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Date : 15/02/2006
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molewa: Response to debate on North West State of the Province Address


  Response by North West Premier Edna Molewa to the debate on the State of the Province Address, Provincial Legislature

Madam Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Honourable Members
I would like to thank the leaders of political parties, colleagues in the Executive Council and Honourable Members for their various contributions to the debate of this year's State of the Province Address.

My inclination is to avoid getting into polemics of political point-scoring that sometimes characterise debates like these during times of 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.

Instead, Madam Speaker, I will dedicate this time to respond to pertinent as well as provocative inputs by Honourable Members that relate to the critical challenges of service delivery and improving the lives of our citizens.

Indeed, I concur with Honourable Makume when she says we should not be ashamed of trumpeting our achievements as a young democracy, particularly in the areas of gender equality and equity, disability and youth development.

The points that Honourable Makume raised can never be over-emphasised and we will spare no efforts in addressing them, as she said herself that "speed is the core of efficiency". Many of those are intended to and will be raised sharply in the Premier's budget vote and all departmental policy speeches; in addition to what Honourable raised.

Honourable Matladi, Matlholwa and Hattingh raised certain concerns about issues that may suggest administrative instability in the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment. I believe Honourable MEC Mayisela, was able to sufficiently respond to all these issues during the debate. Nevertheless, let me emphasise what we said during the State of the Province Address and that is to say, we have put plans in place to improve, amongst others, performance on expenditure.

As stated during the State of the Province Address, we will ensure that we monitor the situation in the department on a monthly basis.

Regarding the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process in our province, we would like to say that we are satisfied with the process as it unfolded. Even though other racial groups did not participate, we believe the outcome and report of this process was a fair representation of the majority view of the people of the North West Province.

We must however continue to ask ourselves why some of the representatives of these minorities in this House do not ensure such participation.

As we celebrate the tenth Anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa this year, we would like to reiterate that what we are building is a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, home to all her people.

Like Honourable Matladi, Matlholwa and Makume we are also concerned about the drop in the Matric pass rate. It should be noted however that this decline was in quantity, while there was improvement in quality. The quantitative drop and qualitative improvement was by no means unique to our province, as the entire country also experienced it.

However, this year we will increase funding towards, among others, the improvement of results. Honourable MEC Tselapedi will elaborate on the details during the Departmental budget vote.

Honourable MEC Mangqo was spot-on when she said the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA) could not have come at a better time as we believe it will assist us greatly in the complex task of delivering social services to our people.

We agree with Honourable Mangqo that some of the critical challenges that her Department will have to address this year include the late transfer of conditional grants, lack of capacity by communities to absorb grant funding, lack of human and material resources leading to backlog on foster care placement of children.

All these issues have been clearly identified and will be dealt with. As it can also be noted, they are raised by the relevant MEC and that is an indication that we are not hiding behind strange excuses but face challenges head on.

As Honourable Gerber asserted that, we must continue to consider other sustainable options and develop a qualitative strategy to address poverty and potential growing dependence on social grants.

Honourable Members will recall that a directive was issued last year through the State of the Province Address to convene a Social Indaba where this issue would be dealt with. However, due to reasons stated in the State of the Province Address, the Social Indaba will now take place this year. This will give us adequate time to craft a qualitative strategy to address these matters.

Responding to Honourable Matlholwa, our take 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 we pride ourselves for the fact that EPWP assists the beneficiaries to acquire skills that will allow them eventually to be absorbed by the job market. MEC for Public Works will elaborate on these issues during his policy speech in this legislature in a few a weeks.

Madam Speaker I would like to re-emphasise that the Provincial Government will support all our municipalities including Mafikeng in ensuring that roads are upgraded and maintained. The budget for road infrastructure will be increased this year as will be seen in the Budget Vote of the relevant department.

Honourable Hattingh the African National Congress (ANC) in the North West is intact and on top of the political management of the province. We would prefer to focus on pertinent issues of service delivery and improving the lives of our citizens.

We view the statistics that you churned out with utter scepticism. Ignorant of the source and veracity of your crime figures, we nevertheless stand by our genuine assessment that crime levels in the province are going down. We base our assessment on the official figures given by our law enforcement agency, the South African Police Service.

Despite Honourable Hattingh's rather alarmist depiction of a province and a country that is essentially crime-infested, inherently corrupt, unstable, and run by incompetent black people who have no interests of the people at heart, we want to set the record straight: Crime is indeed going down in the North West Province! This country is in good hands; we deal with crime and corruption decisively and not like the previous white minority government used to do. The economy is growing and there has never been such a confluence of possibilities for all our people in this country.

We will not, as Honourable Hattingh implied, prioritise Khutsong to the detriment of the rest of our municipalities. What we said in the State of the Province is that; "We will prioritise Khutsong in our efforts to build cohesion and engender a new developmental consciousness to build our localities."

This is by no means a suggestion that we will solely focus on Khutsong to the exclusion of other municipalities. What it does mean is that the ruling party has developed a plan to make local government work better for all the people of the province, including Khutsong.

Honourable Gwabeni, I would like to say that we are happy indeed that today, unlike the late former ANC President DT Gumede, we do not have to endlessly relate pity stories where we are slaves in our own country.

