Honourable Speaker of the provincial legislature
Honourable Members of the Executive Council (MECs)
Honourable Members of the provincial legislature
Judge President and members of the judiciary
Your excellencies, ambassadors, high commissioners and visiting
foreign dignitaries
Honourable leaders of political parties
Our esteemed traditional leaders
Your worship, executive mayors and mayors of our municipalities
Speakers of our councils
Heads of our security agencies
Chairpersons of state organs supporting our democracy
The director-general and leaders of administration in all spheres of government
Chairpersons and chief executive officer of state owned enterprises
Leaders of labour movement, civil society, faith based organisations and business
The South African Local Government Association chairperson
Comrades and friends
Ladies and gentlemen
The path to continued development for our people continues to widen. South Africa is a 16 year old non-racial democracy with a 100 year old constitutional and formal administrative history. Our heritage as a constitutional state is only two years senior to that of the oldest non-racial liberation movement on the African continent, the African National Congress.
As we celebrate the 100 years of formal constitutionalism as a country, we must do so being mindful that 83 years of this centennial history will continue to inform our strategic outlook towards shaping this democracy. It is worth noting that human and material sacrifices have been made during this period. Illuminating of these sacrifices is the selfless manner in which Nelson
Mandela gave for this democracy. It took those that were charged with the management of our constitutional life 80 years to realise that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it” hence the decision to release Nelson Mandela 20 years ago.
Honourable members,
I also have to mention that in the minds of ordinary South Africans the 11 February 1990 date continues to mark the beginning of freedom. We therefore have a full generation that was born during this period and most of them can still not find hope in the economy through employment and other callings of economic participation.
I however want to join South Africans in congratulating Tata Mandela on the 20th anniversary of his release from prison. I also want to acknowledge the courage of former President FW de Klerk as an important variable towards the democratisation of South Africa. Our struggle for a non-racial democracy was however instructional to his actions.
We have during the 83 years of struggle for democracy always emphasised that the morality of our cause lies in our resolve to create a better life for all. As the ANC and therefore government we will continue to jealously defend and occupy our strategic position as the nexus of and for societal development. Our specific mandate both as an ANC led government and the fourth post-apartheid generation of leaders remains that of uniting our people under the banner “WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN DO MORE”.
Honourable compatriots,
Under this banner, we have committed ourselves to faster change, faster improvement in the conditions of our people as well as being more caring, more responsive and more interactive. We have, in this context committed ourselves to creation of decent work and sustainable livelihoods making education a priority of all creating a social compact to continue to transform healthcare, fighting crime and fighting the causes of crime with an urgency to overhaul the criminal justice system to ensure that crime levels are drastically reduced, as well as stamping out corruption. Develop a comprehensive and clear rural development strategy linked to land and agrarian reform as well as the improvement of conditions of farm workers and farm dwellers thereby building a potential for sustainable livelihoods
We have made this commitments being conscious of the challenges imposed by the current global recession and the structural realities of our provincial economy. It is this context and other national realities that we made a call that “WORKING TOGETHER SOUTH AFRICANS CAN DO MORE”.
Fellow South Africans
Under this banner we accept, and I am sure that our political opponents, adversaries and off-springs will also embrace as we have, the Frantz Fanon challenge that “each generation must, out of obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it”. We are therefore called by our generational mission to ACTION, ACTION and ACTION.
This we cannot, as a leadership of this moment, afford to betray but only fulfil. Our history, as a nation to fight and agree on what democracy means to us, remains one of the greatest assets to turn any tide that positions itself as an impediment to fulfilling our mission.
Honourable Speaker, ladies and gentlemen,
In this noble quest to fulfil our mission, we are called upon to concretely reflect on the progress we have made and thus enabling us to articulate the challenges we face for the ensuing period.
Compatriots; we have committed ourselves to the creation of decent work and sustainable livelihoods. The core driver for our economic development strategy remains the aggregated needs of our communities as captured in the various integrated development plans of municipalities with the provincial growth and development strategy being the apex.
Its social contract character elevates it to be determinate in terms of integration and province-wide economic growth planning.
Our economic growth remains challenged by infrastructure and investment backlogs, inappropriate growth skills, shifting investor patterns, sustainable energy challenges, small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) unfriendly regulatory framework as well as the cost and competitiveness of business.
The provincial growth and development strategy suggests a myriad of interventions that still need to be tested in terms of their localisation potential. Statistically the national recession period is over, but critical industries like mining which is bedrock of our provincial economy have not made a full recovery. We will convene an indaba to develop an integrated economic recovery plan for the province. It is in that indaba that I will be asking the question as to whether the provincial economy is out of the recession. Answers to this question should in the main inform that recovery plan. Our response should be dialectic.
Honourable members,
The development of industrial policy has to date been a strategic domain of the Department of Trade and Industry. We are however part of the process through the MinMec process. The strategic thrust of the country’s industrial policy is to transform the national economy into a job creating machine.
The focus is and will for a long time be to develop a manufacturing sector that starts to reduce our dependency on the primary sectors of agriculture and mining. It is in this context that we are pursuing as a province a development zone based strategy for the manufacturing sector.
