Chairperson
Speaker
Deputy Speaker
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Mayors and councillors of local government
Amakhosi present
Director�"General and heads of departments
Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Introduction
The core function of the Office of the Premier during this term of office involves planning, coordination, performance monitoring and evaluation of the provincial government’s service delivery programmes.
Mr Speaker, as determined by cabinet the following are the government’s programme of action:
* creating decent work and economic growth
* education
* health
* rural development/food security and land reform
* fight against crime and corruption
These priorities have been analysed and grouped into twelve outcomes that are the basis of the programme of action of government, aligned at both the provincial and national levels. The provincial government has adopted an integrated coordinated approach to service delivery. Departments working in silos are a thing of the past.
The outcomes are as determined at national government level are as follows:
* Quality basic education
* A long and healthy life for all South Africans
* All people in South Africa are safe
* Decent employment through inclusive economic growth
* Skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path
* An efficient, competitive and responsive economic infrastructure network
* Vibrant, equitable, sustainable rural communities contributing towards food security for all
* Sustainable human settlements and improved quality of household life
* Responsive, accountable, effective and efficient local government system
* Protect and enhance our environmental assets and natural resources
* Create a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better world
* An efficient, effective and development oriented public service and an empowered, fair and inclusive citizenship
Key projects for the 2010/11 financial year
Planning commission
While the Presidency is finalising the composition, structure and role of the planning commission, we have set the ball rolling in the province through the appointment of the chairperson of the commission. This individual will be responsible for liaising with the national counterparts and ensure the alignment of the functions and responsibilities of the structure.
While it is envisaged that some members of the commission will be appointed specifically for their technical expertise, this process will await clarification of these aspects from the Presidency.
The commission will operate under the direct guidance of the Premier, assisted by several MEC’s (Economic Development and Tourism; Finance; Cooperative Governance; Transport and Community Safety and Liaison); while other MEC’s will participate on the basis of necessity. The main responsibility of the Planning Commission is to ensure coordination, integration and alignment of various departmental and private sector plans. It is envisaged that out of this exercise, KwaZulu-Natal should be able to develop a master plan that indicates a vision 2025. Such a plan will ensure a clear guidance to both government and private sector investors. The plan should reflect on various plans for strategic development, including the following:
*·Coordinating the review of the provincial growth and development strategy
* Coordinating the review of the provincial spatial economic development strategy
*·Development of provincial inter-modal transport system (rail, sea, road transport);
* Coordinating the development of plan for provision of bulk infrastructure: energy, water, sanitation and development of human settlements
*·Revival of decaying towns and village trading centres
*·Rural development and agrarian reform
* Coordination of regional industrial development initiatives
*·Development of comprehensive skills and human resource strategy for the province.
Heritage and human rights
In order to respond to the need to ensure that our history remains a common heritage, we have commissioned a group of academic researchers to work together with the academic institutions to research and record our history and preserve it for posterity. This unit will be working closely with Amafa ot align the programmes. The research will cover the pre-colonial African civilization, the colonial history including the missionary era, the resistance to colonial domination and his contemporary struggle for liberation and democracy and record the events that shaped the history of our region.
The uniting spirit that prevailed during the reburial of the remains of Johnstone Mfanafuthi Makhathini is testimony to what result we can achieve in nation building and reconciliation if the portfolio is managed properly.
The burial site is destined to become a shrine and museum housing a wall of peace and reconciliation recording over 1000 names of people who died during the violence including the “Seven days’ war” recently reported in the local media. A team will soon be commissioned to make designs that will incorporate the themes in the Freedom Park in Johannesburg. We are collecting literary work for archival storage and some to create audiovisual lessons to encourage inter-party reconciliation.
This year, Heritage Day celebration will be as inclusive and through early planning we will ensure that the impact far surpasses the good start we registered last year. It contributed significantly in creating a spirit of inclusivity and a sense of belonging for many South Africans.
This year we commemorate the 150 years of the arrival of the Indian indentured labourers, the ancestral origin of the large community that added to the tapestry of our Rainbow Nation. There is also a 50 year celebration for Dr A Luthuli (Nobel Peace Prize Winner). The African Renaissance Project is also planned for the year and during the month of May. Government joined millions of South Africans and congregants as we commemorated a hundred years since the founding of the Nazareth Baptist Church by Prophet Isaiah Shembe.
