Date: 09/02/2004
Source: Ministry of Social Development
Title: Z Skweyiya: Parliamentary Media Briefing, February 2004
BRIEFING BY SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER, DR ZOLA SKWEYIYA, AT THE SOCIAL CLUSTER PARLIAMENTARY MEDIA BRIEFING, 9 February 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media
This social cluster media briefing takes place against the backdrop of significant developments that have taken place over the past year in particular as well as the last ten years in general with regard to the alleviation of poverty and the building of a better life for all.
Alleviating Poverty through the Provision of Social Security
As we prepare to celebrate ten years of democracy, as the social cluster we are heartened to report that, in line with the government's constitutional and policy commitment to provide social security to the most vulnerable sectors of our society, particularly older persons, people with disabilities and most importantly children, we have made unprecedented strides in the history of our country. In fact, the provision of social assistance in the form of means-tested cash transfers remains one of the most effective mechanisms used by Government to reduce poverty.
The numbers of beneficiaries and expenditure on grants, especially the child support grant (CSG), the foster care grant, the care dependency grant and the disability grant have shown a significant increase over the past three years. Social grants have increased 3,5 times since 1994, significantly reducing the proportion of people that would be living in poverty were it not for state transfers. Between April 2000 and the end of November 2004 alone, the number of social grant beneficiaries has increased from 3,2 million to no less than 7,5 million! This represents an increase of 128% over the last four years. The government currently pays to the excess of R34 billion on social grants per annum!
Putting Children First
The CSG accounts for most of the increases in the number of social grants beneficiaries. Under the banner of Putting Children First, we have been able to increase the number of children in payment from 349 000 in 2000 to about 3,9 million children at the end of November 2003. Even more importantly, we have already exceeded the target of 3 million set for March 2004. There are currently over 4 million children registered for the CSG.
However, alongside we have experienced problems that relate to fraud. There are still many who do not qualify yet grants through the defrauding the system whilst others abuse it. In a few weeks we will be launching an anti-fraud programme that will assist us to take drastic steps against those that defraud the system and thereby rob the poor of their much-needed assistance. We appeal with all sectors of society to work closely with us in this regard.
More children under 11 years to benefit
Because of a rollout extension of the grant to children up to the age of 14 years over a three-year period, the number will further increase. In 2003/4 we started registering children under the age of nine years qualified for the benefit in the 2003/4 financial year and the programme has gone very well thus far. This year children who are nine and ten years (i.e. under 11 years) will qualify, whilst all those under 14 years will be registered in the 2005/6 financial year. Government has made available R1,2 billion during the 2003/4 financial year. This will increase to R3,6 billion in 2004/5; R6,9 billion in 2005/6 and R9,2 billion in 2006/7.
* For this programme to assist we appeal on parents and communities at large to make sure that children have birth certificates and are registered. Even more importantly we appeal to school governing bodies (SGBs) to assist by also adopting and integrating the school nutrition programmes in the activities and programmes.
* We also urge the SGBs to make sure that they mobilise the services of unemployed women and youth in the school nutrition programme rather than outsourcing outside the communities.
Caring for Older Persons
The old age pension is the second most popular grant. The number of beneficiaries for this grant increased from 1,8 million recipients in April 2000 to more than 2 million in 2003. This represents an increase of 7,7% over three years. The Older Persons Bill will go a long way in further ensuring that the rights of the older persons are protected and promoted.
Towards a Comprehensive Social Security
We have noted the gaps with regard to the provision of social assistance due to age and other factors affecting a large number of people. In essence, the process of developing a comprehensive social security system that builds on existing contributory and non-contributory schemes and prioritises the most vulnerable households is under way. The establishment of a Social Health Insurance and the Road Accident Fund will go along way in further strengthening the comprehensive social security programme, which we hope to come into effect by 2006.
Furthermore various poverty relief programmes are being more integrated and we are working more closely, under the banner of building a people's contract with the various sectors and partners like the business community, labour, faith-based organisations as well as community-based organisations. To that extent strengthening partnerships critical, thus our efforts to strengthen institutions such as the National Development Agency, whose mandate remains the strengthening of civil society.