The operator permit from the Manufacturing Development Board that will kick-start the Mafikeng industrial development zone is still due from the Department of Trade and Industry. We believe that the accreditation of Mafikeng airport to be an international airport will create multiplier effect on the provincial economy. The potential cargo handling capability as reflected in the feasibility study will via the warehousing and in-land distribution create sustainable jobs and new household consumption.
Fellow South Africans,
Our economic growth path is inextricably linked with the capacity of small and medium enterprises to flourish as well as our ability to retain within an expansionary framework established businesses. Whilst we grow the small and medium we must nurture the big and established.
In ensuring that industrial policy transforms the provincial economy, provincial industrial development initiatives will be redesigned to support labour intensive production, co-operatives based rural economic growth that recognises the individual as a primary unit of entrepreneurship and SMME based factory development
Our success in the development of the manufacturing sector depends on us ensuring that the mandates of development finance institutions are clear and truly developmental and that their programmes contribute to decent work outcomes, achievement of our developmental needs sustainable livelihoods and accelerated SMME development.
As announced during State of the Province Address last year, we have started with the process of reviewing the mandates of all our public entities with special focus on economic development linked entities. The task team appointed by the premier to do this task, will during March table its report and recommendations for consideration and implementation.
We are targeting the beginning of the financial year 2010/11 for the implementation of the first phase of a new public entities institutional landscape.
As we implement this new approach, we will strengthen the capacity of provincial departments to play effective oversight to ensure that public entities exist for the sole purpose of serving determined provincial policy priorities thus supporting our economic development objectives
This administration reports economic development progress through its artist development programme that is linked to festivals such as the Cultural Calabash, Zindeli Zombeli and others.
Honourable Speaker,
Our mandate further dictates that we should promote the important role of mining and agriculture in employment. As a mining province, we contribute the largest concentration of platinum mines with Limpopo only threatening to surpass us in not a distant future. We are a platinum province that still have to beneficiate its platinum and sell it as a finished product for industrial use.
We will be continuing with our efforts to compel through the Department of Mineral Resources, mining houses to also account to the province how they are progressing in terms of the social labour plans, broad based economic empowerment as well as enterprise development initiatives. The integration benefits of these initiatives into provincial economic planning are limitless.
We will interrogating how sustainable are these programmes and what is their relative contribution to the in-province economy? We are asking these questions because our communities have given up their land for mining activities. We are asking these questions because our human and physical infrastructure supports this industry. We are asking because socio-economic statistics indicate that immediate communities are not experiencing the impact of this industry.
Your Excellencies,
We will be creating a process to investigate how the industry is contributing to local government fiscus through revenue generating vehicles such as water authority and electricity distributor benefits accruable to local government. We will through structured interactions review concessions made with mining houses by local government.
The depth of corruption unearthed by recent investigations in municipalities compels us to review these service agreements. We know that mining houses are as opposed to corruption as we are. Their support will be enrolled through the review of current water and electricity supply contracts with municipalities.
Comrades and compatriots,
Ours is also a tourism based economy. Our province continues to support through policy infrastructure and budget allocation the development of this industry. This will in the main deal with the outcomes of our investment in the Tourism Industry.
Notwithstanding; our environment and conservation intervention have now been geared towards supporting both local economic development and biodiversity conservation. The Magalies Biosphere project, the Hartbeespoort Dam Remediation programme and the Cradle of Humankind World heritage corridor programme remain our flagship conservation driven tourist attraction programmes.
The province has retained its status as the sixth most visited province by tourists. Our bed occupancy rate has improved whence a growth in registered guest houses around tourist flashpoints. The education induced tourist industry supported by flagship internationally acclaimed training programmes is a growth area that we will be discussing with the province’s higher education institutions.
Comrades and friends,
We will be interfacing with research institutions within and outside the province to start a programme to create large numbers of ‘green jobs’. We want to create employment in industries and facilities that are designed to mitigate the effects of climate change thus supporting our Kyoto and Copenhagen commitments as a country.
We have thus identified organic farming, alternative energy and wood plastic composites as strategic industries to support our greening drive. These industries will create a natural market for garden and plastic waste reuse. A Department of Trade and Industry and Sasol supported specialised centre at the North West University dealing with innovations in the World Petroleum Council (WPC) world will be enrolled to create rural village based industries.
Our provincial green industry development policy should mature during this term of office. We will be investigating the feasibility of creating green industry parks and or hubs. An integrated business plan to this effect will be completed before the end of this financial year. Our province is endowed with skills of international repute in this policy and intellectual space, and I intend to foreground these skills.
Comrades and compatriots,
As part of massive public investment programme for growth and employment creation, we have to date engaged in the following major infrastructure projects that have created job opportunities, albeit not within the `decent jobs definition criteria.
Three hospital revitalisation projects in Moses Kotane district, Vryburg and Madibeng are in the process of being completed; 16 road construction projects supporting our integrated roads development planning framework and the Royal Bafokeng stadium precinct.
Our integrated job creation efforts through the Expanded Public Works (EPWP) Programme has thus far contributed 2 000 job opportunities through infrastructure based programmes such as building and maintenance of libraries, schools, roads and various government projects. These include programmes associated with the National Youth Service as well as the road contractor development programmes. A specialised programme for persons leaving with disabilities will be announced in due course.