The Office of the Premier continues to coordinate the work of government in the promotion of human rights empowerment of and the protection of vulnerable groups including women, children, the youth, senior citizens and people with disabilities. A workshop was conducted by the Office of the Premier and the Portfolio Committee on the Status and Quality of Life of Women, Youth, Senior Citizens, Children, People with disabilities and other Vulnerable Groups to mobilise civil society as partner in this campaign. The work in this area will be more effectively done as part of the integrated approach of government programmes. A need has been identified to create and strengthen regional forums for coordination of this work by civil society.
2010 FIFA World Cup
The excitement for our country arises from the privilege of hosting on behalf of the African continent, one of the most prestigious gatherings in the whole world, which most of the current generation may never again experience in their lifetime.
KwaZulu-Natal will host five countries: Greece, which will be based in Durban; Nigeria and Algeria have chosen the uGu District, Cameroon will train in the coastal town of Umhlanga and Paraguay will train in the Midlands. We look forward to welcoming these teams to our province.
The excitement of the 2010 world Cup is with us now. We learnt sadly of the death of three youth in Bhadeni in Dumbe Municipality while watching the Bafana Bafana match using a fuel powered generator that released toxic fumes which they inhaled. Government conveyed condolences through the MEC for Social Development who was tasked to help the family and community deal with the tragic turn of events in what was otherwise a pleasant moment for our youth.
We intend to take full advantage of the event and target various opinion makers to profile our province. The spin-offs that will accrue include the transfer of skills from players, soccer administrators, expert personnel and other role players that are involved in the development of soccer in this province. Furthermore a Soccer Academy in Partnership with Spain will be established in the eThekwini region.
National Youth Service
The Youth Commission as previously structured has been disestablished. The National Youth Service is in the process of formation and for this we await guidance from the national government. Meantime the contract of the Youth Commissioners lapsed at the end of March without clear guidance from the national government on how to structure at the provincial level. The Office of the Premier is considering a model of the National Youth Development programme that will perform two functions:
* Youth development programmes that link up the work of the previous Youth Commission and Umsobomvu empowerment initiatives
* A provincial initiative that will absorb youth in community service aiming at behavioural change and the eradication of social ills.
The latter part model involves the recruitment of several thousands of youth who will be trained in basic life skills and be deployed locally as Grassroots Community Organisers to create a different behavioural pattern in society. The youth will be trained to support work of various departments at the grass roots level, while receiving a stipend.
They will be in service for a limited period of between eighteen months to three years and exit to follow a career. The role they will play will be amongst others to promote good health, prevention of diseases such as HIV infection and teenage pregnancies, encouraging safe sexual conduct, and promotion of utilisation of available government services, caring for disabled, orphans and elderly, fighting crime, promotion of human rights, encourage self-confidence amongst the youth and desire to learn, engage in sports and recreation etc. In short they will promote responsible conduct through creation of local clubs as platforms for promotion of debate and exchange of information provided by professional experts. Peer education has been proven to be the best form of behavioural modification. The Office of the Premier will coordinate with all the relevant line function departments.
Governance
The revision of the organogram in the Office of the Premier has been finalised. The post of Director-General has been advertised and will be filled by the end of April.
An important section has been included in the organogram, involving Ombudsman functions, which essentially is about fraud prevention, risk management and quality of services. While the name may need to be reviewed in response to the requirements of the Department of Public Service and Administration, the role and functions remain unchanged. This section will soon be operational to promote Batho Pele, Citizen’s Charter and responds to the President’s Hotline. It will also house capacity to investigate deviations from expected standard of service and instances of impropriety. It is expected that it will be fully functional in May. It will liaise closely with the Public Protector and special investigation units of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Coordination of stakeholder participation will ensure that partnerships are built between government and various civil society stakeholders: faith based organisations, non-governmental and community organisations, labour, business, etc.
The intergovernmental forums will be effectively coordinated between spheres of government as well as international partners.
The performance evaluation system will be developed in order to oversee the quality of work done and the impact of service delivery. Monitoring and evaluation has been strengthened by further development of the nerve centre and an expert service provider has been contracted to manage the system. That way there is an efficient dash board display that will monitor progress of projects and ensure that the integrated flagship projects and interdepartmental collaboration is continuously tracked to yield the desired outcomes.
