Honourable Speaker
Members of the Executive Council
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature
Our distinguished winners of the National Golden Games – who have graced this gathering
Ladies and gentlemen.
It is once again a great pleasure to stand here as part of a dialogue on the development of our beloved province of the Eastern Cape, a Home of Legends. We greatly appreciate the invaluable commentary on the State of the Province Address by members of this house - from the governing party and the opposition – alike.
I wish to begin by extending my heartfelt gratitude to the Honourable Speaker and all those who were involved in organising such an outstanding ceremony to mark the 2013 state of the Province Address. What was achieved is one of the special demonstrations and an advertisement of what this province is capable of.
Let me also take the opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Finance, Mr Pravin Gordhan for a well-constructed and a balanced budget which was presented yesterday afternoon in Cape Town. This is one of demonstrations of the quality of ANC leadership that even in conditions of global financial turmoil South Africa is still able to conceptualise and implement a budget that continues to bring confidence and inspire all South Africans to work harder to bring a better life for all.
Certainly in the context of a poverty-stricken Eastern Cape, we applaud the tax concessions that were announced by the Minister. The budget clearly embodies the letter and the spirit of the long term National Development plan which we are all gearing to implement as directed by the ANC 53rd National Conference and announced by our President in the State of the Nation Address.
Since Friday 22 February, we have been inundated with feedback on the speech demonstrating its positive reception by leaders and people within the province and beyond. Honourable Speaker, allow me to cite one of such feedback from Rev Canon Thelejane of Goerge who in his letter said:
“I listened intently over the Radio on Friday, 22 February 2013 for two hours as you delivered your very comprehensive address in the Legislature. I noted with interest the extent of the development thus far achieved in the vast Eastern Cape Province as well as goals you hope to attain.
You covered a lot of ground also underscoring some of the salient points in the language of the rural people as it is indeed a largely rural territory. I was born in Mount Fletcher (Maluti) in 1963. I taught for a few years and was persuaded to follow the line of fishers of men in the Anglican Church. I retired in Port Elizabeth in 1996 where I was always used by the Vista University Campus over a period 1983 to 1996. So education is one my centres of concern. Your remarks concerning education were highly appreciated, improvement of school buildings as well as the creation of an atmosphere conducive to learning and the feeding of children instead of people fraudulently pilfering funds ear-marked for feeding children, and the calling to a halt of bad practices of educators who fail to do that for which they have been called to do.”
This heighten dialogue on the development of the Eastern Cape, was further confirmed and demonstrated this week when we held our Post SoPA Stakeholder engagement which was also extensively covered by the Television and the print media.
Honourable Speaker, as further demonstration that we are indeed a province at work for a better life for all, I wish to share with Honourable Members of this House that immediately after the delivery the state of the Province Address last Friday, we proceeded to officiate at the opening of a Five Star Hotel at the Boardwalk in Port Elizabeth.
This is the second five-star hospitality establishment in the province thus confirming investor confidence in the Eastern Cape as a preferred tourist destination. Buoyed by this and other achievements we are undertaking next week an official visit to Indonesia with a view to facilitate a partnership to grow the Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME) sector.
Whilst broadly welcoming the incisive commentaries of the honourable members of this house in the debate of the State of the Province Address, we would wish to take the honour and respond to some of the issues raised.
Firstly we wish to acknowledge the leadership provided by the Chief Whip in setting the tone for the debate. His reflections on many sung and unsung heroes of this province some of whom have humble beginnings hailing from places such as Tshabo, confirms our conviction that Eastern Cape is indeed the Home of Legends. We wish to assure the governing party that those of us deployed in government will, for the remainder of this term, spare neither effort nor strengthen to realise our commitments to the people as enshrined in the ANC manifesto.
Without negating the fact that honourable members of the Executive Council will still table policy speeches that would further elucidate the message carried in the SoPA, we will raise some issues as part of our contribution to this debate.