“If jobs are the arteries of a functioning economy, transport and infrastructure constitutes the veins of an economy”.
We have developed an integrated transport plan that is in the process of being aligned with the provincial road transport, national rail and aviation plans as well as inter-sphere roads construction integrated plans. Our human and cargo mobility interfaces are still constrained by national medium term transport expenditure priorities. The N12 and N4 corridors continue to be the main veins of our economy. Our challenge remains that of creating inland road linkages to mainstream N12 and N4 marginalised local economy. We will be receiving report on this challenge.
A nation that plans its economy in isolation to its youth development programme is sure to fail in terms of its return on that investment.
We have over the past years created an enabling environment for youth entrepreneurship development. In line with national government and other provinces, we have repealed the North West Youth Commission Act, to pave the way for the National Youth Development Agency. Consultation with the national agency is going on the appointment of a new development agency board and its administrative component
Fellow South Africans,
The one critical matter that our 1994 democratic breakthrough still needs to address is social cohesion that is both sustainable and nation building. We are still resolute that this will be achievable through our human settlement, social security and sports and recreation activities. Our provincial plan for the commemoration of special events and individuals will reveal how we are gearing ourselves to “mobilise the whole of society to celebrate its struggles, its heroes and heroines, its resilience as well as its victories”.
Our apartheid past continues to divide us to proportions such as the Skierlik Massacre. Since “the notion of a society implies organised obligation” we are obliged as the North West society to reconstruct ourselves according to the values enshrined in the constitution.
During March this year, we will convene a provincial summit to launch an official research document conducted on the capturing of the history of this province and its contribution to the struggle against apartheid. This will be the platform for all role players across the political and social spectrum to dialogue about our heritage and how it should be told. The distortions of our heritage should be eliminated once and for all. This administration will be spending R11.7 million per annum to buy books. We should be asking ourselves what books will be bought if we have to transform society.
The gateway to Africa’s development remains information and communications technology (ICT). Our libraries will be equipped with web based information accessing technology. We will explore best models for ICT connectivity in the rural areas, best practise already exists in the cell phone literacy rate that is fast surpassing computer literacy. The North West province is strategically located as a gateway province to serve as a hub for ICT infrastructure and its expansion and extension to other SADC countries, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Sport is a national builder of repute, we sing and praise together during games. Our healthy lifestyle depends on sports related physical engagements; hence this administration is investing in creating integrated facilities for such. We will be resuscitating school sports as the ultimate integrator of South Africans.
In the financial year beginning April 2010, 270 community development officers will be appointed as sport development facilitators to work in all districts in the province. The relevant department will announce details in due course.
The key pillars of our social development intervention include the creation of a sustainable social welfare system that reduces social ills such as drug and substance abuse, child abuse, violence against women, poverty eradication, protection of marginalised sectors of our communities such as orphans and persons living with disabilities as well as poverty eradication programmes through self-help schemes and cooperatives creation.
We have over the past financial year focused on the old and frail. We renovated old age homes and created more capacity to admit new persons in their golden age. Our society requires sound family values and structures. The primary variable for a nations’ stability is the stability of families. We have created a family support programme that integrates to support centres created by our Social Development Department.
In terms of our war on poverty we have created a Poverty War Room that focuses on shifting the frontiers of poverty through self-help schemes that are not social grant dependant. The Masupatsela Youth Pioneer programme that has thus far trained 350 young people and the 75 National Youth Service related construction industry programme is a flagship in our advance towards the poverty frontier. The provincial caregiver programme and the household profiling project will be strengthened to provide strategic statistical information for forward planning and journey management
Honourable Speaker,
As we progress towards taking active steps that ensure human settlements formation do not perpetuate apartheid spatial planning which marginalises the poor from economic opportunities, social and cultural amenities we are mindful of the immediate housing needs of our society. Our planning horizon is linked with immediate delivery imperatives.
We have thus far provided 11 000 low cost houses and are planning an additional 14 000 for this financial year. A housing demand data base will be finalised during the 2010/11 financial year. Three hostels will benefit from our family unit upgrading programme. Our delivery system will be expanded to include the “outside low cost income and below affordable housing criteria home seekers” through credit linked projects secured through a negotiated arrangement with financial institutions and labour absorbing private sector institutions such as mines. In order to accelerate the delivery of houses in terms of outcome eight of the national monitoring framework, we are going to accredit deserving municipalities in terms of the accreditation framework.
We have further prioritised beneficiary management, unblocking of stagnant projects, and audit of current housing stock for quality rectification, emergency housing and completion of in incomplete projects. In generic terms our goal is to provide sustainable human settlements that improve quality of life. This will include the eradication, over a growth anchored period, of informal settlements thereby restoring the dignity of our communities through legal security of tenure, the availability of services, materials, social interaction facilities and infrastructure esteemed traditional leaders
In working towards a free and compulsory education for all children, we have made significant progress in our no-fee schools target set. The Department of Education reports a total learner population in no-fee school to have increased. Our mission of ensuring that South Africa is completely liberated from illiteracy by 2014 through our mass literacy campaign is in full swing. Our Adult Basic Education (ABET) programme is and will always be intertwined with our target to increase graduate output in areas of skills shortage.