Instead, as Honourable Gwabeni reminded the House, today South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. Thank you Honourable Gwabeni for highlighting the importance of our governance structures such as School Governing Bodies, Community Policing Forums and Ward Committees. These remain critical to a people-centred democracy that we are building.

We believe, like Honourable Groenewald, that there will be peace in Khutsong. We would even venture to say that business and normal life will thrive in Khutsong after current interventions by both National Government and the two Provincial Governments of Gauteng and North West. We will assess the extent of damage to business-related property and based on the availability of resources, we will decide on the appropriate interventions.

We would like to refer Honourable Groenewald to what we said regarding the FIFA 2010 World Cup: 'We call on our provincial 2010 team to mobilise all our people in particular the small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to identify ensuing business opportunities*and ensure that the legacy of 2010 World Cup lives beyond the tournament for the people of the province".' Our preparations for the World Cup 2010 are therefore not only about building a strong Bafana Bafana.

We share Honourable Groenewald's concern about our school children walking on the side of national roads. To this effect, we announced in the State of the Province Address of this year that we would continue with the Scholar Transport Programme that caters for farm and rural schools in particular and that the Departments of Transport and Education would finalise and implement the strategy for multimodal transport in this coming financial year.

To Honourable Mayisela and Vilakazi, a genuine word of gratitude for their true perspectives on the agricultural sector and local government respectively. Like Honourable Mayisela, we view agriculture as one of the key pillars of our economic growth and development and as such, agriculture must not be used as a political ping-pong ball in the quest for votes in the local government elections.

Along with Honourable Vilakazi, we embrace the challenge of eradicating the bucket system by 2007. Victory in this regard is more than certain. Our plan for local government includes approaching the next term of local councils with a more developed sensitivity to the matter of local government's need for enhanced institutional capacity, clear support and intervention mechanisms if need be.

I concur with Honourable Gerber that we must adhere to policies that will lead to growth and prosperity in our province. I would also like to assure Honourable Gerber that in reviewing the willing-buyer willing-seller approach to land redistribution, government has the best interests of both white commercial farmers as well as the majority of the black people who were dispossessed of their land.

I must stress that we will always need white farmers. For starters, we need them to mentor upcoming farmers on matters of productivity. We do not seek to upset the streams of production. However, having observed the slow pace of land reform, absentee farmers, inflated prices, it would be helpful if farmers could be alert to these realities so that they assist government in the land reform process.

We believe the slow pace of land reform poses a clear and present threat to our democracy.

On reassuring Honourable Gerber and members of our farming communities, we look no further than President Thabo Mbeki's words during the State of the Nation Address in which he directed the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs to "review the willing-buyer willing-seller policy; review land acquisition models and possible manipulation of land prices; and regulate conditions under which foreigners buy land". This, the President said, will be done in line with international norms and practices.

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, as well as attend to the proper use of the funds that have been made available for the productive utilisation of the land.

Thanking and echoing Honourable Mokaila's input during the debate, we would like to conclude by saying that Government will neither shy away from challenges nor fail to trumpet our achievements in the space of a few years we have had to rectify anomalies that ensued for more than 300 years in our country. As Honourable Mokaila observed, our macro-economic growth is unprecedented in the history of our country.

I also agree with Honourable Mokaila that any economic policy that does not translate to better living conditions for our people is doomed to fail. Hence we have Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA) which emphasises shared growth.

Amongst others, he posed this critical question: Will our state-owned enterprises in the province be amenable to growth as dictated by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA)?

Although the roles of our state-owned enterprises have been adequately defined in relation to our PGDS, we believe that there is cause for review on whether they lend themselves immediately amenable to the needs and urgency of ASGISA. Our belief is that we need to redefine the mandate of some of North West state-owned enterprises in the context of ASGISA. The Executive Council will be looking into this matter during the coming financial year.

The issue that Honourable Mokaila raised about the proposed merger of Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission is a very important one. We will certainly begin discussions in line with the national processes.

Honourable Members, we note the issues that were raised in relation to our schools infrastructure programmes, sanitation backlog in schools and the Primary School Nutrition Programme (PSNP). These will be adequately addressed by Honourable Tselapedi during his Departmental Budget Vote in this House.

Madam Speaker, before we close this debate I would like convey to the soccer fraternity and the entire family of Dr Irvin Khoza, Vice-President of the South African Football Association and Chairperson of the FIFA World Cup 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC), our heartfelt condolences for the departure of her daughter, indeed a daughter of this nation, Zodwa Khoza on Monday 13 February 2006.

In closing the debate, we would like to reiterate our firm conviction that the North West 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 North West Province that is a pride of our nation South Africa.

We would once more like to urge our people to assume their crucial role in the strengthening of our democracy by voting in the Local Government Elections on 1 March 2006.

We now take this opportunity to thank and recognise the support as expressed by political parties and by all honourable members who participated in this debate. We are most appreciative of the inputs of those that shared the possibility of success in our programmes. We therefore value their contributions and believe they underline the unmistakable maturity of our democracy.

Kea leboga, thank you!

Issued by: North West Provincial Government
15 February 2006
   

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