Mr Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Honourable Members.
I would like to thank the leaders of political parties, colleagues on the Executive Council and Honourable Members for their various contributions to the debate of this year's State of the Province Address.
Let me state from the very onset that the State of the Province Address was a frank and transparent account of the work that was undertaken by the provincial government to improve the quality of life of our people. It also dealt with the challenges and difficulties that the leadership collective had to confront to ensure that we succeed in our electoral mandate.
To that end, let me make it abundantly clear that the successes we have achieved thus far must be understood within the context of our journey to becoming a developmental state. Constructive criticism, from whatever quarter, is certainly welcomed. But, this sadly, is few and far between. Criticism that will, by extension, contribute to a common patriotism is conspicuously absent.
Just yesterday, in this very august House, Mr Speaker, we witnessed tirade upon tirade of negativity in the responses to the State of the Province Address by opposition parties. This annual festival or ritual of moaning, groaning, complaining and the staging of juvenile walk-outs must surely come to an end. We cannot continue to have a situation where we engage in idiotic name-calling and inexplicable heckling.
My inclination is to avoid getting into the polemics of political point-scoring that sometimes characterise debates like this during times before elections. I would not be able to respond in detail to all the issues raised by members in their inputs. These details will be delivered by MECs when they table their departmental budget votes for this year.
Mr Speaker, indeed, I concur with Honourable Shushu when he said that the State of the Province Address not only represents, in great detail, the accountability and transparency embedded in our constitutional democracy, but also represents the commitment of the ANC led-government to continuously strive to better the lives of our people. Moreover, it outlined in a comprehensive manner in which the provincial government will seek to respond to the socio-economic challenges facing our people.
We should not be ashamed of trumpeting our achievements as a young democracy, particularly in the areas of the provisioning of service delivery such as electricity, water, sanitation and health services.
MEC Shushu is correct that we cannot dispute the empirical evidence as provided by the census 2011 report that our government has changed the lives of our people for the better. We cannot allow ourselves to be so self-delusional and naïve to not give credit where credit is due.
Mr Speaker, as Members of the Provincial Legislature, we must keep abreast of the times and read reports from independent sources pertaining to our work as legislators. If we do not comprehend anything we read, we must, as a matter of course, approach another person to enhance our understanding of issues. In this regard I respectfully remind Honourable Wyngaardt about the findings of the census 2011 report:
- The official unemployment rate for the Northern Cape has declined from a high of 35.7% in 2001 to 27.4% in 2011, while the average household income more than doubled over the same period;
- 82.4% of households reside in formal structures;
- The percentage of persons 20 years or older with no schooling has decreased from 22.7% in 1996 to 11.3% in 2011, while the percentage of persons with matric or higher more than doubled from 11.1% in 1996 to 23% in 2011;
- The Northern Cape, despite being by far the most water scarce province, managed to reduce the percentage of households without access to piped water from 6% in 2001 to 2.6% in 2011. This is far better than the national average of 8.8% and places the
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Northern Cape in 4th position nationally. Also, more than 90% of households have access to water inside their dwellings or in their yards;
More than 85% of households use electricity as a power source - Two thirds of our households have access to flush toilets. Although the percentage of households using the bucket system has significantly decreased from 10% in 2001 to 4% in 2011, the issue of acceptable levels of sanitation still needs attention.
Responding to Honourable McGluwa, our considered position is that the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is meant to create short-term jobs with long-term employment opportunities.
The EPWP is a short-term intervention to create labour-intensive, as opposed to capital-intensive job opportunities to expand our job creation envelope. It is just but one of a broader range of job-creation and investment mechanisms, inclusive of permanent jobs, all of which must drive us towards our target of 6% economic growth.
Nevertheless Mr Speaker, we pride ourselves on the fact that EPWP assists the beneficiaries to acquire skills that will allow them to eventually be absorbed by the job market. The MEC for Public Works will elaborate on these issues during his budget vote in this legislature shortly. I encourage all members of the opposition parties to attend.
The points that Honourable Binqo-Gigaba raised can never be over-emphasised that education is key and a pre-requisite for growth. Education must talk to the skills needs of the economy and subjects such as mathematics, science, engineering, IT and languages are indeed critical to the socio-economic development of our province.
On early Childhood Development, this is a government priority as well as a Millennium Development Goal. To this end, enrolment in this learning category has trebled over 5 years with an enrolment figure of 14 571 learners in 337 Public Ordinary Schools catered for by 502 practitioners. 10 265 of these learners fall in the no-fee school category. In addition, an Integrated ECD Strategy, involving all stakeholder departments, was developed in 2012.
Our performance in the Annual National Assessment (ANA) over the past two years (2011 & 2012) and analysis of overall learner attainment in the final examinations over the years, call for a strengthened and sustained focus on literacy and numeracy across the grades, particularly at the foundation phase (Grades 1-3) and intermediate phase (Grade 4-7). We are laying a solid foundation for our children to read and write from an early age. Our learners will continue to enjoy learner transport services from this government.
We also concur that the youth of our country are our wealth and future. The Honourable Member is right that the democratic government led by the ANC has invested immense resources in youth development programmes and interventions. The youth has no choice but to maximise these opportunities for their benefit.