We have to date, and in partnership with the Construction Education and Training Authority, trained 841 adult learners in accredited courses on bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, plastering, painting and glazing at national qualification framework levels one and two.
I intend to be fully represented at the March graduation where these men and women will be recognised. One hundred and thirty-five (135) learners completed a learnership in crop and animal production, which is quality assured by the Agriculture Sector Education and Training Authority (AgriSETA). These learners have graduated on 19 February 2010. Ten percent of these learners are living with disabilities.
Ninety-seven (97) unemployed youth have completed a Boiler Operator Skills programme and an additional 32 have finished the new venture course as Young Enterprising Professionals through a South African Police Service (SAPS) supported anti-crime initiative. There is a myriad of these programmes and the MEC for education will give a comprehensive report during the budget speech.
We established 463 literacy units through which adults receive basic literacy in a more informal approach. During 2009, we increased our ABET centres throughout the province by 18 to 290. In addition to the salaries, this year we will pay all ABET educators 37 percent for benefits. Our programme to increase the graduate output of women in literacy and skills programmes will be accelerated to ensure that we live our credo “you educate a women you are educating a nation”.
Honourable members,
We have begun the process of entrenching a sustainable early childhood education system that spans both public and private sectors and gives children a head start on numeracy and literacy. The departments reports an increase of our Grade R intake to 31 513 in 743 primary schools. Our sustainability plan has thus far resourced the system with 233 practitioners and an additional 542 are in further training. We are on track to our 2014 universal provisioning target as per our mandate to society.
Our Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme with the Social Development Department will be integrated with the formal schooling system. The grant system will be revamped to rescue children in need of this service with our ECD centres.
As we improve the quality of schooling, we will be supporting the back to basics call by the president; our children cannot afford to be in a perpetual transition in terms of curriculum issues. We will implement the abolition of learner portfolios and the standardisation of teachers’ files. We want to reduce the clerical workload of teachers so as to release “teaching load”. We will be training subject advisors on subject content, an area that research has identified as being weak.
In our drive to strengthen the teaching of mathematics and science we have in the past year supplied all schools with support materials to the value of R22.7 million. We will continue with the refurbishment of laboratories, provisioning of materials and the special training of mathematics and science teachers.
Our performance monitoring of the system will be spread across all levels of the education occurrence and not only matric. There will be external assessments undertaken at all exit points, namely grades 3, 6, 9 and ultimately 12. These will in the main be testing numeracy and literacy skills. We have identified school governance as an undermined variable in the total performance of the system.
In redressing this we have inducted all new principals, introduced a practical school leadership programme for principals as well as capacitating 953 school management teams to manage curriculum at school. We are on course to turn the tide in education. We have also embarked on a school governing body (SGB) capacity building programme and we are expecting 5 880 to graduate in financial management and further 6 156 to go through basic SGB induction programmes.
We would like to view our SGB programmes as part of our ABET drive.
Our drive to bring into the mainstream learners in special schools has to date yielded progress. 18 schools have been provided with assistive device and the state has further supplied seven specially designed mass transport for these learners. We will in due course be converting a number of public schools into full service schools.
We are still committed to promoting the status of teachers, ensuring the employment of adequate numbers, and improving their remuneration and training, as an important part of our drive to ensure that quality teaching becomes the norm, rather than the exception. Our teachers are carriers of what this society will become; they have the responsibility of shaping our tomorrows.
I am happy to report that occupational specific dispensation (OSD) was implemented and 5 265 educators have gone through Advance Certificate in Education (ACE) programmes. As we satisfy teachers we are expecting them to satisfy society through quality results.
In terms of embarking on the re-opening of teacher training and other sector based colleges, we will be engaging with national on how this programme can also be integrated with local government economic development initiative of our rural municipalities. We are already discussing the renaming of these colleges.
We will through the Department of Agriculture be re-opening the Taung College of Agriculture as a critical input to the shrinking skills base in the agricultural sector. The college should debunk the no-skills mythology engulfing society.
Esteemed members of the business community,
The productivity of this economy requires technicians and artisans. In managing this need we have thus far enrolled 8 713 students to further education and training (FET) colleges and through the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) we are exploring the reopening of what was “referred to as manpower centres” because the infrastructure still exists.
In concluding on our education delivery of 2009, I need to observe that our matric results dropped by 0.5 percent, from 68 percent to 67.5 percent. Although any drop should be of concern to us, it is worth noting that this drop reflects the actual performance of the learners. The past years results were as raw as they could be.
I cannot claim to be content because they were raw, but I am encouraged that we are now dealing with the actual. I have also noted that most engineering departments at universities have increased their entrance requirements. It is high time that our country must uphold the standards that created the many South African born scientists celebrated all over the world.
Fellow teachers,
I want to stop here and appreciate the hard work of our teachers. We are really proud of our teachers and I believe with more encouragement and effort they can surpass our expectation for this year. I will this year be meeting with teachers per district to interact with them about challenges they face.
