Honourable Speaker of the Legislature
Honourable Deputy Speaker
Premier of the Free State, honourable Magashule
Honourable Members of this august House
Our Permanent Delegates from the National Council of Provinces (NCOP)
Members of the National Assembly present here today
The Honourable Minister of Police of the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho
The Honourable Minister of Public Works and Roads of the Mountain kingdom of Lesotho
Distinguished members of the House of Traditional Leaders
The Provincial Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners of the SAPS Generals Sengani, Motsoenyane and Sitole
The CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa
The Acting CEO of the Road Transport Management Corporation
The Head of the South African National Defence Force military base, General Moadira
The Provincial Head of the Independent Complaints Directorate, Mr Israel Kgamanyane
Provincial Head of the National Intelligence Agency, Ms Potgieter
Leadership and members of the Community Police Forums present here
Leadership and members of our Road Safety Forums
Our distinguished stakeholders in the Construction Industry
The Provincial leadership of the ANC and other political parties
Veterans and stalwarts of our revolution
Comrades and compatriots
Distinguished media houses
Ladies and gentlemen
This third budget vote in the current term of office takes place a year before the centenary of the premier liberation movement of our people, the African National Congress (ANC), hardly two months before our fourth democratic Local Government Elections and the 21 years since the release from prison, of the icon of our struggle, comrade Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela who continues to be an undisputed embodiment of the collective sacrifices and aspirations of our people.
Honourable Speaker, in tabling our budget vote for 2011/12, we are indeed humbled to share with you our experiences of the journey traveled since our last budget vote statement and put forward our policy priorities and vision for the period ahead.
Proud of our past, confident of our future
In our last budget speech, we assured all South Africans and foreign soccer spectators the best of being and feeling safe during the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. Honourable Speaker, in this regard allow me to join many South Africans by sharing the pride of our nation for the hosting of a successful 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.
Honourable Speaker, it will indeed be an omission on the occasion of this nature not to express our fitting tribute, honour and gratitude to our security agencies, Police and Traffic Officers in particular, for the sterling work done for the success of this historic occasion that captured the imaginations of the entire global humanity. This world cup was not only the greatest test for South Africa as a winning nation, but more importantly, of our shared resilience against the divisions of the past in defining our common destiny as a nation.
Honourable Speaker, we owe this resilience to those who sacrificed their lives to ensure that we live in peace, equality and shared prosperity today. In this regard, we take our memories back in honour of the martyrs of the 1961 Sharpeville massacre, the hanging of Vuyisile Mini by Apartheid government in 1964 and the sacrifices of Tata Madiba whose legacy will continue to inspire many generations to come.
As part of our contribution to township revitalisation, we committed R150 million under the banner of Operation Hlasela for 2010/11 financial year. It should however be noted that, not all municipalities have necessary technical capacity for the implementation of township revitalisation projects.
Honourable Speaker, by its geographical position within the country, Free State is located at the heart of the road infrastructure network of South Africa thus exposing it to high volumes of traffic with attendant massive deterioration of the road infrastructure network and high level of road traffic accidents. We are however pleased to announce that due to our increased planning accompanied by additional resourcing in terms of road traffic law enforcement, our road crashes have decreased substantially in the current financial year as compared to previous years.
Contrary to many misconceptions about the role of provinces in relation to policing and crime fighting, our constitutional and legal mandate in this terrain is to oversee and monitor Police performance. In doing so, to ensure that Police complies with and meet national policy guidelines in the execution of their duties. These include facilitating community participation in policing at local level and investigation of complaints by members of the public against the police. For the 20110/11 financial year, as of December 2010 we have received 185 complaints from members of the public against the Police of which 100 % were investigated and concluded.
Honourable Speaker, stock theft and rural safety have become one of the key priorities for our department in the recent past. In support of the rural safety initiatives by the the agricultural union and the emerging livestock owners, the department has donated two 4x4 vehicles for patrol in the rural areas respectively. We have also finalised the integrated rural safety strategy which is currently subject of review by other stakeholders before presentation to the Executive Council for approval. In support of victim empowerment initiatives at Police stations level, the Department is running Victim Empowerment Centres in selected police stations with 180 volunteers, each receiving monthly stipend of R400.
Honourable Speaker, in our last budget vote policy statement, we noted amongst others; (a) the deteriorating bad conditions of our roads which has substantially increased our expenditure on the road accident claims (b) the devastating impact of floods on the very ailing conditions of our roads, and (c) a need for R15 billion as at 2006 to address the road infrastructure backlog over the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) period.
Against this background, we then identified the 23 most critical roads that require rehabilitation and upgrading with the estimated cost of R3.7 billion over the current MTEF period. Tenders for these roads were advertised accordingly and contractors appointed from the beginning of April 2010.