We also had the benefit of going through the full speech prepared by the leader of the official opposition, Honourable Sam Kwelita. Let me respond to the issues he raised as follows
1. With respect to the Honourable Member’s comment that SoPA needed to account for issues raised in previous SoPAs, indeed I wish to invite the Honourable Member to read this SoPA closely. He will find that the speech does indeed give an account of the progress made with respect to the implementation of the Provincial Programme of Action of 2012/13, the overall progress made since the beginning of the term in 2009, as well as an indication of what needs to be done to successfully conclude the mandate in the next fourteen months.
2. With respect to what has been referred to as the reliance of our economy on the tertiary sector to the exclusion of the primary sector, the point is acknowledged. In the SoPA we, indeed, took sometime describing the challenging economic context of the Eastern Cape economy. We do acknowledge for example that the poor performance of primary production in the rural economy undermines the potential of integrating the rural population into productive activity and therefore alleviate poverty. Our interventions in this area, which include the Rural Development Agency and other agro-processing initiatives, are aimed at ensuring that primary agricultural activity graduates to commercial activity through equitable participation across the value chain.
3. Regarding the performance of our Industrial Development Zone (IDZ), the Honourable Member would have noted the extent of investment facilitation as reflected in the size of current and planned investments. We are indeed pleased by the performance of IDZs, and we look forward to the establishment of the new Wild Coast Special Economic Zones (SEZs). With respect to the issue of foreign direct investment and the risk of skills and capital flight, we have put mechanisms in place to ensure that the Province does benefit, including the HRD Skills Council.
4. The Umzimvubu project is indeed being Fast-tracked, especially through the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC)
5. With respect to the Jobs Fund, the impact of cooperatives and our support to SMMEs, the Policy Speech of MEC Jonas will elaborate further on this. Suffice it to say that we established the Jobs Fund against a backdrop of job losses as a result of a global recession in order to ensure that jobs are saved. We also made the point in SoPA that we remain concerned about the performance and sustainability of our cooperatives, and that to this end we have established the Institute for Cooperatives Development at the University of Fort Hare. We also expressed a similar concern, as indeed the Honourable Member has noted, about the small role currently played by our SMMEs and our search for new solutions in this regard.
We have also noted the issues raised by Honourable Bobby Stevenson. We wish to state that we have spoken extensively in the speech about our plans as the provincial government with respect to youth development. We further indicated our support for national processes in this regard, as the honourable members will probably be aware the President alluded to the pending conclusion of a NEDLAC process on youth development. Of course he should also have noted what the Minister of Finance said about funding of youth employment. As a province we will play our part in supporting and facilitating the execution of these national policies and programme in our Province.
I wish also to re-state that government is creating an enabling environment for private sector to better invest in this province, with our multi billion rand investment in the socio-economic infrastructure. We are consolidating the positioning of our province as part of the mainstream economic development of South Africa through among others the logistics infrastructure.
We welcome the complements of Honourable Jackson Bici, and we have noted his request for attention to the issue of ensuring sustainable supply of water resources to Ncorha irrigation scheme. That is already receiving our outmost attention as part of ensuring food security in the Province.
Let me again re-iterate that details of these agriculture development interventions as well as a range of other matters raised by Honourable Members of this House will be elucidated by the respective MECs in next month.
We also agree with Honourable Angela Woodhall’s assertion that our education outcomes are yet to reach the desirable levels, and indeed we acknowledged as such in the SoPA. We also acknowledge the challenges of high dropout rates, which are mainly due to a number of factors that include teenage pregnancy, ukuthwala and above all the sheer under development of these areas. Our focus on improving these districts is primarily intended to remove these intervening factors that militate against the development of our people to their full potential.
Hon Speaker, I wish all the Hon Members of this House well during this last session of this term. As members crisscross the Province to improve the political fortunes of their respective parties, let us all put the interests of our Province at heart.
Let me also take this opportunity to commend and applaud the support I received from the OTP team that worked behind the scenes to produce this SoPA.
I thank you.