Provision of Food Security
Ladies and Gentlemen we are also happy to report that the Food Emergency Programme has thus far by and large gone very well. The social cluster departments led by the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs together with their provincial counterparts, are responsible for coordinating the process of delivering assistance through the pilot Food Emergency Scheme to the poorest households. The programme is broadly aimed at halving hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity by 2005.
Following the escalation of food prices in 2002, R400 million was by government to assist both our neighbours in the Southern African region and the poorest households that could not afford up to R200 expenditure on food. These amounted to about 245 000 families including child-headed households. These families have been identified in partnership with faith-based organisations, business sector, the trade unions and community organisations in all the nine provinces and R230 million was used in the first year whilst the rest was sent to our neighbours through the World Food Programme.
A further amount of R1,2 billion has been allocated as a conditional grant to provinces over the next three years (2003/2004 to 2005/2006) and distribution is currently underway. About 300 000 poorest households (i.e. over 1,5 million persons) have been provided with food parcels. Worth noting is that this programme has indeed ensured that in households where there was uncertainty of what to eat the next day especially child-headed households, there are at least meals for a period of three months, during which beneficiaries are being registered for social grants, linked to sustainable poverty relief and income generation programmes and supported to be self-reliant.
* The biggest challenge at this stage is to ensure that this pilot is reinforced by the sustainable programme of ploughing that will enhance self-reliance amongst communities and the Department of Agriculture is looking forward to support from the Department of Finance.
Mitigating the Impact of HIV/AIDS
Ladies and Gentlemen, the implications of the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS were identified as the country's most important population and development challenge.
Consequently the Home-Based Care Programme for people with HIV/AIDS has been accelerated in partnership with provinces and other stakeholders. Consequently, an increased number of communities, families and individuals are accessing services provided through this programme. The number of sites for the home/community-based care/support increased during the 2003/4 financial year to 400 sites compared to 185 during the previous financial year. Approximately 26 900 additional children who are vulnerable due to HIV/AIDS were identified. In total, the number of children identified since the inception of this programme in the year 2 000, is now approximately 75 000. Furthermore, during the appraisal of home and community-based care projects in 2003, a total of 892 were identified.
Other interventions include partnerships with faith-based organisations, schools, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs) and the donor community; and participation in various awareness campaigns.
* One of the critical challenges we will be tackling with regard to the roll out of anti-retrovirals will be to ensure involvement of professionals like retired nurses and social workers; infrastructure for rural areas with regard and civil society involvement will be very critical. We will hold our indaba with stakeholders soon to deal with these challenges.
Alongside, we have given priority not only to deliver services but most importantly to improve the quality of those services. In this regard the Social Assistance Bill, the South African Social Security Agency Bill and the Older Persons Bill were tabled in the 2003 session of parliament to facilitate the creation of a coherent and integrated social security system that is in line with the constitutional injunction to ensure effective service delivery.
The Social Assistance Bill paves the way for uniformity, equal and equitable access in the provision of social assistance and will facilitate the transfer of the administration of social assistance from provinces to the national government. In addition, the Bill paves the way for the Agency establishment.
The objective of the South African Social Security Agency Bill is to establish a focused institution to administer and pay grants to ensure successful targeting of the poorest of the poor, and to eliminate waste. The passing of the above pieces of legislation will result in the establishment of a national cohesive social security system in the next three to five years.
The high levels of poverty and unemployment in general also necessitated the provision of a safety net for a rapidly growing number of vulnerable people with disabilities.
Integrating people with disabilities into poverty relief projects and making these projects more easily accessible to them has continued to be a major challenge. Consultations are underway with various organisations, particularly those that represent people with disabilities to work out more effective mechanisms to implement these objectives successfully.
Lack of skilled development professionals; inadequate resources i.e. transport, office space, etc; complete isolation of poor and rural communities from assets i.e. institutions such as banks, suppliers, training institutions etc; isolation from information; no or low levels of literacy and numeracy further compounds the situation. In this light, the country's objective to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by the year 2014 requires, now more than ever before a multi-sectoral and integrated response.
