Programme Director
Our First Lady Ma-Khumalo Zuma
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat-Pettersson
Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale
MEC of the Department of Agriculture, Ms Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba
Hosi Muyexe
Mayor of the Greater Giyani Municipality
Ward Councillors present here
Chairperson of Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa)
Chairperson of the South African Post Office
Representatives from Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
Va aka tiko va ka Muyexe
Avuxeni
Ha khensa swinene ku va mi hi amu-kerile laha tikweni ra n 'wina (We thank you for welcoming us into your community). It is a great honour for us to be part of this event that seeks to give testimony to government 's commitment to bring services closer to the people. The Muyexe village is the first of a number of communities identified by the President as priority areas earmarked for the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP).
President Jacob Zuma declared upon taking office that this government will work with the people to address the challenges they face. In order to achieve this monumental task, it means that leaders of government should use the time available to them, and more importantly during constituency periods, to visit communities and get a first-hand accounts of what people go through on a daily basis.
It would be a tragedy indeed if we, the elected representatives of the people, were to abdicate our duties to interact directly with the people and instead rely on secondary sources of information to understand the challenges you are faced with.
We have therefore set time aside to come and interact with you as a way of familiarising ourselves with this community and to get an understanding of the essential services you require to better your living conditions. Today we mark a very important day in our calendar of events, the World Post Day.
On 1 October 1969 the Universal Postal Union Congress was held in Tokyo, Japan. During this conference delegates voted to declare October 9 of each year as World Post Day. Therefore, World Post Day is celebrated annually on 9 October in commemoration of the founding of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in the Swiss Capital, Berne.
We were unable to come and celebrate the day with you last week as we were out of the country, attending to government business in Geneva, Switzerland. But we felt that it was important for us to come here today. South Africa celebrated World Post Day for the first time in 2002, at King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape, and other celebrations were held as follows:
2003 - Galeshewe, Kimberley in the Northern Cape province
2004 - Giyani, in Limpopo province
2005 - Mafikeng, in the North West province
2006 - Oshoek, in Mpumalanga province
2007 - Saulsville Arena, Atteridgeville, in Gauteng province
2008 - Seshego, Polokwane, in Limpopo province
As we celebrate this day in Muyexe this year, we do so with full knowledge that your village does not have a Post Office and this makes it difficult for this community to access postal services. We understand that the nearest Post Office is approximately 50 kilometres away from here.
Legislation prescribes that postal services must be accessed within a five kilometres radius in a population density of 10 000. Therefore, this clearly indicates the need to fast track the rollout of a Post Office outlet in Muyexe Village. Together with the South African Post Office, we will look into this as a matter of priority.
In recognition of the significant role played by the postal sector in the economic and social development of the country, the Department of Communications will be taking an inclusive approach that recognises the realities of the postal market in the country. The courier industry and the South African Post Office are complementing each other in the delivery of postal services to our people.
The postal sector to date is faced with unprecedented competitive pressure from new modes of communication such as electronic mail and instant messaging technologies. However, the postal infrastructure remains the centre of information dissemination in the rural areas, such here kaMuyexe.
More importantly, we have chosen your village as the venue for this year's World Post Day celebration in order to advance a broader developmental agenda in line with government's Comprehensive Rural Development Programme.
The theme for this year's World Post Day is "Worldwide network stay connected"
As part of economic development, we have identified five major drivers contributing to the transformation of the postal sector:
The postal sector as a driver of economic development
The postal sector is one of the key drivers of economic development. Post office outlets are well located even in rural and under serviced areas. It is imperative that the importance of the postal sector to economic development be recognised in order to create and to encourage investment opportunities in the country.
The post office and related courier activities continue to ensure that people, especially those in rural communities like you, are not sidelined from the core activities of government. Post offices serve as collection points of essential services such as mail, the distribution of social grants and renewal of motor vehicle licenses.
The Department of Communications is currently in a process of corporatising the Postbank to be a subsidiary of post office. The main aim for the corporatisation of Postbank is to give under-serviced communities access to vital financial and related services and thereby contribute to economic and social development.
The Postbank is currently a division within the South African Post Office Ltd and is operated under the control and management of the Postal Company. The Postbank utilises facilities that are shared with the rest of the post office (i.e. post offices branch network, tellers, etc) in order to undertake its business.
The postal sector bridging the digital divide and infrastructure roll-out
Information and communication technologies do not actually guarantee benefits to local people. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) will not fulfil their potential for rural development unless the special characteristics of the technologies are combined with applications, which focus on participatory communication and training methodologies. There is a need to provide communities with information and telecommunication services which will assist in achieving a variety of development objectives and address the challenges presented by the second economy.
The post office is a useful vehicle for delivering improved access to ICT infrastructure and services, affordable telecommunications services, a variety of choices in services being provided by the ICT sector to meet both economic and social needs of society.
The post office provides a wide range of competitive services such as banking services, where people can access their financial status information, electronic services through Public Internet Terminals (internet kiosk) where people can create their own e-mail addresses and access information. The post office also acts as payment agent for pensions and social grants for the Department of Social Development's South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and provides services on behalf of different organisations such as National Treasury, SABC TV licences and bill payment facilities for different organisations and municipalities.
One of the main challenges facing South Africa is to expedite the roll-out of Post Offices in the rural areas, as I indicated earlier, to ensure that these communities also participate actively and that they are not excluded from the information society's main stream.
National Address System
The National Address System is an initiative aimed at providing every citizen with a physical address in order to participate fully in the socio-economic activities of the country including access to government services such as water, sewerage, telecommunication and electricity supply, refuse collection, emergency response, banking purposes, identity document (ID) application, voting and job application.
South African Post Office has already started the process of providing physical addresses to all South Africans particularly in rural areas. The South African Post Office's process started in 2003 at Ga-Rasai Village in Brits in the North West province. They have since managed to roll out 12,3 million addresses of which 6,5 million are in rural areas. Additionally, they have exceeded the target by 835 863 from the year 2004 to 2008. All 900 dwellings in Muyexe village have been addressed and geo-coded.
Modernisation and diversification of the South African postal sector
ICT infrastructure remains a challenge in most parts of our country, especially in the rural areas. In 2007, a policy decision was taken to transform some of the post offices into Thusong Post Offices to provide access to a variety of government and other related services, especially faster, secure and easier access to enabling documents and social grants.
As such, e-commerce is one of the government priorities to promote the interests of users and other services through postal and related ICT infrastructure. This initiative is aimed at ensuring that people have access to government services such as job applications, especially people in the rural areas within Post Office braches.
For a developing country such as South Africa, the postal sector is very critical for the achievement of sustainable development. It forms an integral part of service delivery by government to the people.
As a policy maker, my department will continue to strive to develop policies that address the ever-changing needs of South Africans, especially those in rural and under serviced communities.
Ndza khensa ku va mi ndzi yingi-serile. Ku dya i ku engeta. I nkomu. (I thank you for listening. Please extend the same courtesy in future. Thank you)
Issued by: Department of Communications
16 October 2009
Source: Department of Communications (https://www.doc.gov.za)