Whilst good progress can be reported in relation to these 23 roads projects, it should however be mentioned that the department has commissioned a risk assessment of these project in order to determine value for money and ensure quality assurance.
Honourable Speaker, despite the challenges we have encountered, we are proud to further report that through the Contractor Development Programme and the EPWP Projects, we have empowered 71 small contractors and created 2 800 jobs. These statistics do not include major conventional contracts which do not employ labour intensive construction methods. Through these contracts, of which four are continuing into the new financial year, we have empowered 10 small contractors and created 408 jobs.
Honourable Speaker, as we break ranks with this current financial year to begin a new journey into the new financial year, we will always look back with a great sense of pride for bold policy decisions taken in accelerating the development of road infrastructure network. In doing this, we will always avoid temptations of being blinded by our own successes by constantly seeking to derive lessons from our past.
Exciting opportunities ahead, yet difficult choices to make
The injunctions of the African National Congress in its 8 January 2011 statement which were further elaborated in the President State of the Nation Address and the Minister of Finance Budget Speech have represented not only hope for the majority of our people, but also exciting times for all of us in the period ahead for taking the struggles against joblessness and hunger to new heights. We present this 3rd budget vote policy statement for the coming financial year cognisant of the exciting opportunities ahead, yet pregnant of difficulties that require vision, innovation and boldness.
Honourable Speaker, this august House is surely aware that our allocation for transport infrastructure in the new financial year has been reduced by 27 percent. This comes at the time when the recent floods alone have resulted into the damage of our road infrastructure network to the tune of R317 million as at February 2011. The enormity of the challenges posed by this is further compounded by the escalation in the costs of construction materials which negatively impact not only on our service delivery imperatives, but more importantly, on the sustenance and support to our emerging contractors within the construction industry.
This calls for a paradigm shift in our way of doing business in order to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. The key test in this regard will not only be measured in terms of numbers of things we do or achieve, but on the quality and impact we make on the lives of our people. In the midst of escalating poverty and hunger that define the lives of majority of our people, we need to ensure that in everything we do, attack against poverty and joblessness becomes our key priority.
Massification of job creation: Our priority number
Honourable Speaker, taking the cue from the 8 January 2011 statement of the African National Congress which declared this year as the year of job creation, the department will ensure that all our projects are labour intensive to ensure massification of job creation.
The department will continue with the Vrede‐Standerton, Heilbron‐Petrusteyn and Warden‐Standerton roads projects with the employment opportunity of 408 people. In addition to these, the Monontsha and Route 4 Expanded Public Works Projects in Maluti‐A‐Phofung municipality will also enter the completion stage with 358 employment opportunities.
We will continue with the roll out of street paving and storm water management in the townships as part of our township revitalisation programme. Come December 2012, Mangaung and other municipalities will have changed into world class urban areas.
The department will provide additional R30 million for yellow fleet to assist smaller towns in having clean towns. This will be done jointly with other departments as part of green, clean and sustainable towns in the Free State.
The maintenance of our roads and repair of potholes will solely be dedicated for empowerment of youth, women and people with disabilities through Contractor Development Programme. The rehabilitation of our roads hit by the recent floods through the disaster management fund will be used to upscale Contractor Development Programme. This will be part of our strategy to transform the construction industry by mainstreaming the historically disadvantaged individuals at the lowest CIDB level through targeted intervention that include training and mentorship.
Honourable Speaker, in consultation within the Department of Social Development we will finalise the convergence framework that seeks to bring uniformity of norms and standards in order to elevate the stipends of our volunteers in the Victim Empowerment centres in line with the EPWP standards. This is against the background of disintegrated approach on the Victim Empowerment Programme by various sector departments. As part of our strategy to recognise, identify and retain talent amongst our traffic officers, we have already advertised 52 vacant posts of traffic officers internally. In addition to this we will further advertise 100 more positions to augment the declining numbers of our traffic officers in the new financial year.
In pursuit of the Executive Council resolution to appoint permanent security officers for all government buildings, in the coming financial year, we will train and employ 100 security officers. In addition to this, we have finalised the business plan and the appointment of an accredited service provider as the implementing agency to provide training to security personnel of all the departments of the Free State Provincial Government.
Safe and Integrated Road Infrastructure Network
Honourable Speaker, in an effort to down scale our road infrastructure backlog in the coming financial year, the department has identified 12 main strategic provincial roads which meet the requirements for reclassification into national roads.