This includes rebuilding of families and communities through programmes empowering young, old and disabled people, as well as women. This is even more important give the fact that 2004 is the International Year of the Family. A comprehensive childcare legislation to effectively protect form all forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation has become even more critical and urgent. The implementation of the Child Protection Register will therefore be escalated. Beyond the current 3 325 of cases now registered. There is therefore an urgent need to respond to the brutal effects of all forms of violence against women, children, older persons and other vulnerable groups, as well as design effective strategies to deal with the perpetrators.
Comprehensive youth and women development programmes, including social crime prevention, have thus become top priority within the context of enhancing moral regeneration as well as community development.
In this regard the extended public works programmes that will enhance early childhood development, create work opportunities and enhance poverty eradication have been put on top of the social development agenda of the social cluster.
Transformation of welfare services is to be accelerated with the finalisation of the improvement of the conditions of the social workers in terms of remuneration, the retention strategy as well as the financing policy. Given the serious challenges of poverty, HIV and AIDS, particularly the implementation of the integrated HIV and AIDS strategy, including the roll out of the ARVs, social workers are faced with serious challenges and hazardous conditions that necessitate a deep-going improvement of their conditions and the process is underway to address that matter urgently and comprehensively.
In conclusion the key priority will be to develop:
* A more efficient delivery of social grants to rural beneficiaries, the reduction of corruption and incorporation of these grants into a system of comprehensive social security programme. (We will in this regard endeavour to effectively use government resources like post offices.)
* Expanding the Public Works Programme to include both labour intensive construction and social services to address the causes and consequences of poverty
* Addressing HIV and AIDS and other emerging diseases by reducing the incidence of infection among high-risk groups, treatment of those infected and increasing access to home-based care.
These will go a long way in bringing closer the achievement of our national goal of building a caring society and abetter life for all.
For more information: Mbulelo Musi
Cell: 082 904 3395
Tel: (012) 312 7653/4
Fax: (012) 312 7988
E-mail: mbulelo.musi@socdev.gov.za
Issued by: Ministry of Social Development
9 February 2004
Source: Ministry of Social Development
Title: Z Skweyiya: Parliamentary Media Briefing, February 2004
BRIEFING BY SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER, DR ZOLA SKWEYIYA, AT THE SOCIAL CLUSTER PARLIAMENTARY MEDIA BRIEFING, 9 February 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media
This social cluster media briefing takes place against the backdrop of significant developments that have taken place over the past year in particular as well as the last ten years in general with regard to the alleviation of poverty and the building of a better life for all.
Alleviating Poverty through the Provision of Social Security
As we prepare to celebrate ten years of democracy, as the social cluster we are heartened to report that, in line with the government's constitutional and policy commitment to provide social security to the most vulnerable sectors of our society, particularly older persons, people with disabilities and most importantly children, we have made unprecedented strides in the history of our country. In fact, the provision of social assistance in the form of means-tested cash transfers remains one of the most effective mechanisms used by Government to reduce poverty.
The numbers of beneficiaries and expenditure on grants, especially the child support grant (CSG), the foster care grant, the care dependency grant and the disability grant have shown a significant increase over the past three years. Social grants have increased 3,5 times since 1994, significantly reducing the proportion of people that would be living in poverty were it not for state transfers. Between April 2000 and the end of November 2004 alone, the number of social grant beneficiaries has increased from 3,2 million to no less than 7,5 million! This represents an increase of 128% over the last four years. The government currently pays to the excess of R34 billion on social grants per annum!
Putting Children First
The CSG accounts for most of the increases in the number of social grants beneficiaries. Under the banner of Putting Children First, we have been able to increase the number of children in payment from 349 000 in 2000 to about 3,9 million children at the end of November 2003. Even more importantly, we have already exceeded the target of 3 million set for March 2004. There are currently over 4 million children registered for the CSG.
However, alongside we have experienced problems that relate to fraud. There are still many who do not qualify yet grants through the defrauding the system whilst others abuse it. In a few weeks we will be launching an anti-fraud programme that will assist us to take drastic steps against those that defraud the system and thereby rob the poor of their much-needed assistance. We appeal with all sectors of society to work closely with us in this regard.
