Address by Limpopo MEC for Local Government and Housing Mme Maite Nkoana Mashabane during the Indigent Policy Framework launch, Marco Hall, Polokwane

Program director
Executive mayors
Mayors from all our municipalities
Officials from our government
Representatives from the media
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

With the advent of a democratic breakthrough in 1994 in South Africa, one of the key priorities was to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment. The democratic movement had a huge task of undoing the legacy of apartheid and three hundred and fifty years of colonialism in South Africa.

The African National Congress (ANC) on the occasion of 8 January statement declared this year as the "intensification of the struggle against poverty". It is against this backdrop that our priorities as a department have prioritised poverty eradication and women empowerment as part of key instruments to transform society.

In the Report of the Human Science Research Council the commission for Africa has this to say "Poverty means hunger, thirst, and living without decent shelter. It means not being able to read, it means chronic sickness. Poverty means not finding any opportunities for you or your children. It is about being pushed around living with the constant threat of personal violence".

The State of the World Population Report of 2002, the United Nations Population provides that income is the common way of measuring poverty, but poverty has many dimensions. The poor are deprived of services, resources and opportunities as well as money. Their limited resources are inefficiently deployed. Energy, water, and food all cost more per unit consumed paradoxically, poverty is expensive for the poor.

The illustration that displayed above indicate the magnitude proportions of poverty in Africa and South Africa particularly in rural areas of Limpopo that remains the greatest challenge we need to eradicate.

Today, we have gathered to launch the Indigent Policy which seeks to address the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment. We have developed this framework to guide municipalities in determining and defining the indigents within the national framework parameters.

Our determination in resolving contradiction of poverty and economic growth remains paramount. Our economic growth must continue to filter down in resolving critical issues of poverty eradication and employment creation.

In the same vein our municipal Local Economic Development (LED) must strive to create employment that seeks to eradicate dependency on government and create employment for all. This will result in few indigents receiving the grant; further most of our residents will be able to pay for services rendered.

The policy framework attempts to indicate categories of options which municipalities must take in selection of beneficiaries. We must at municipal level quantify the number of indigents we have registered in our Indigent Register.

Equally problems involving indigent debtors must be resolved to enable them to qualify for receiving free basic services. We urge municipalities to dedicate personnel to be responsible to this milestone achievement in order to ensure that all indigent people are on the Indigent Register.

In conclusion, one of the modern philosophers Henriot said "Poverty eradication is the challenge of restructuring society so that there is no longer growing poverty and absolute numbers of impoverished decrease to minimal exceptional cases. This calls for planning for setting priorities, for shifts in power, for restructuring society, for radical social and economic changes. This is basically the transformation of society through policies based on justice."

The Indigent Policy Framework is formally launched!

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Local Government and Housing, Limpopo Provincial Government
17 July 2007