Date: 12/03/2004
Source: Ministry of Public Enterprises
Title: J Radebe: Disabled People South Africa Conference
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY JEFF RADEBE, MINISTER OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES, MP, AT THE DISABLED PEOPLE SOUTH AFRICA CONFERENCE IN BOKSBURG, 12 March 2004
TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY - THE CURRENT AND FUTURE STATUS AND ROLE OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you this morning, in the middle of your three days of deliberation. I am sure that the topics you have chosen to deal with reflect your organisation's centrality to the transformation of our country and specifically the role that people with disabilities do and indeed must play.
Although you have asked me to share some thoughts on "Ten Years of Democracy - the current and future status and role of people with disabilities", I must recall that your organisation, Disabled People South Africa, was in fact formed some twenty years ago, in 1984, as part of the disability rights movement. At that time, the apartheid regime believed that the harder they hit us, imprisoned us, maimed us, forcibly removed us, shot, poisoned, killed and murdered us, the weaker we would get, the fewer would join the struggle, the sooner the majority of people would give up and accept their racist rule. To their lasting frustration and their final defeat, their oppression only mobilised the people of South Africa and the world even more. Across the length and breadth of our country, people's organisations emerged to cover every segment of society, every group in society, every person who suffered at the hands of the universal oppression that was apartheid. People with disabilities came together to assert clearly and proudly "Nothing about us without us!" This rallying cry joined the growing chorus of students, women, youth, religious bodies, workers, the landless and unemployed, lawyers, journalists, doctors, librarians and every other profession in the mighty battle for national liberation.
The African National Congress (ANC) and the Government of South Africa salutes the vital contribution your organisation has made to spearhead the strategy to mobilise and organise people with disabilities as part of the broader resistance to oppression and apartheid during those tumultuous times. The efforts, commitment and drive of comrades from that earlier time, many of whom are thankfully still in the forefront of the struggle for the recognition and rights of people with disabilities, are mainly responsible for building the political foundations that have helped shape our new democracy.
More particularly, it was the formal engagement by the Department of Public Service Administration (DPSA) with the ANC in the early 1990s that served to highlight the needs and aspirations of the disability rights movement. The collective expression of these needs and aspirations have become an important element of the ANC's programme of nation building, finding expression in the anti-discrimination clause of our founding Constitution and beyond.
So let us at the outset of my remarks celebrate our ten years of democracy but link it to your twenty years of tireless service as the DPSA to the liberation struggle and to the fight to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities generally!
Viva, DPSA, viva!
One of the first administrative steps the Mandela Government took was to establish the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons, the OSDP. Today, this Office is part of The Presidency and is duplicated in the offices of the Premiers around the country as well. Together they have co-ordinated work to mainstream disability issues in all government policies and programmes. For the rest of my input this morning, I wish to outline the achievements of the last ten years and then identify some of the challenges that still face us. Naturally, the list will not be exhaustive and we will be delighted to hear any additions, suggestions or criticisms that your congress may have for Government and for the ANC as well.
In essence, perhaps the greatest strength of the campaign over the years has been to educate South Africans to the view that the nature and experience of disability should not be rooted or defined in medical and welfare terms, but are in fact human rights issues, and the question of social entitlement and economic opportunity. The ANC Government without any hesitation works from the standpoint that "all persons with disabilities have the same rights as all people, but their needs must be met by considering their particular impairments."
The White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy provides a policy framework for implementation across the whole of society and through all spheres of government. It also goes further, though, to suggest practical steps to bring benefits and the prospect of a better life for all people with disabilities. Thus we are implementing programmes that aim to provide social services to people with disabilities as a target group, to promote active economic involvement, to meet socio-economic needs and to ensure South African participation in and compliance with international and regional initiatives to secure and extend the rights of all people with disabilities.