More children under 11 years to benefit
Because of a rollout extension of the grant to children up to the age of 14 years over a three-year period, the number will further increase. In 2003/4 we started registering children under the age of nine years qualified for the benefit in the 2003/4 financial year and the programme has gone very well thus far. This year children who are nine and ten years (i.e. under 11 years) will qualify, whilst all those under 14 years will be registered in the 2005/6 financial year. Government has made available R1,2 billion during the 2003/4 financial year. This will increase to R3,6 billion in 2004/5; R6,9 billion in 2005/6 and R9,2 billion in 2006/7.
* For this programme to assist we appeal on parents and communities at large to make sure that children have birth certificates and are registered. Even more importantly we appeal to school governing bodies (SGBs) to assist by also adopting and integrating the school nutrition programmes in the activities and programmes.
* We also urge the SGBs to make sure that they mobilise the services of unemployed women and youth in the school nutrition programme rather than outsourcing outside the communities.
Caring for Older Persons
The old age pension is the second most popular grant. The number of beneficiaries for this grant increased from 1,8 million recipients in April 2000 to more than 2 million in 2003. This represents an increase of 7,7% over three years. The Older Persons Bill will go a long way in further ensuring that the rights of the older persons are protected and promoted.
Towards a Comprehensive Social Security
We have noted the gaps with regard to the provision of social assistance due to age and other factors affecting a large number of people. In essence, the process of developing a comprehensive social security system that builds on existing contributory and non-contributory schemes and prioritises the most vulnerable households is under way. The establishment of a Social Health Insurance and the Road Accident Fund will go along way in further strengthening the comprehensive social security programme, which we hope to come into effect by 2006.
Furthermore various poverty relief programmes are being more integrated and we are working more closely, under the banner of building a people's contract with the various sectors and partners like the business community, labour, faith-based organisations as well as community-based organisations. To that extent strengthening partnerships critical, thus our efforts to strengthen institutions such as the National Development Agency, whose mandate remains the strengthening of civil society.
Provision of Food Security
Ladies and Gentlemen we are also happy to report that the Food Emergency Programme has thus far by and large gone very well. The social cluster departments led by the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs together with their provincial counterparts, are responsible for coordinating the process of delivering assistance through the pilot Food Emergency Scheme to the poorest households. The programme is broadly aimed at halving hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity by 2005.
Following the escalation of food prices in 2002, R400 million was by government to assist both our neighbours in the Southern African region and the poorest households that could not afford up to R200 expenditure on food. These amounted to about 245 000 families including child-headed households. These families have been identified in partnership with faith-based organisations, business sector, the trade unions and community organisations in all the nine provinces and R230 million was used in the first year whilst the rest was sent to our neighbours through the World Food Programme.
A further amount of R1,2 billion has been allocated as a conditional grant to provinces over the next three years (2003/2004 to 2005/2006) and distribution is currently underway. About 300 000 poorest households (i.e. over 1,5 million persons) have been provided with food parcels. Worth noting is that this programme has indeed ensured that in households where there was uncertainty of what to eat the next day especially child-headed households, there are at least meals for a period of three months, during which beneficiaries are being registered for social grants, linked to sustainable poverty relief and income generation programmes and supported to be self-reliant.
* The biggest challenge at this stage is to ensure that this pilot is reinforced by the sustainable programme of ploughing that will enhance self-reliance amongst communities and the Department of Agriculture is looking forward to support from the Department of Finance.
Mitigating the Impact of HIV/AIDS
Ladies and Gentlemen, the implications of the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS were identified as the country's most important population and development challenge.
Consequently the Home-Based Care Programme for people with HIV/AIDS has been accelerated in partnership with provinces and other stakeholders. Consequently, an increased number of communities, families and individuals are accessing services provided through this programme. The number of sites for the home/community-based care/support increased during the 2003/4 financial year to 400 sites compared to 185 during the previous financial year. Approximately 26 900 additional children who are vulnerable due to HIV/AIDS were identified. In total, the number of children identified since the inception of this programme in the year 2 000, is now approximately 75 000. Furthermore, during the appraisal of home and community-based care projects in 2003, a total of 892 were identified.