Fellow South Africans,
In our quest to accelerate our health delivery commitments we are completing projects that will increase our hospital bed capacity with 120 beds in Vryburg, 200 in Moses Kotane and 215 in Madibeng. During these upgrade process we have opened a new accident and emergency unit at Job Shimange Tabane hospital, revitalised community healthcare facilities in Bojanala district and created world class sports medical facilities at Royal Bafokeng stadium.
Tshepong hospital has been upgraded to create additional capacity for extreme drug resistant (XDR) and multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) treatments. We have increased our psychiatric hospital bed capacity with 108 beds at Witrand hospital. The work of the newly licensed radiotherapy-oncology unit at Klerksdorp hospital is already reducing the number of referrals of cancer patients to Gauteng thus accelerating our Gauteng dependency reduction strategy.
Honourable members,
In respect of HIV and AIDS our message remains that of abstain, disclosure and partner protection as well as “I will take responsibility”. We are actively participating in the national voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) campaigns. We will be launching our provincial leg of the national programme between 21 and 28 March to ensure that everyone in the North West knows their HIV status by being tested.
The provincial AIDS Council will be appointed to create a strategic centre of intervention that mobilises province wide HIV and AIDS related initiatives, leadership and resource use. This council will be capacitated with additional expertise required for this challenge.
We are turning the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic around with cure rates reported to have increased from 56 percent to 63 percent. The province is determined to continue to improve the TB cure rates and will strengthen defaulter tracing capacity and implement a comprehensive TB turnaround plan.
Your excellencies,
Further programs such as strengthening the pre-natal mother to child transmission program (PMTCT) by treating all HIV positive pregnant mothers with antiretroviral medication and intensifying staff training will also assist towards attainment of the millennium development goals.
In relation to increasing the human resource capacity for our health delivery system we have increased our intake of and development of middle level worker cadre. We are graduating in this financial year electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) practitioners and clinical associates who will support doctors in the most needy and rural areas.
The Lehurutshe training centre in partnership with the University of Witwatersrand, which is one of the first rural health medical training centres in South Africa, is our contribution into the creation of professional colleges to address the health sector human supply side to catch up with the growing demand. For this we actively recruit matriculants from rural and disadvantaged areas.
Esteemed farmers,
Ours is a rural and in the main also an agricultural economy, its growth will be realised if we focus on creating rural and agriculture based industries. We remain a key component of the South African food chain, particularly maize, beef and pork. It is no wonder that we have to date successfully embarked on programmes such as the mechanisation of rural farming, western frontier beef beneficiation, Taung Irrigation scheme, the Nguni Cattle project and the multi-purpose livestock handling facilities development.
Our Agricultural Industry Development programme has to date been focussed on small farmer development. We have in this field trained 600 farmers in beef beneficiation and will be expanding this to pork beneficiation. We will be exploring a Fleischmaster Development programme with the Scandinavian countries.
Our meat production capacity dictates that we should beneficiate meat products. However the department is in the process of developing a commercial farmer interaction programme that is going to be dovetailing on the national agriculture Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) processes. The honourable MEC will outline the aims and objectives of the programme.
Esteemed traditional leaders,
We have developed an agriculture master plan that will provide the vegetation demographics of the province. The plan will direct provincial planning in terms of infrastructure deployment in support of agricultural industry creation. The MEC will outline details of the plan during the budget vote.
We will be developing a monitored stakeholder interaction programme that will track both government and commercial farmer contributions into this sector. I will be focussing in my office on ensuring that the Beef and Pork Beneficiation programme starts to yield benefits for provincial farmers big and small.
Our rural development strategy will in the main be focussed on food security and decent Job creation. We will be launching a pilot at the village of Mokgalanweng in Moses Kotane. Together with social and private sector partners in this field we will be creating a stakeholder driven intervention process that recognises the interests of both small and commercial farmer.
Honourable members,
We will together with these partners reorient the enterprise development budgets of particularly mining houses towards sustainable agrarian reform and agriculture industry development. In support of this initiative we will through intergovernmental relations and other related forums also reorient the focus of local government economic development funding of municipalities.
We will scale the Mafikeng Honey Farmer Development programme to include other municipalities thus catapulting the bee farming industry in the North West. This programme will include the zoning of municipal and government owned land for agricultural industry use. The various cooperatives funding support initiatives will also be targeted to yield more agriculture and food security based industries. The North West is the land of milk and honey in a sense that we have bees that we are not trapping to produce honey as well as a vibrant cattle industry that can yield the Milk we want.
Bo mme le bo ntate,
In terms of developing a stronger link between our land and agrarian reform programmes and water resource allocation we will be interfacing with Department of Water Affairs and Forestry to review the water authority mandates and reorient them towards water security for all without compromising the food security imperatives associated with water use. This will dovetail with the water supply agreements I alluded to earlier.
In terms of ensuring that our rural schools and health facilities have access to basic infrastructure such as water and electricity by 2014, we will, through intergovernmental relations structures obligate local government to explore alternative energy sources for rural electricity supply. Alternative sanitation programmes will be investigated in order to redirect part of municipal infrastructure grant for rural sanitation development.
Magosi a ratehang,
Our partnership with institutions of traditional leadership has thus far yielded the creation of Houses of Traditional Leaders in three districts. We have rolled out a governance capacity building programme accredited by the local Government Sector Training and Education authority (LGSETA). Ongoing interaction on governance interface issues to create stability is afoot.