Programmes
The programme structure of the Office of the Premier is:
* administration
* institutional development
* policy and governance
The total budget for the Office of the Premier for the 2010/2011 financial year is R 419, 284 million. I will now give an overview of the programme structure and thereafter discuss each programme.
Programme 1: Administration (R103,167 million)
The purpose of this programme is to provide administrative support to the Premier, Executive Council (Cabinet) and the Director-General in fulfilling their executive functions and promoting co-operative governance and ensuring sound financial management support and advisory services within the Department.
Programme 2: Institutional development (R118,432 million)
The purpose of this programme is to improve service delivery through institutional capacity building and transformation management.
This programme comprises of the following sub-programmes: Strategic human resources, legal services, information communications technology and communication services.
Sub-programme: Legal services
This sub-programme has the function of rendering a comprehensive and professional internal legal advisory service to the Office of the Premier; and a comprehensive, professional, inter-departmental, transversal state law advisory service to the respective provincial line function departments protecting the interests of the entire province.
Forty pieces of legislation are due to be introduced in the Provincial Legislature during the 2010/11 financial year. The process of rationalisation of laws will continue in the respective provincial departments.
Sub-Programme: Strategic human resources
This sub-programme’s function is to co-ordinate and enhances strategic human resource management services within the provincial government and the Office of the Premier.
The strategic human resource management sub-programme has identified the following priorities:
* To facilitate the transformation of the Provincial Administration to be a professional, high performing, responsive, non-sexist and representative Provincial Public Service
* To provide leadership in the research, development, monitoring and evaluation of human resource management strategies, policies, systems and best practices to enable provincial departments to achieve/carry out the provincial priorities
* Reduce vacancy rate in respect of funded vacant posts by 10 percent.
* Enhance the quality of human resource and Persal information in compliance with the national minimum information requirements
* Enhance compliance with prescribed policy directives and determinations
* Enhance employer-employee relations.
Projects to be undertaken in the 2010/11 financial year include:
* Provincial Human Resource Management Convention in October 2010
* Establishment of Baseline Data on the State of Wellbeing of the Provincial Public Service to ensure that the interventions are addressing the specific health and wellness needs of employees
* The development of a minimum package of health and wellness services for government employees will be prioritised
* Facilitate the development of a provincial human resource plan
* Participate in the flagship programme by supporting line departments to recruit volunteers in a regulated and consistent manner
* Finalise the development of 9 draft provincial policy frameworks for approval by CoHoD, G&A and Cabinet
* Support all departments in the process of verifying qualifications for all employees in the KwaZulu-Natal public service
* A database will be developed on all discipline and grievance cases within the administration and monitor progress on a quarterly basis
Sub-Programme: Communication services
This comprises of provincial government communications. The purpose of the communications unit is to provide an integrated and coordinated government communications service within the provincial government and the Office of the Premier.
The priorities of this unit include:
* Proactively provide the public with timely, accurate, relevant, understandable and complete information about government vision, policies, programmes, services and initiatives using the recognized languages
* Ensure that all departments cooperate to achieve coherent and effective communication with the public
* Showcase the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government as truly belonging to all by being caring, compassionate and responsive to the needs of society
Sub-Programme: Information and communications technology (ICT)
Key focus areas and priorities are the development of a:
* Provincial information communication technology (ICT) strategy/roadmap
* Provincial e-government strategy
* Provincial nerve centre which includes the development of a business intelligence system to support the nerve centre
* Science, engineering and technology implementation programme
The nerve centre which is a collaborative effort by monitoring and evaluation information and information technology (IT) for technology platforms provides data and information on the current status of the Province at any given point in time. Phase one of the nerve centres was completed and launched in August 2008.
Phase two of the nerve centre will be completed during 2010/11. The nerve centre will be a fully automated comprehensive planning, monitoring and evaluation intelligence system.
Programme 3: Policy and governance (R 197,685 million)
There are six sub-programmes supporting this programme, namely special programmes, inter-governmental relations, provincial policy management, premier’s priority programmes, heritage and provincial 2010 co-ordination.
Sub-programme: Premier’s priority programmes
Community outreach and religious affairs
The community outreach unit exists to create a vibrant dialogue between the Office of the Premier and the community by promoting a citizenship with positive moral values and enhances synergy with other government departments in service delivery.
