Date: 12/12/2006
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Mosunkutu: Launch of Gauteng chapters of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development and Macro-Agricultural Finance Institution of South Africa


Keynote address of Mr Khabisi Mosunkutu, Gauteng MEC for Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, at the launch of the Gauteng chapters of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development (WARD) and Macro-Agricultural Finance Institution of South Africa (MAFISA)

Programme Director, Ms Mpumi Mazibuko,
Members of mayoral committees present,
Head of Department, Dr Steven Cornelius,
Chief Executive Officer of the MAFISA,
Chief Director Gauteng Agriculture, Mr Letebele Sebitloane,
Representatives of the various financial sectors present,
Our guests of honour, women of Gauteng, farm workers and farmers,
Invited guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:

I am honoured to be part of this important event and to express a few thoughts on the significance of both WARD and the MAFISA.

The launch of the two facilities takes place at a momentous time. A number of events aimed at further expanding the frontiers of freedom and human rights are observed across the country. I am referring in particular to the 16 Days of No Violence against Women and Children. We shall on 16 December, Reconciliation Day, also be recommitting ourselves to the culture of human rights. A day prior on the World Rural Women's Day, the awakened people of the world shall have recommitted themselves to do all that is necessary to extricate the most vulnerable section of our communities from the gross inhumanities that they daily contend with.

Statistics compiled by United Nations (UN) agencies reveal the gross human rights violations visited upon women and children across the world. These statistics communicate a horrifying and stark reality of these vulnerable sections of our communities. We are informed that:

* of the world's 876 million people over 15 years of age who are illiterate, two thirds are women
* 48 percent of persons living with HIV and AIDS are women
* in relation to our country, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) informs us that 31 percent of unemployment afflicts women
* we also know for a fact the women including girl children, dominate statistics of domestic violence.

We also know for a fact that this has come to pass because of the political economic system that we inherited; a system that for efficient super exploitation placed women at the bottom of the rung. But we also know that out there, there are men who have traversed the least possible distance between modernity and the ape age.

Spelling out the plight of women at the receiving end of such men, Mme Mthintso, a revolutionary and women rights activists, once observed that, "As women speak, they speak for us who are too owned by pain to speak. Because always, always in anger and frustration, men use women's bodies as a terrain of struggle as a battleground."

Friends and colleagues, I mention this horror simply to emphasise the enormity of the task that confronts us all. The brief and incomplete picture that I here sought to paint is aimed at ensuring that the vehicles that we today are launching should not be utilised as just another platform for theoretical postulations and little practice.

Through the WARD and MAFISA formations, we need to ensure that we reach the objectives of:

* ensuring that more women enjoy the fruits of our country's land and agrarian reform policies
* ensuring that the mass base character of women economic empowerment throughout the agricultural sector is not misplaced, to give practical expression to this mass character we shall establish at least 10 agricultural co-operatives
* helping protect women in agricultural lands against farm evictions but also that they are given access to life skills and economic skills.

I commit to ensuring that WARD and MAFISA projects, among other departmental projects, remain essential thrusts of our work that also constitute the basis to evaluate our own performance.

Whilst we await financial allocation from the national Ministry, we shall from our own allocations set aside resources to inject vibrancy and delivery of material benefits to beneficiaries of WARD and MAFISA. Of the R19 million earmarked for the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme for the coming financial year, we shall ensure that 10 percent of this allocation is committed to the implementation of WARD projects. The expected R10 million agricultural projects funding will also be for further women empowerment in the provincial agricultural sector.

Of the 6 000 homestead food gardens that we plan to help establish during the coming financial year, the bias in terms of beneficiaries will also be towards women.

I also wish to call on the business community to join hands in this endeavour. Our democratic dispensation will remain incomplete if the benefits of this freedom are not also extended to women. Equally important to note is that so long as this abnormality continues to exist, so long will the threat to the interest of the business community also continue to be a feature.

Allow me, in conclusion, to wish all the stated beneficiaries of WARD and MAFISA success. I also wish to commend the organisers and project leaders of WARD and MAFISA for their good work.

I thank you!

Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Gauteng Provincial Government
12 December 2006