In terms of improving the living conditions of rural communities, including the provision of subsidised houses and other basic services, the national ministry has allocated R33 million towards rural housing in Mokgalwaneng, high mast lighting, municipal roads as well as livestock facilities building and de-bushing.
Whilst we have challenges in the rural development sector, we are engaging as a provincial administration on how we are going to move resources for agrarian development. We will be empowering the department to engage with development finance institutions operating in the sector with a view to leverage their spending and achieve our policy intents. We will be registering with the medium term expenditure framework our future capital needs to support the sector
Comrades and compatriots,
We have committed to the fight against crime and corruption. This is a commitment we are going to foreground this year.
The responsibility of fighting crime is both a government and a societal one. We have committed to fighting crime and it causes. I must say that this is one area the President will be strict in terms of how provinces are performing.
Government’s contribution towards crime prevention is in the main infrastructural and system resourcing. We will during this financial year open three police stations in Klipgat, Jouberton and Hebron. We will be building new stations in Ikageng, Itsoseng and Kanana. The Zeerust police station is up for upgrading and a new police station is planned for Vryburg. Our police personnel growth is reported to be 19 percent.
Despite these contributions we still had 117 farm attacks, a disturbing trend in stock theft, child and women abuse as well as a budding organised crime tendency.
Honourable members,
Operation “Washa Tsotsi” is the greatest thing ever to happen to South Africa. We now have a police force that focuses on criminals. I want to reiterate what the president said: “if you are a criminal you have fewer, if any, rights than the victim of your actions”. We will track you, find you and lock you up.
We will be strengthening the policing forums as a first line of crime prevention. The need to integrate these structures with other nationwide community based units such as the community development forums and municipal ward committee and street committee structures is established. The challenge remains the how and the MEC will outline details of this initiative. We have established the provincial Anti-Stock Theft forum that operates within a Rural safety Plan approved by the Provincial Commissioner.
Comrades and compatriots,
Corruption is a curable disease; it is one virus that depends on its host to survive. This administration will not be a willing host of corruption. We have set up the following measures against corruption: a forensic unit of government that will be interacting through a recognised structure with law enforcing agencies has been resuscitated and a director has been appointed. Executive committee has approved the terms of reference for the Provincial Forensic Management Committee: “Washa Tsotsi”.
Honourable members,
I want your full attention. In line with the presidents proclamation for a forensic investigation into provincial corruption my office will be supporting this process in terms creating a point persons office with infrastructure befitting of such an assignment.
This province is in the corruption radar screen of national government. The noisiest and brightest red light is on us. A national prosecution led task team consisting of the Hawks, SIIU, Crime Intelligence, the National Prosecuting Authority and other security cluster bodies has been set up specifically for this province.
I can assure you that some amongst us will be long term visitors of this country’s correctional facilities. Corruptors and those being corrupted will receive equitable justice. Washa corruption, washa corruptor, washa corrupted. Your type is waiting for you in Rooigrond, Klerksdorp and C Max in Tshwane.
Honourable members,
We will together with Department of Public Service and Administration be driving an anti-corruption advocacy campaign that will be biased towards integrity management. We will be preventative in approach but punitive in implementation. We have seen in this province a concentrate of corruption prone officials at all spheres and levels of our public administration apparatus.
I am reliably briefed that a number of arrests are pending in this province. My credentials as a premier that acts on corruption are there for you to evaluate and I going to be consistent in this drive. I have a mandate, authority and the will. We will be reviewing the whole tendering system on a government wide basis. National and Provincial Treasury will be critical and leading in this instance.
Honourable members,
Your worship, mayors of municipalities; there are few nations which have had the opportunity that FIFA has given us. We are hosting the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. We are benchmarked with Germany, Brazil, United Kingdom, France and so forth. The world does not take us for granted and we must not disappoint. We are 105 days away from the greatest show on earth. The country will mark the 100 days left to 11 June kickoffs through a number of festivities.
In partnership with the 2010 FIFA World Cup official broadcaster and Department of Water and Forestry, Maquassi Hills municipality will host the ceremony to plant 100 trees as part of the legacy projects to look after our environment. It is these and other social successes that South Africa enjoys because it said yes to non-racialism and no to apartheid. As a member and leader of the ANC I know that history will continue to judge us favourably.
We are thankful for the tripartite relationship between provincial government, Rustenburg as host city and Royal Bafokeng administration for the sterling organisation for this grand occasion. The world will be landing on our shores to come and play. As a mother I know that when children and adults play, it is because it is safe, appropriate and humane to do so.
We had the world coming to play rugby here and we beat them. We had the World coming to play cricket here and rain beat us. We had Africa coming to play here in 1996 and we beat them. We will be having the world coming to play here and guess what? Only rain will beat us otherwise we have a trend. It is therefore my honour to report our readiness to win in all respects. Winning is not only for the desperate but also for the virtuous. “Ke Nako” and we will be “Ayoba”
Dames en here,
State of the facilities
The Royal Bafokeng stadium is ready and has already hosted successful 2009 Confederation Cup fixtures. We are thankful to the vision of the Royal Bafokeng traditional house for the investment made for their community. We are happy to announce that our province will play host to Spain, England and South Korea. During March this year, the province will send delegations to these countries as part of the effort to cement our relationship and mobilise support for the team’s supporters to follow their teams in the North West, thereby boasting our share of tourist traffic during the world cup games.