In addition, Mr Speaker, Honourable Lucas was spot-on when she said that we reported previous overdraft and unauthorised expenditure to make it patently evident that we have put plans in place to improve, amongst others, our performance on expenditure.
Honourable Speaker, “administration” refers to the people who carry on the government of a country, in our instance a province. Administration is derived from the word administrate meaning to govern or manage or both. It was therefore not a mistake on my part when I referred to the inherited debt and liabilities as we do not bear any malice whatsoever.
Therefore, the point is academic. Our express aim was to demonstrate that as a young democracy, circumstances can get better over a period of time with the correct governance ethos and the appropriate people.
It is quite apparent, not only to this House, but the Community of the Northern Cape, that the highest levels of cacophony stem from 6 former members of the ANC who now sit on opposition benches. They were part of the Ruling Party, and on seeing that they could not get their way, chose to defect to leaderless parties with minimal constituencies.
Big fish in a small pond, indeed! The deficiencies, difficulties and shortcomings we have experienced thus far in certain areas, can be attributed to two of them who were MECs.
The Honourable Member also pointed out that the 1913 Land Act was instituted to ensure that more land was available to white farmers, to impoverish and enslave black people through dispossession and make them dependent on their white employers.
As government we will continue to ensure that the land redistribution programme is aligned to our Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) and the Integrated Development Plans (IDP) of our municipalities. We will also attend to the proper use of the funds that have been made available for the productive utilisation of our land.
Regarding health, the Upington Hospital will have a full professional staff complement when it opens later this year because it is expected to deliver a wide range of new services. The assertion that it will not have professionals is devoid of all truth, as the current hospital is presently run by professionals.
The introduction of the National Health Insurance (NHI) has been critical to the re-engineering of primary health care. Pixley-Ka-Seme District has been selected as one of the ten Districts to pilot the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme which was phased in on 1 April 2012. These pilot districts are to assess whether the health service package, primary health care teams and the strengthened referral system will improve access to quality health services.
Regarding the Mental Hospital in Kimberley, much improvement has been registered, with a lot of remedial work having been effected.
The contractor has strengthened his team with a construction manager to make up time spent on remedial work. The provincial project team has been strengthened by the national health department team (led by Dr Shaker) from the Minister’s office. New reporting protocols are in place and this team manages all aspects of the project including expenditure, quality and costs. The only cost overrun on this project is unavoidable which came as a result of new legislation such as the new Pharmacy Act.
Mr Speaker, we further agree with MEC Botes that we will intensify the war against poverty to ensure that our people live in dignity.
Mr Speaker, concerning the assertion by DA Leader, Honourable Louw, that the Ruling Party does not enjoy the support of the majority of the people of the Northern Cape is a mere figment of his troubled imagination. This is certainly not so as the 2009 election results will testify. Period.
In constantly deferring to the Western Cape which he concocts to be another country, this Honourable Member has seemingly lost the plot. The Government of the Western Cape prioritises white needs over the legitimate expectations of the majority of its citizens.
The ruling party, in its immense wisdom, did not appoint a Premier for good reason as we believe we can govern as a collective. Governing the Northern Cape we surely are doing as can be witnessed from the following:
- Services are being delivered;
- Schools, Hospitals, Courts and other public entities are functioning;
- The mines are open and doing business, etc.
Had it not been for the ruling party, one could easily surmise what chaos could have reigned in our province. The smaller parties have no policies, no vision and no direction of their own. They will forever be re-active to the original policy positions of the ANC.
Mr Speaker, my message was eloquently clear to those who perpetrate violence against women and the girl child. In essence let me echo my appeal and let us deal harshly with those who continue to destroy the moral fibre of our society. As a united front, let us not leave an inch of space to those who are hell bent to make the lives of women and the girl child miserable. I am sure that should Honourable Wyngaardt obtain the correct data, he will rid himself of his self-delusional and hallucinatory stupor.
Honourable Wyngaardt asserted that no service delivery has taken place in the province and no sustainable jobs were created. Once more, I implore him to read widely and should he require further factual information, he is welcome to make a request to my office. Let me remind Honourable Wyngaardt about our plans to stimulate growth and tackle the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality as stated in the State of the Province Address.
Without getting into too much detail, I reiterate, for the benefit of Honourable Wyngaardt once again, that the ANC-led government has accomplished or is currently undertaking the following:
- Massive infrastructure development programmes;
- New University;
- Bloodhound Programme;
- KIDJA;
- Malt factory;
- Solar Parks;
- SKA;
- New Clinics;
- New Hospitals;
- Refurbishing of Schools;
- Improvement in Matric Results;
- Maloof Money Cup;
- No fee schools, etc.
Honourable Speaker, it would certainly take a fool to admit that we are not attracting investment or creating jobs. The converse, Mr Speaker, is at the forefront of the aims and aspirations of this particular provincial government.
In closing the debate, we would like to reiterate our firm conviction that the Northern Cape province is now on an irreversible path of growth and development that will benefit all our people. There is indeed tangible evidence that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. This year we will again increase our efforts at building a Northern Cape province that is the pride of our nation.
I thank you!
Ke a leboga!
Siyabulela!
Dankie!
