Date: 19/08/2010
Source: The Presidency
Title: SA: Motlanthe: Reply to Parliamentary questions, by the Deputy President of South Africa, on poverty eradication, in the National Assembly, Cape Town

Question No. 6
Dr CP Mulder (Freedom Front Plus) to ask the Deputy President:
Whether the government, in its war on poverty, has:

(a) launched any investigation into and
(b) taken any steps to help the growing number of poor white people; if not, why not, in each case; if so, what are the relevant details in each case?
Reply:

Honourable Mulder, this government is engaged in a war on poverty in our country regardless of the race or religion of the people affected.

The way the war on poverty works is that the poorest wards in our country have been identified using Statistics South Africa's provincial poverty index. Since the unit of intervention is the household, every household and family that lives in these targeted poor wards across South Africa is thus eligible for all government service delivery interventions irrespective of race, religion, social or political persuasion.

So, to reiterate, government attends to the needs of all its citizens regardless of their race. Poor white people are as much entitled to government services as any other racial group of our rainbow nation.

Basic services are a constitutional right and the war on poverty uses a needs based approach to service delivery coordination. Government actively discourages a return to the old dispensation where skin colour was the sole determinant of access to social services and the quality thereof.

As President Zuma said when visiting the poor white community of Bethlehem early this year, this government is determined to fight and eradicate poverty in every community and every corner of this society.

Our efforts in this regard will not be driven by considerations of race, colour or creed. It is therefore important that the fight to eradicate poverty becomes not just a government fight. It should be a fight that South Africans from all walks of life collectively join together to wage and win.

I thank you.