The training base camps in both Rustenburg and Tlokwe are ready for use. The fan fest or public viewing areas have been approved for all our district municipalities. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) will be the broadcast facilitator for these areas. North West will be viewing the tournament at the Vryburg show grounds, Letlamoreng Dam, Maquassi Hills and Makapanstad stadium.
It is going to be Ayoba.
Esteemed members of the business community,
State of the infrastructure
The Department of Transport reports that our roads will all be ready as planned for the world cup.
The state of our tourism industry
Accommodation has generally been a challenge for the world cup event but we are happy as a province that bed capacity has improved at the hosting district and neighbouring Municipalities outside the host city. We are currently boasting a capacity of 15 300 beds in the Bojanala area, 7 700 beds in Dr Kenneth Kaunda and 4 700 beds in Ngaka Modiri Molema district. All these are graded and non graded establishments and most of them have signed up with MATCH Company which has been commissioned by FIFA to deal with ticketing and accommodation packages
Honourable Speaker
The provincial disaster management
It was very heartening for me to welcome to the province members of our emergency care technicians from the nature induced Haiti disaster. Whilst I was celebrating the return of these selfless heroes I was equally assured that we are ready for disasters of this magnitude. Let me recognise again our provincial team for their courage to have gone to Haiti in spite of the risk of another earthquake still looming.
We have procured 40 ambulances, refurbished a number of hospitals and clinics as both primary and overflow health facilities for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The health centres in and around the stadium as well as the public viewing parks will be in a state of heightened alert with specially trained paramedics deployed to manage transit patients along the world cup hot spots. Six hospitals have been FIFA accredited.
Esteemed members of the religious community,
Police drills have been conducted at all stadiums and secondary drills will be done in due course. An anti-terrorism plan is in place. Reservists will be deployed to strategic centres and police visibility will be a feature of the event. The capacity of our security services has already been tested in events such as these.
We are conscious of the negative social impact of events such as the world to social cohesion, human trafficking, sexual exploitation etc. We are convening a provincial youth conference in April to educate our youth on the social impact of such events. It is my expectation that faith-based organisations (FBOs) will be long term partners in this endeavour. The social context of these ills is best managed through FBOs; community-based organisations (CBOs) and established NGOs in the sector.
Honourable Speaker
In order for us to remain sustainable after the 2010 FIFA World Cup, our province will begin a process to develop a comprehensive strategy to leverage opportunities and compete in the global events and conferencing market. The relevant department will give more detail on this.
Our national team is ready, we are ready, let the world come to Africa and enjoy the greatest show. Our humanity as Africans will be celebrated. This is one mission this generation will fulfil with excellence
Honourable Speaker
Government can only be experienced local. We can only act on a locality for us to be really governing. South Africa is a developmental state. There is a concretising consensus amongst social partners that such a state must affect sustainable programmes that address the historical challenges of underdevelopment and thus making communities their own liberators.
Honourable Speaker, on 5 December 2010 we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of developmental local government albeit within a 100 year systems history. We are facing a local government elections contestation era that maybe defining in terms of how our people will be evaluating their investment in us as a government.
Society experiences government through local government; everything that is governmental is primarily felt local which makes local government everyone’s business. Local government is central to the achievement of our developmental state goals. Let me remind the house that our constitution instructs local government to provide accountable democracy to local communities, ensure sustainable service delivery to communities, promote social and economic development, promote safe and healthy environment, and encourage community involvement in local government.
Notwithstanding the general success of local government in creating a legacy of governance within communities, there are systemic challenges that undermine this progress. Our developmental risk profile has over the last three years flagged local government as being determinate.
Together with the national Minister of Corporative Government and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) we unearthed serious challenges confronting municipal government in our province. We have found out that municipalities have systems challenges manifesting themselves through service delivery backlogs, chronic fraud and corruption induced by both corruptors and those being corrupted, a shrinking skills base in the fields of town engineering, planning, financial management, turbulent politician administrator relations that have as origins the intra and inter party political issues of contest as well as opportunistic oppositional grandstanding and a dysfunctional intergovernmental service delivery coordination system with glaring provincial support and oversight gaps.
As a result of the glaring dysfunctions in our province, our intervention has thus far resulted in the suspension of senior officials and political office bearers in local government.
Honourable members,
We have put the municipalities of Ngaka Modiri Molema district under section 139 curatorship and where necessary appointed administrators. As I indicated in my opening that South Africa is a 100 year old constitutional state, we inherently have the capability as a South African society to stem this tide. Not only is government challenged but the South African sense of being is greatly challenged. The president and leaders of opposition parties are in agreement that none of us can have a disclaimer on the service delivery challenges facing us.
Fellow South Africans
Our National Executive Council lekgotla, national Cabinet, and recently our provincial lekgotla has adopted a local government turnaround strategy that will have as key objectives service delivery without fail, accountable local government, improved professionalism in municipalities, enhanced provincial support and oversight and strengthened community-government civil society partnership. Ours is a community based response with technical finesse. I will be creating capacity in the provincial local government support and oversight units of government.
