nyeumo ya ponelopele le mogopolo o le mongwe magareng ga kgotla e, e tla bontsha gore re seoposengwe mme eseng selo se le sengwe.
Honourable members we can only succeed if we pull together (saamtrek) in celebrating our achievements, overcoming our challenges and pulling each other up at all times as a society united in diversity.
Chairperson of chairpersons; let me conclude by quoting in part, Grace Lee Boggs who said “ So by now the crux of our preliminary needs should be apparent. We must open our hearts to new beacons of Hope. We must expand our minds to new modes of thought. We must equip our hands with new methods of organizing. And we must build on all of the humanitystretching movements of the past half century, we must have the courage to walk the talk but we must also engage in the continuing dialogues that enable us to break free of old categories and create the new ideas that are necessary to address our realities, because revolutions are made not to prove the correctness of ideas but to begin anew”.
A re tsweleleng go dira tiro ya rona ka manontlhotlho, boineelo, botswerere le matlhagatlhaga gore ko bofelong , baagi ba rona ba seka bare go rona “ o se bone nong, go rakalala godimo, go ya tlase ke ga yona”. Modiomo o re babalele rotlhe, ke a leboga, nelwang ke pula