You are all familiar with the many changes that have been made to legislation and to the number of policy documents that aim to prevent and eliminate discrimination against disability. These range from the Employment Equity Act, the Labour Relations Act, the Skills Development Act, the Sexual Offences Amendment Bill and so on. White Papers and policy documents cover a range of fields from special needs in education, to the health services, transport strategies, the Department of Defence, land policy, sport and recreation and more.
Much still needs to be done. Today only 0,25% of the public service is made up of people with disabilities, whereas our target by 2005 is to reach 2%. We note however that the total number of people with disabilities in our country is in the region of about 6% of our population. The National Skills Development Strategy calls for 4% of all people trained to be people with disabilities (PWDs), and we have set 4% of all learnerships as a target as well. Bursary schemes and wage subsidies are in place for PWDs and Government subsidises 11 placement officers at national organisations representing PWDs. We are committed, and the ANC has specifically charged government with this responsibility, to increase the number of women with disabilities employed in all sectors of the economy and at all levels. In particular, we will transform disability work centres into successful small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) where they will be able to take greater advantage of affirmative and targeted procurement policies. And just as we have pushed the private sector to implement transformation policies across the board, so we shall ensure that people with disabilities are part of the process.
We will also build on the steps that have been taken in opening up access to sports and recreation. So, on the shoulders of Disability Sport South Africa, grants to the Paralympic Development Trust and support through the National Arts Council, we intend increasing participation in and integration between disabled and non-disabled artists and sports.
Initial steps have also been taken to address social needs of people with disabilities in our country. I would include here reference to the target of 5 to 6% of housing subsidies and the inclusion of disability variation on subsidies in terms of the Housing Subsidy Implementation Manual and Housing Code. The big challenge here of course is ensuring that private developers honour these guidelines and do not take short cuts where physical accessibility is an issue. But they should also be checked to ensure that they do not provide these requirements at a premium cost to you, the consumers.
A glance at the maps included with the latest Census shows once more the enormous legacy of apartheid. So, for example, although the highest concentrations of people with disabilities is to be found in all our urban magisterial districts, there is a deeply disturbing pattern that shows the higher incidence of all forms of disability in rural areas associated with the former homelands. We also note that poverty often produces disability, and then disability can often lead to deeper poverty, a vicious cycle that dehumanises and destroys. Hence, it is important to note that the Department of Land Affairs has established a departmental disability forum, established transformation task teams and has identified that land restitution and claims should include PWDs and that the agricultural and farming industries must include PWDs in respect of subsidies, schemes and programmes.
At the same time, we need to extend and secure the inclusion of larger numbers of PWDs in the accessibility to free electricity and water programmes.
Access to public transport has historically been a problem. Under a democratic ANC Government however, history and the cost of technology cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress. Thus, we have insisted that the integrated transport subsidy scheme must include PWDs as a targeted community. Even the taxi recapitalisation programme includes access by PWDs as a critical design issue. The rail upgrade and refurbishment programmes and the framework for integrated transport service to rural communities have factored these issues in. Once again, the ANC Government remains committed to the task of accelerating and expanding all of these programmes.
At the moment, PWDs form a core target to reach between 1 and 3% of staff on the Community Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP). Whilst all the design criteria for accessibility are included in project proposals it is clear that much more can be done to expand not only the percentage of people involved in these programmes, but also the extent of their participation. The Expanded Public Works Programme provides us all with the opportunity to do precisely that: increase the number of people with disabilities in the public works programmes. For some years now the Department of Public Works (DPW) has been busy making all government buildings and service points more accessible on an incremental basis. The Construction Industry Board that falls under DPW has also ensured that this accessibility programme is extended into the private sector as well. This work will continue as a way to bring old buildings up to date and to ensure that new buildings as a matter of course provide access to all.