Together with the MEC we will be focussing on efficiency improvements on how we make the system work. We will be revamping the intergovernmental interaction mechanism to provide a real time feedback on how government communicates and transacts with itself. The premier’s intergovernmental relations forum will have its agenda and working committees reviewed to provide an accountability system that links up with the performance and monitoring instructs of the Presidency.
Comrades and friends,
The national outcomes within the control of provincial government will form the core of the premier’s intergovernmental forum. Heads of Departments will be called to account on how they are facilitating within and outside own budget resources to fast track service delivery. The new coordination system should lead to realistic integrated development plans design and therefore manageable provincial planning frameworks. We will be introducing an integrity management based anti-corruption advocacy programme that will in the main be supportive of in-party political stability initiatives as adopted in the national Cabinet Lekgotla and supported by all in-government political parties.
In line with the integrated public service initiatives of the Department of Public Service and Administration we will be making available to municipalities capacity, specifically human, in those areas that require immediate attention. This will be enhancing to the Siyenza Manje programme that has thus far deployed artisans to municipalities.
We hope to recruit an advance force of financial management, town engineering and “the old town secretary” experts who will beef up our local government capacity. With all variables given, we are resolute as government that in the main our challenges are of a human nature with systems topping the index.
Honourable Speaker,
Together with South African Local Government Association (SALGA), we will be embarking on a process of integrating the SALGA working group system into the intergovernmental relations machinery of government. The advocacy and lobbyist role of SALGA for workable policy interventions have thus far been underutilised hence an underperforming sub context in our governance system.
Whilst we are dealing with the systemic issues affecting the local government service delivery value chain, we will be engaging in the day to day service delivery matters of bulk infrastructure development. The Bucket Eradication programme will still continue, albeit with enhanced monitoring of in-project inflationary variables not linked to direct costs of delivery. We are interacting with water boards to structure a sustainable water supply management system and sewer disposal system that does not burden poor municipalities.
We will be reviewing our interaction and transaction mechanisms with Dikgosi. Within the confines of policy and law we will be creating a process to indigenise our rural development initiatives with Dikgosi providing jurisdictional inputs.
Honourable Speaker,
The attainment of these programmes will require from the provincial administration a revitalised mindset. Through the office of the director-general as well as the private office we will be creating capacity to ensure that we continue to reign as a strategic coordination centre.
We will be reviewing the corporate support function of government wherever the mandate lies in order to create efficiencies in the system. This will include a continuous review of the Premiers delegations to MECs and revoke such where appropriate. We have to date finalised the provincial fixed asset register that has a capacity to monitor asset maintenance and replacement. The challenge remains that of integrating all asset maintenance systems.
Honourable Speaker,
Our interdepartmental coordination mechanisms on government property management are being overhauled to create an integrated User Asset Management Plan with a definitive delegation regime. The government motor fleet is also undergoing restructuring in order to create new efficiencies thus reducing the most popular wasteful expenditure item “fleet”. The review will also factor in the service delivery realities emanating from the spatial character of the province. Details of this will be outlined shortly.
The Monitoring and Evaluation unit in the Office of the Premier will be beefed up to respond to the dictates of the national performance outcome areas. The governance outcome area obligates my office to create a strategic monitoring centre that should as far as possible be capable of track and tracing province-wide performance.
Honourable members of the legislature,
I will be signing a performance contract with the president. My contract will cascaded to MECs and through to heads of departments, mayors and municipal managers. MECs will during their budget votes, which would have been consulted with my office, outline specific outcomes, outputs, activities and year to year timeframes. Their budget votes are expected to be integrative of high level local government programmes directly linked to their outcomes.
This will be instituting an outcome based performance monitoring system based on the national priorities agreed at the national cabinet lekgotla.
The cluster system will be changed to align with national priority areas. Service delivery forums working almost like the old clusters will be set up.
Your worship, mayors of municipalities,
Special meetings of sector departments with local government will be convened as a matter of urgency. In these meetings sector departments will make budget commitments to local government as approved by the Office of the Premier’s led prioritisation process. Local government will facilitate municipal turn around plans that must inform sector intergovernmental relations forums. The plan must instruct government towards municipal demarcation reviews guided by functionality, liquidity and potential wastages of per capita cost of democracy.
I will during the budget vote of the private office clarify these role interactions between the provincial planning nerve centre, the monitoring and evaluation unit as well as the role of transversal departments like economic development and local government. The interaction between the spheres of government will henceforth be more transactional that just being social interaction activities design to create non service delivery pacts. I am sure that if we focus on these matters, we will fulfil our generational mission.
Honourable Speaker,
I want to acknowledge the following people: the President of South Africa, President Jacob Zuma, a giant on whose shoulders I stand, the ANC, my political home, Members of the Executive Council, leaders of the opposition, who are friends, mirrors and adversaries, heads of departments, senior managers and esteemed members of the public service.
Special gratitude goes to the Modiselle family for their understanding of my calling.
I thank you
Issued by: North West Provincial Government
25 February 2010
Source: North West Provincial Government (http://www.nwpg.gov.za/)