The roads are amongst the top with high traffic volumes that links our provinces with other provinces and national roads that constantly require high maintenance costs. Transferring these roads to the national Department of Transport will go a long way in mitigating our high expenditure on road maintenance. We will also ensure the speedy sourcing of necessary funds in order to complete the rail revitalisation project between Bloemfontein and Thaba Nchu through a multi stakeholder task team that will include Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and the national Department of Transport.
The Harrismith Logistical Hub project will undergo first phase of implementation in the new finacial year. The process of unveiling the proffessional plans will be completed during this financial year and the sod turning ceremony will take place in order to officially launch the project.
We will intensify the war against crime and corruption
Honourable Speaker, the fight against crime and corruption remains one of the key non negotiable strategic priorities for the Department of Police, Roads and Transport. Building on the successes and the lessons of the year under review, we will continue to strengthen the mobilisation of all sectors of society in the fight against crime through the community policing forums and sector policing.
In this regard, we will harness and prioritise our resources on all critical high priority crime hotspots as will be from time to time evidenced by crime statistics. This will include identification, in collaboration with the Department of Education of 15 high crime priority schools as part of our school safety programme.
Furthermore, we will in collaboration with relevant sector departments monitor all initiation schools in the province to ensure that those that promote unacceptable social values and break the laws of the country are dealt with accordingly. Research and statistics have proven that high prevalence of livestock theft is more likely on the areas along the borders of Lesotho and South Africa. In this regard, we will step up our collaboration with livestock owners and the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho in the fight against this and other related cross border crimes.
The presence of his Majesty, the Minister of Police of the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho is a living expression of this collaboration which we will intensify in the new financial year. The trends in Police statistics have revealed a relationship between Human Trafficking, Prostitution and Drug smuggling. In collaboration with the civil society, key and critical hotspots for human trafficking, prostitution and drug smuggling will be identified and prioritised to step up a targeted campaign against these forms of crimes.
Honourable Speaker, it cannot be right that our men and women in blue who sacrifice their lives 24 hours a year for the safety and security of all of us are not accorded rightful place and standing in our society and government. As part of our national heritage, we need to ask as to how many monuments have we erected in honour of those fallen men and women in blue on the line of duty; how many of us care about their orphans, widows and widowers as the nation’s pride?
Cognisant of the fact that Policing is an area of exclusive national competence, in consultation with the Ministry of Police, we will from next year, as part of our annual Safety Month programme, launch the “Steve Tshwete Police of the Year Prestigious Award” in recognition of outstanding service and commitment by our police officers. This we will do in partnership with the private sector. The award will recognise individual officers in different categories of service from station, cluster level to the provincial level, the best performing Community Policing Forum and the best performing police station will also be recognised.
Honourable Speaker, we name these awards after one of our best, the late Minister of Safety and Security, comrade Steve Tshwete, in memory of his legacy and stand against crime which was a source of inspiration to all of us.
Over the recent past we have received numerous alerts from Whistle blowers about systemic and endemic levels of fraud and corruption at the Operating Licensing Board. This corruption involves the illegal issuance of Taxi Permits and Operating Licences to operators in exchange of monetary rewards to our officials. As a result of this pattern of corruption and fraud, we have situations where one taxi operator operates more than one taxi with a single permit or operating license. The question is how many of taxis are flooding our roads with illegal permits or operating licences and what does this mean to our passengers in case of accidents?
This we cannot tolerate anymore, and to those involved in this criminal activity, our message is loud and clear; you comply or close shop, now, not tomorrow! In pursuance of the strategy to fight this fraud and corruption, I therefore declare the month of April 2011 until the 1 June 2011 as the month for voluntary surrender of all fraudulently acquired permits and operating licences by Operators. This should include verification by all operators to chech whether their documents are proper.
I call unto the leadership of the organised taxi industry to support this campaign that seeks to clear our roads of illegal operators by encouraging their members to come forward. Gone are the times when this industry was unregulated and a law unto itself. This anti‐corruption campaign will be adapted and rolled out to the Transport administration and Licensing division, targeting Lengau Testing centre and other critical hotspots in the province.
Road safety and Public Transport
Honourable Speaker, we have noted with pride a decrease in the road fatalities on our roads during the previous festive seasons due to our increased impact in terms of law enforcement and the promotion of road safety. We salute our motorists for, without their cooperation in terms of compliance with road traffic safety laws, our road safety campaign will not succeed.
Honourable Speaker, gone are those times when we do business for the sake of it without a strategic outcome based approach with clear measurable outputs. In this regard, in pursuit of the drive to increase law enforcement on our roads, we will identify critical hotspots with high level of road accident as our focal points. In the spirit of cooperative governance we will strengthen our partnerships with key municipalities in this campaign.