People with disabilities have also been identified as a special category to receive social grants. To date, three types of grants are available, the disability grant, care and dependency grant and the grant-in-aid. Some provision is also made for residential care services for people with severe disabilities, day care centres, community rehabilitation programmes and so on. But all of this is simply not sufficient to meet the needs of our people. The major challenge is to ensure that all who are eligible, about 2,1% of current figures, for social grants actually receive them. Again, the criteria of who qualifies to receive grants should be aligned with the broad approach of moving away from strictly medical definitions to reflect social and human rights considerations. This does not mean that those who qualify for medical reasons will somehow be prejudiced - it will mean an expansion of the care to those who need it. A whole range of administrative training and other work needs to be done, but the mechanisms are in place and this too will be accelerated under the ANC Government.
Communication lies at the centre of much of what I have said. Across government and throughout all its programmes, steps are being taken to ensure that regardless of the impairment one has, whether it be sight or hearing, intellectual or psychiatric, all are able to have access to information and technology and to contribute through that access as well. Communication cannot only be passive, it has also to provide active access so that those who have no impairment can listen or see, understand and respect, and can grow with a fuller appreciation of who we all are on this earth.
Comrades, ladies and gentlemen, the journey towards the fulfilment of human rights has only just begun. For decades before our political liberation, the national liberation movement laid the foundations for the practical work we have been able to do over the last ten years. I can boldly state with utter conviction that the small steps this country has taken over the last ten years would not have been taken if the ANC had not been at the helm.
There is simply no other political party in this country that has incorporated the special needs of people with disabilities under the banner of the common aspiration for human rights as the ANC has done. At the same time, fusing your programmes into the national programmes of government has been done by respecting and adopting your very own slogan: "nothing about us without us."
The ANC will continue to govern after we win the elections in April. But for us, elections are not a five-yearly ritual that merely rubberstamps previous choices. An election provides the people of our land the opportunity to refresh and enliven the mandate to govern that all governments must have. The more resounding the victory, the greater legitimacy the mandate, and the greater the responsibility to implement it.
I have spoken enough, but wish to hear any comment or criticism that will assist the ANC and Government in taking forward the commitments I have expressed here this morning.
I thank you all.
Issued by: Ministry of Public Enterprises
12 March 2004
Source: Department of Public Enterprises (http://www.dpe.gov.za)
Source: Ministry of Public Enterprises
Title: J Radebe: Disabled People South Africa Conference
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY JEFF RADEBE, MINISTER OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES, MP, AT THE DISABLED PEOPLE SOUTH AFRICA CONFERENCE IN BOKSBURG, 12 March 2004
TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY - THE CURRENT AND FUTURE STATUS AND ROLE OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you this morning, in the middle of your three days of deliberation. I am sure that the topics you have chosen to deal with reflect your organisation's centrality to the transformation of our country and specifically the role that people with disabilities do and indeed must play.
Although you have asked me to share some thoughts on "Ten Years of Democracy - the current and future status and role of people with disabilities", I must recall that your organisation, Disabled People South Africa, was in fact formed some twenty years ago, in 1984, as part of the disability rights movement. At that time, the apartheid regime believed that the harder they hit us, imprisoned us, maimed us, forcibly removed us, shot, poisoned, killed and murdered us, the weaker we would get, the fewer would join the struggle, the sooner the majority of people would give up and accept their racist rule. To their lasting frustration and their final defeat, their oppression only mobilised the people of South Africa and the world even more. Across the length and breadth of our country, people's organisations emerged to cover every segment of society, every group in society, every person who suffered at the hands of the universal oppression that was apartheid. People with disabilities came together to assert clearly and proudly "Nothing about us without us!" This rallying cry joined the growing chorus of students, women, youth, religious bodies, workers, the landless and unemployed, lawyers, journalists, doctors, librarians and every other profession in the mighty battle for national liberation.
The African National Congress (ANC) and the Government of South Africa salutes the vital contribution your organisation has made to spearhead the strategy to mobilise and organise people with disabilities as part of the broader resistance to oppression and apartheid during those tumultuous times. The efforts, commitment and drive of comrades from that earlier time, many of whom are thankfully still in the forefront of the struggle for the recognition and rights of people with disabilities, are mainly responsible for building the political foundations that have helped shape our new democracy.