Other interventions include partnerships with faith-based organisations, schools, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs) and the donor community; and participation in various awareness campaigns.
* One of the critical challenges we will be tackling with regard to the roll out of anti-retrovirals will be to ensure involvement of professionals like retired nurses and social workers; infrastructure for rural areas with regard and civil society involvement will be very critical. We will hold our indaba with stakeholders soon to deal with these challenges.
Alongside, we have given priority not only to deliver services but most importantly to improve the quality of those services. In this regard the Social Assistance Bill, the South African Social Security Agency Bill and the Older Persons Bill were tabled in the 2003 session of parliament to facilitate the creation of a coherent and integrated social security system that is in line with the constitutional injunction to ensure effective service delivery.
The Social Assistance Bill paves the way for uniformity, equal and equitable access in the provision of social assistance and will facilitate the transfer of the administration of social assistance from provinces to the national government. In addition, the Bill paves the way for the Agency establishment.
The objective of the South African Social Security Agency Bill is to establish a focused institution to administer and pay grants to ensure successful targeting of the poorest of the poor, and to eliminate waste. The passing of the above pieces of legislation will result in the establishment of a national cohesive social security system in the next three to five years.
The high levels of poverty and unemployment in general also necessitated the provision of a safety net for a rapidly growing number of vulnerable people with disabilities.
Integrating people with disabilities into poverty relief projects and making these projects more easily accessible to them has continued to be a major challenge. Consultations are underway with various organisations, particularly those that represent people with disabilities to work out more effective mechanisms to implement these objectives successfully.
Lack of skilled development professionals; inadequate resources i.e. transport, office space, etc; complete isolation of poor and rural communities from assets i.e. institutions such as banks, suppliers, training institutions etc; isolation from information; no or low levels of literacy and numeracy further compounds the situation. In this light, the country's objective to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by the year 2014 requires, now more than ever before a multi-sectoral and integrated response.
This includes rebuilding of families and communities through programmes empowering young, old and disabled people, as well as women. This is even more important give the fact that 2004 is the International Year of the Family. A comprehensive childcare legislation to effectively protect form all forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation has become even more critical and urgent. The implementation of the Child Protection Register will therefore be escalated. Beyond the current 3 325 of cases now registered. There is therefore an urgent need to respond to the brutal effects of all forms of violence against women, children, older persons and other vulnerable groups, as well as design effective strategies to deal with the perpetrators.
Comprehensive youth and women development programmes, including social crime prevention, have thus become top priority within the context of enhancing moral regeneration as well as community development.
In this regard the extended public works programmes that will enhance early childhood development, create work opportunities and enhance poverty eradication have been put on top of the social development agenda of the social cluster.
Transformation of welfare services is to be accelerated with the finalisation of the improvement of the conditions of the social workers in terms of remuneration, the retention strategy as well as the financing policy. Given the serious challenges of poverty, HIV and AIDS, particularly the implementation of the integrated HIV and AIDS strategy, including the roll out of the ARVs, social workers are faced with serious challenges and hazardous conditions that necessitate a deep-going improvement of their conditions and the process is underway to address that matter urgently and comprehensively.
In conclusion the key priority will be to develop:
* A more efficient delivery of social grants to rural beneficiaries, the reduction of corruption and incorporation of these grants into a system of comprehensive social security programme. (We will in this regard endeavour to effectively use government resources like post offices.)
* Expanding the Public Works Programme to include both labour intensive construction and social services to address the causes and consequences of poverty
* Addressing HIV and AIDS and other emerging diseases by reducing the incidence of infection among high-risk groups, treatment of those infected and increasing access to home-based care.
These will go a long way in bringing closer the achievement of our national goal of building a caring society and abetter life for all.
For more information: Mbulelo Musi
Cell: 082 904 3395
Tel: (012) 312 7653/4
Fax: (012) 312 7988
E-mail: mbulelo.musi@socdev.gov.za
Issued by: Ministry of Social Development
9 February 2004
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