T Xasa on behalf of N Balindlela: Poverty Alleviation Special
Project

28 February 2007

Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders
Your Majesties the Kings of our province Bhongolethu
Members of the House of Traditional Leaders
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Mayors and councillors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends

It gives me great pleasure to be part of this very important gathering here
today. Premier Balindlela was schedule to come and officiate this occasion but
because of government and organisational work she is deployed in the Cacadu
District and extends her apologies and wishing us all the best in our work. She
will find time within her busy schedule to visit some of these projects and
commits her office to continue supporting this initiative. I believe that the
Premier's apology is accepted.

Programme Director, Government respects and acknowledges the role that key
stakeholders like the Traditional leadership play in ensuring that service
delivery is accelerated in our province. We all agree that our people cannot be
subjected to perpetual abject poverty and unemployment.

The fact that you are working with government in conquering these challenges
that results in various social ills, is an indication that you want to see a
province at work, free of unemployment and poverty. Today we witness some of
the results of commitments made between Government and the House of Traditional
Leaders when the Premier was appointed in 2004 as the first female Premier of
this province. She called upon stakeholders to come and assist Government to
eradicate poverty in our province and you committed yourselves as leaders of
our people to participate in their economic liberation and thereby solidifying
our social compact. Indeed Abantwana beGazi were the first ones to immediately
respond to that call to action.

The Premier through her Poverty Alleviation Fund decided to give churches
under the umbrella of South African Council of Churches (SACC) an amount of
four million, Non-governmental organisation (NGO) coalition an amount of two
million, gender mainstream an amount of two million and the House of
Traditional Leaders an amount of two million totalling up to ten million. I am
proud to announce that the House is spending its portion very well, assisted by
Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council (ECSECC) in ensuring
accountability and mainstreaming of the programmes. All these funds are spent
in programmes within the context of Provincial Growth and Development Plan
(PGDP) Ikamva Eliqaqambileyo.

Government is encouraged when public funds are spent objectively and
responsibly. Investors will definitely be attracted if they realise that
government and stakeholders take care of public funds. I am sure that we are
all aware of the big challenge our province was faced with in as far as
underspending is concerned. We have for the first time managed to rectify the
situation. Whilst other provinces are still struggling to spend their
allocation for 2005/06 financial year, I have great pleasure to announce that
our province has managed to spend its budget up to 72% on infrastructure by end
of November. This is according to National Treasury report that was issued in
the December.

This means that by end of the financial year, we will have spent almost all
of our budget. The achievement did not come as a surprise to us. We planned,
last year, we sanctioned all heads of Department and Chief Financial Officers
to a meeting. In that meeting we took an undertaking that no department will
underspend, come end of the financial year. This great achievement is as a
result of a culture that Premier Balindlela instilled to her cabinet, a culture
of working as a collective. Furthermore, Premier and all of us in government
call for effective, responsive and accountable government. We at all times
remind ourselves that government has an obligation to account to the citizens
of the province on how the resources entrusted with us are managed and will be
managed in the future.

Programme Director, let me take this opportunity and share with you some of
the successes of pro poor Provincial Growth and Development Plan in OR Tambo
District Municipality. The majority of our projects are reliant on the
principle of partnership, between the state, private sector, donor,
organisations and communities. In this region, on 15 November 2005, four hotels
in Coffee Bay area of the Wild Coast opened their doors to new community
shareholders. This was made possible by European Union (EU), national
Department of Environmental Affairs and Early Childhood Development (ECD).
Essentially, each involves communities borrowing sufficient capital on
favourable terms from an ECDC (Eastern Cape Development Corporation) managed
European Union (EU) loan fund in order to purchase up to 30% of the equity in
the hotels.

The existing owners are then expected to utilise the proceeds of the sale of
their shares to upgrade the hotels' infrastructure. In addition, the same
community represented by prudently governed community trust, will receive
monthly royalties from hotels whilst also enjoying employment opportunities as
the business grows as a result of the capitalisation efforts.

The previously liquidated Magwa Tea Estate has also been revitalised, as a
result of combining state, private sector and community resources. In this case
the Arms off Set Programme through Department of Trade and Industry (the dti),
facilitated a Ferrostaal loan on favourable terms together with grant funding
from the Provincial Government via ECDC. The community and employees have also
been included as shareholders and Gokal, as Indian Tea Marketing giant, as the
technical partner. This project is ready on a sustainable footing and produced
1,5 million tons this season. Productive output is expected to double next
season. One thousand jobs have been saved, and further 1 000 seasonal jobs have
been created.

The province held its first Job summit. All social partners demonstrated
commitment to job creation for economic and social transformation. We have also
agreed to come up with conceptualisation and development of the of big
infrastructure programmes that are envisaged for the province in terms of
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA).

In conclusion, Premier specifically asked me to remind you to start
preparing yourselves for the research work on protocol of traditional
leadership. She is very passionate about this and has made available R500 000
for this huge task, as she announced during the second opening of the House of
Traditional Leaders. She is also counting on your support on the call she made
during her State of the Province Address that all us young and old, black and
white should wear our traditional attire and any other attire that makes anyone
in the Eastern Cape to reclaim his/her identity. Finally, all roads will be to
the Polling Stations tomorrow for each and every one of us to exercise his/her
right to vote.

Government appeals to traditional leaders to continue to promote free and
fair elections within their areas and to encourage their communities to vote.
Please do not forget to vote for the party that has ensured and still ensures
the better life of all our people, a party that has managed to free all our
oppressed people during those difficult times. I now officially declare this
project officially launched

Thank you very much.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
28 February 2007
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government http://http://www.socdev.ecprov.gov.za)