More particularly, it was the formal engagement by the Department of Public Service Administration (DPSA) with the ANC in the early 1990s that served to highlight the needs and aspirations of the disability rights movement. The collective expression of these needs and aspirations have become an important element of the ANC's programme of nation building, finding expression in the anti-discrimination clause of our founding Constitution and beyond.
So let us at the outset of my remarks celebrate our ten years of democracy but link it to your twenty years of tireless service as the DPSA to the liberation struggle and to the fight to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities generally!
Viva, DPSA, viva!
One of the first administrative steps the Mandela Government took was to establish the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons, the OSDP. Today, this Office is part of The Presidency and is duplicated in the offices of the Premiers around the country as well. Together they have co-ordinated work to mainstream disability issues in all government policies and programmes. For the rest of my input this morning, I wish to outline the achievements of the last ten years and then identify some of the challenges that still face us. Naturally, the list will not be exhaustive and we will be delighted to hear any additions, suggestions or criticisms that your congress may have for Government and for the ANC as well.
In essence, perhaps the greatest strength of the campaign over the years has been to educate South Africans to the view that the nature and experience of disability should not be rooted or defined in medical and welfare terms, but are in fact human rights issues, and the question of social entitlement and economic opportunity. The ANC Government without any hesitation works from the standpoint that "all persons with disabilities have the same rights as all people, but their needs must be met by considering their particular impairments."
The White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy provides a policy framework for implementation across the whole of society and through all spheres of government. It also goes further, though, to suggest practical steps to bring benefits and the prospect of a better life for all people with disabilities. Thus we are implementing programmes that aim to provide social services to people with disabilities as a target group, to promote active economic involvement, to meet socio-economic needs and to ensure South African participation in and compliance with international and regional initiatives to secure and extend the rights of all people with disabilities.
You are all familiar with the many changes that have been made to legislation and to the number of policy documents that aim to prevent and eliminate discrimination against disability. These range from the Employment Equity Act, the Labour Relations Act, the Skills Development Act, the Sexual Offences Amendment Bill and so on. White Papers and policy documents cover a range of fields from special needs in education, to the health services, transport strategies, the Department of Defence, land policy, sport and recreation and more.
Much still needs to be done. Today only 0,25% of the public service is made up of people with disabilities, whereas our target by 2005 is to reach 2%. We note however that the total number of people with disabilities in our country is in the region of about 6% of our population. The National Skills Development Strategy calls for 4% of all people trained to be people with disabilities (PWDs), and we have set 4% of all learnerships as a target as well. Bursary schemes and wage subsidies are in place for PWDs and Government subsidises 11 placement officers at national organisations representing PWDs. We are committed, and the ANC has specifically charged government with this responsibility, to increase the number of women with disabilities employed in all sectors of the economy and at all levels. In particular, we will transform disability work centres into successful small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) where they will be able to take greater advantage of affirmative and targeted procurement policies. And just as we have pushed the private sector to implement transformation policies across the board, so we shall ensure that people with disabilities are part of the process.
We will also build on the steps that have been taken in opening up access to sports and recreation. So, on the shoulders of Disability Sport South Africa, grants to the Paralympic Development Trust and support through the National Arts Council, we intend increasing participation in and integration between disabled and non-disabled artists and sports.
Initial steps have also been taken to address social needs of people with disabilities in our country. I would include here reference to the target of 5 to 6% of housing subsidies and the inclusion of disability variation on subsidies in terms of the Housing Subsidy Implementation Manual and Housing Code. The big challenge here of course is ensuring that private developers honour these guidelines and do not take short cuts where physical accessibility is an issue. But they should also be checked to ensure that they do not provide these requirements at a premium cost to you, the consumers.