The department welcomes the Ground Breaking campaign of ‘Hlokomela’ by the organised Taxi industry under the leadership of SANTACO. We will join hands with SANTACO to ensure that every passenger and driver arrive alive. We call on all our drivers and passengers, in private and public transport sectors to arrive alive.
Honourable Speaker, we wish to pledge our commitment in line with the decade of action, of decreasing road accidents by 50%. It cannot be right that the country’s mortuaries and graveyards are littered by plus minus 1 400 corpses every month. This number excludes thousands of hospital beds occupied by victims of road accidents with huge costs to the economy of our country. Together we can defeat this scourge.
Against this background, within the next 30 days from the tabling of this budget speech, I will expect my officials to present before me a concrete plan and strategy that makes arrive alive a 365 days a year which I will table before this august House in the due course. As part of our integrated strategy on Road safety, we will continue in the new financial year with the training of high school learners to ensure that by the time they exit grade 12, they have driving licences. This will built up on the pilot project of 2010/11 financial year which targeted 11 schools within Motheo District.
Honourable Speaker, against the backdrop of limited financial and human resources to drive this project, my department will explore partnerships with private sector and develop a sustainable service delivery model which will be costed and funded in the next financial year. In our province, our communities rely on the taxi and bus transport modes for commuting on daily basis. As a matter of fact, 60 percent of our commuters in this country use the taxi as a mode of transport whilst the remaining 40 uses bus and other modes of transport.
Whilst the Taxi industry is not subsidised, it is the one that carries the highest number of our commuters and passengers. To this end, as part of our effort to mainstream this industry in the broader transport economy, we will continue to provide financial assistance to the organised Taxi industry in line with the 1996 National Taxi Task Team recommendations which amongst others, sought to ensure, that:
- the taxi industry operates within equitable economic environment
- the industry, in providing safe and reliable public transport to our commuters, do so within an environment
- free from conflict, violence and instability and with enhanced corporate image
- the industry is united, professional and well regulated
In doing this, our strategic focus will be on the consolidation of unity of the industry within the spirit of the 1996 National Taxi dialogue with government which resolved on the amalgamation of various Taxi formations into a single national federation.
Honourable Speaker, we will never allow a proliferation of splinter groups within the Taxi industry which in the past was the source of many debilitating factional conflicts that resulted in the loss of innocent lives and untold miseries to the members of the public.
Honourable Speaker, we are finalising the Maluti Bus Services transformation as part of our strategy to mainstream the historically disadvantaged in the ownership of the transport economy and modernisation of the bus industry into first class standards and will continue into the second phase of the transformation of the Interstate Bus Line in the coming financial year. This will be the final chapter on integrating the transport system in the province.
In doing this, a high premium will be placed on the review and consolidation of our regulatory frame work to respond to the current policy and legislative gaps in line with the National Land Transport Act of 2009.
Honourable Speaker, as we enter the new journey into the 2011/12 financial year, we do it emboldened by our past lessons which inject within us a renewed sense of urgency and commitment to defeat crime and ensure job creation through sustainable road infrastructure development.
In dealing with the pressing challenges before us, we will leave no stone unturned in translating every little challenge into a golden opportunity for moving forward in terms of our strategic mandate to create a better life for all.
For us the budget allocation for the 2011/12 financial year, with all its constraints ushers in a new era of great beginning which requires innovation, policy clarity and a pool of public service cadres with unquestionable loyalty, dedication and strategic orientation to make things happen in line with the country’s mission of a better life for all.
To this end, we will recruit the best talent into our ranks, put in place high level service standards underpinned by professional ethos articulated in our constitution and the public service act. This will be accompanied by a robust and targeted internal skills re‐engineering within the department to place people with right skills at right positions and enhance the general skills levels through training and retraining.
Conclusion
Honourable Speaker, allow me in conclusion, to present before this august House the budget allocation for the 2011/12 financial year as follows.
- Programme 1: Administration R148 805 000
- Programme 2: Civilian Oversight R8 500 000
- Programme 3: Crime Prevention and Community Police Relations R16 000 000
- Programme 4: Transport Operations R227 111 000
- Programme 5: Transport Regulations R239 000 000
- Programme 6: Transport Infrastructure R826 041 000
- Total budget is R1 500 000 000
In total, our allocation for the coming financial year is R1,4 billion. We will continue to engage the Treasury for additional funding for our core strategic programmes like road maintenance and other job creation related projects.
Allow me the opportunity to thank my officials for the support during the difficult year under review, the Premier of the province for his leadership, my colleagues in the Executive for advice and support, the Legislature for its constructive oversight and leadership; and lastly my family without whose patience, support and understanding I would not have lasted to stand before you this morning.
Together we will defeat crime and ensure job creation through sustainable infrastructure development.
I thank you.
Source: Free State Provincial Government