Service delivery improvement
This unit provides advice, guidance and support to the Director-General and the provincial government on all Batho Pele matters. It further encourages sharing of best practices and service delivery improvement innovations.
Sub-programme: special programmes
The overarching goals of this sub-programme are to inculcate a culture of human rights, and promotion and protection of human and legal rights of the vulnerable populations, namely, women, children, older persons, youth and people with disabilities. Included in this sub-programme is the human rights unit, youth unit, HIV and AIDS unit and the Gaming and Betting unit.
HIV and AIDS
The strategic goals of the Office of the Premier that informs the HIV and AIDS unit are:
* To ensure the existence of governance conditions conducive to respect for human rights, the promotion of science and technology, and conservation and management of cultural heritage resources
* Develop and coordinate a highly effective multi-sectoral response strategy to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, including the programmes of the AIDS Council of KwaZulu-Natal.
The current plans are directed at ensuring the grass roots mobilisation of communities at ward level to mount a strong fight against the pandemic. Non-governmental Organisations will be appointed to train communities on treatment availability and compliance, prevention, HIV counselling and testing and male circumcision programme.
Leadership training will ensure that every ward has a local initiative to fight the pandemic. Strong partnership will be built to ensure that churches and faith-based organisations are deeply involved in the campaign to fight the pandemic. The streamlining of the available cadres serving different departments will ensure efficiency in the provision of services.
Gaming and betting
The KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting Bill, 2010 has been certified by Provincial Legislature which will bring about a rationalisation of the regulation of gambling in the province, with gaming and betting regulated by the same body (the proposed KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting Board) for the first time.
Tabling of the KwaZulu-Natal Gaming and Betting Tax Bill, 2010 will be priority for the Gaming and Betting Unit.
These legislations will ensure the maintenance of an enabling and legislative environment for the Gaming, Horse Racing and Betting Industry and the provision of coordinated and integrated policy inputs from Provincial and national role players.
Included in this unit is the Grant-in-aid payment to the KwaZulu-Natal Gambling Board.
Sub-Programme: Inter-governmental relations (IGR)
The inter-governmental relations unit plays an executive supportive role to the Premier and the Director-General in the execution of the inter-governmental relations function; President’s Co-ordinating Council, Premier’s Co-ordinating Forum, District Co-ordinating Forums and Provincial Directors-General's Forum.
It will coordinate visit to and from countries targeted for visits in 2010/11: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Mozambique, China, Angola, USA, Russia, Australia, Germany and Spain.
Sub-Programme: Provincial policy management
This sub-programme consists of the policy development and co-ordination unit and the monitoring and evaluation unit. The strategic objectives of this sub-programme are:
* To ensure a coordinated approach by provincial government with respect to Provincial Policy Management
* To ensure the effectiveness of policy, planning and programme interventions through evaluation of strategic policy outcomes
* To design and utilise a functional monitoring and evaluation system for the Provincial Government and Administration and local government
Monitoring and evaluation
The purpose of the monitoring and evaluation unit is to assist the provincial government to measure, monitor and evaluate performance, progress and the impact of growth and development interventions using the integrated government-wide monitoring and evaluation system.
The strategic objective of this unit is to bring into effect the existence of a functional, user-friendly government-wide monitoring and evaluation system and process for improved service delivery in the province by 2014.
Revenue
The revenue generation by the Horse Racing Industry for the 2010/11 financial year is expected at approximately R43 million, while the revenue generated by the Casino and Limited Payout Machines (LPMs) is approximately R297 million. In light of the economic crisis, disposable income of the public subsequently being reduced although the total revenue forecasted is R341 million being a 5.6 percent increase on the 2009/10 financial year showing improvement in the economic environment of the province.
Conclusion
May I take this opportunity to thank the Acting Director-General, Mr Roger Govender and the staff of the Office of the Premier for their commitment and dedication. I also wish to thank my beloved wife, my children and my family for supporting me all the time as I go about my duties.
With peace, democracy and development having been achieved, KwaZulu-Natal can now only grow further, economically and socially, to achieve a better life for all.
I now formally wish to table Vote 1 with a budget of R419,284 million before the legislature.
Let’s embrace a hope for a better future!
Enquiries:
Ndabezinhle Sibiya
Cell: 082 375 4742
Issued by: Office of the Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
8 April 2010