A glance at the maps included with the latest Census shows once more the enormous legacy of apartheid. So, for example, although the highest concentrations of people with disabilities is to be found in all our urban magisterial districts, there is a deeply disturbing pattern that shows the higher incidence of all forms of disability in rural areas associated with the former homelands. We also note that poverty often produces disability, and then disability can often lead to deeper poverty, a vicious cycle that dehumanises and destroys. Hence, it is important to note that the Department of Land Affairs has established a departmental disability forum, established transformation task teams and has identified that land restitution and claims should include PWDs and that the agricultural and farming industries must include PWDs in respect of subsidies, schemes and programmes.
At the same time, we need to extend and secure the inclusion of larger numbers of PWDs in the accessibility to free electricity and water programmes.
Access to public transport has historically been a problem. Under a democratic ANC Government however, history and the cost of technology cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress. Thus, we have insisted that the integrated transport subsidy scheme must include PWDs as a targeted community. Even the taxi recapitalisation programme includes access by PWDs as a critical design issue. The rail upgrade and refurbishment programmes and the framework for integrated transport service to rural communities have factored these issues in. Once again, the ANC Government remains committed to the task of accelerating and expanding all of these programmes.
At the moment, PWDs form a core target to reach between 1 and 3% of staff on the Community Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP). Whilst all the design criteria for accessibility are included in project proposals it is clear that much more can be done to expand not only the percentage of people involved in these programmes, but also the extent of their participation. The Expanded Public Works Programme provides us all with the opportunity to do precisely that: increase the number of people with disabilities in the public works programmes. For some years now the Department of Public Works (DPW) has been busy making all government buildings and service points more accessible on an incremental basis. The Construction Industry Board that falls under DPW has also ensured that this accessibility programme is extended into the private sector as well. This work will continue as a way to bring old buildings up to date and to ensure that new buildings as a matter of course provide access to all.
People with disabilities have also been identified as a special category to receive social grants. To date, three types of grants are available, the disability grant, care and dependency grant and the grant-in-aid. Some provision is also made for residential care services for people with severe disabilities, day care centres, community rehabilitation programmes and so on. But all of this is simply not sufficient to meet the needs of our people. The major challenge is to ensure that all who are eligible, about 2,1% of current figures, for social grants actually receive them. Again, the criteria of who qualifies to receive grants should be aligned with the broad approach of moving away from strictly medical definitions to reflect social and human rights considerations. This does not mean that those who qualify for medical reasons will somehow be prejudiced - it will mean an expansion of the care to those who need it. A whole range of administrative training and other work needs to be done, but the mechanisms are in place and this too will be accelerated under the ANC Government.
Communication lies at the centre of much of what I have said. Across government and throughout all its programmes, steps are being taken to ensure that regardless of the impairment one has, whether it be sight or hearing, intellectual or psychiatric, all are able to have access to information and technology and to contribute through that access as well. Communication cannot only be passive, it has also to provide active access so that those who have no impairment can listen or see, understand and respect, and can grow with a fuller appreciation of who we all are on this earth.
Comrades, ladies and gentlemen, the journey towards the fulfilment of human rights has only just begun. For decades before our political liberation, the national liberation movement laid the foundations for the practical work we have been able to do over the last ten years. I can boldly state with utter conviction that the small steps this country has taken over the last ten years would not have been taken if the ANC had not been at the helm.
There is simply no other political party in this country that has incorporated the special needs of people with disabilities under the banner of the common aspiration for human rights as the ANC has done. At the same time, fusing your programmes into the national programmes of government has been done by respecting and adopting your very own slogan: "nothing about us without us."
The ANC will continue to govern after we win the elections in April. But for us, elections are not a five-yearly ritual that merely rubberstamps previous choices. An election provides the people of our land the opportunity to refresh and enliven the mandate to govern that all governments must have. The more resounding the victory, the greater legitimacy the mandate, and the greater the responsibility to implement it.
I have spoken enough, but wish to hear any comment or criticism that will assist the ANC and Government in taking forward the commitments I have expressed here this morning.
I thank you all.
Issued by: Ministry of Public Enterprises
12 March 2004
Source: Department of Public Enterprises (http://www.dpe.gov.za)
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