Date: 03/11/2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Monitoring and Evaluation media briefing, November 2005
Social cluster briefing by Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on the Monitoring and Evaluation of Government’s Plan of Action, Cape Town
Ladies and gentlemen
As you may be aware, we have come to the end of the second quarter of this financial year. We will report progress on the following issues this morning:
* Comprehensive social security
* Comprehensive health care
* Meeting the increasing challenge of housing and human settlement
* Education – broadening access and improving quality.
Comprehensive Social Security
Extension of the child support grant
With regards to Comprehensive Social Security, good progress has been made on the extension of the child support grant. The overall target set by government was to reach 3,2 million children by 2006 and as at the end of September 2005, we have reached more than 2.7 million children. Of these 1.1 million are aged between seven and eight years, over 970 000 aged between nine and 10 years, and over 660 000 children are aged between 11 and 13 years.
A remaining challenge is to meet the targets for provinces such as the Eastern Cape, Free State and North West, where despite major efforts, targets have not been reached. The Department of Social Development will be intensifying its efforts to assist these provinces.
National Social Security Agency
As you know, we decided to shift the social assistance function from provinces to the national sphere and established the South African Social Security Agency earlier this year. The Department of Social Development is setting up this structure that will take over the function from the provinces at an appropriate time.
The agency is currently building its capacity and expertise base with the assistance of the Government of Netherlands. It has also developed a new service delivery model to assist with quality in its service delivery.
Comprehensive Anti Fraud plan
We reported earlier that the Department of Social Development entered into a partnership agreement with the Special Investigating Unit to address corruption in the sector. To date over 300 civil servants have been arrested and thousands more cases will be investigated over the next two years. Some 270 officials have been prosecuted, of which 83 cases have been finalised, all resulting in convictions. It is expected that another 423 officials will be arrested in November 2005. As we speak, 67 officials are appearing in court in the Western Cape today and 40 others will appear in KwaZulu-Natal courts tomorrow.
All convicted officials are required to sign an acknowledgement of debt in terms of which they are obligated to repay the money unlawfully received. They will also face internal disciplinary measures.
Nine-thousand eight-hundred (9 800) officials will be suspended from the Socpen system, which will result in an estimated saving of R224 million. In addition, approximately R2 million will be recovered from government officials.
Perverse incentives
Many assumptions are being made about the growth of numbers of people accessing grants and the massive fraud experienced in the system. To assess the impact of social grants on our communities, we have commissioned research on perverse incentives. These incentives refer to behavioural changes in our communities and examples include, alleged increase in teenage pregnancies relating to the child support grant and potential fostering of children by biological family members in order to access the foster care grant.
Dealing with the remaining challenges of sanitation
We are pleased to report that the National Sanitation Task Team is now operational and that, government is well on its way towards meeting its target of replacing 35 000 buckets with appropriate sanitation technology by 1 April 2006. So far, more than 11 700 buckets have been replaced by end of August this year.
We have revised the national target for eradicating the bucket system from 2006 to 2008 and Treasury has approved R1,2 billion towards achieving this target. The key challenges we still face include the increasing demand for services in mushrooming informal settlements on urban fringes as well as the lack of dedicated human resources and skill for sustainable implementation.
Comprehensive Healthcare
We have come a long way in implementing our transformation agenda in the health sector of this country.
Healthy lifestyle and the Vuka! South Africa move for your Health Campaign
The promotion of healthy lifestyles campaign is gaining momentum and more and more communities are initiating and participating in projects to improve their health. During August and September numerous healthy lifestyles events were held in all provinces, 21 000 community members attended the events, 2 000 were screened for blood sugar, blood pressure and body mass index, and over 15 000 people participated in our health walks.
The healthy lifestyles network has broadened from 14 to 24, mainly from the private and non-governmental organisation (NGO) sectors. We are working closely with the University of Cape Town to develop a monitoring system to evaluate the impact of the healthy lifestyle programmes including the Move for Health campaign.
Update on malaria control in South Africa and collaborative work with Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Our efforts to improve interdepartmental and inter country co-ordination to address malaria in the country has met with some success as can be seen in the reduction of reported cases and fatalities. The total number of reported cases for the period July to August 2005 is 247 with two fatalities. During the same period last year, 930 cases were reported with four fatalities. This indicates a 72% reduction of cases and 50% reduction in deaths.
Besides the inter country collaboration, the use of DDT and indoor residual spraying have contributed to the success of the programme.
Next week, SADC Health Ministers will meet in South Africa to discuss challenges still facing the region in combating Malaria. We will be marking SADC Malaria in KwaZulu-Natal to encourage malaria affected communities to take preventative measures such as spraying their homes.
Education: Broadening access and improving quality
The Recapitalisation Plan for all the 50 Further Education and Training (FET) colleges for capacity building remains well on track. The new funding framework allows for greater alignment between resource allocation and national human resource development needs. National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NFSAS) is in line with the national human resource development targets set out in the National Plan for Higher Education.
Since April 2005 401 schools have been provided with water, 983 schools with sanitation facilities and 167 with electricity. The number of schools without water has declined from 4774 in September 2005 to 3926 indicating that 848 schools have been provided with water since September 2004. The number of schools without sanitation facilities has declined from 4300 in September 2004 to 2 912 in September 2005.
Meeting the increasing challenge of Housing and Human Settlement
The National Housing Strategy received a financial boost in September with the approval of R17.4 billion over the MTEF period. An Inter Ministerial Committee was established to oversee implementation.
Government is undertaking the following steps to fast track implementation:
* Piloting innovative partnerships to upgrade informal settlements
* Accrediting local municipalities to deliver housing
* Building capacity; and
* Unbundling legislation and administrative measures, which stifles housing delivery.
The restructuring of the national and provincial housing departments have commenced. All mandates of housing institutions and all legislation impacting on the new housing plan are being reviewed.
Subsidy bands have been collapsed and more beneficiaries can now access housing. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with four major banks to invest R42 billion in low cost housing over the next three years.
A subsidy mechanism for the people earning more that R3 500 and less than R7 000 has also been established to enable more South Africans to access housing.
From this report, I can state with confidence that the social cluster has worked hard and achieved many milestones. Clearly, challenges remain as I have indicated.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health
3 November 2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Monitoring and Evaluation media briefing, November 2005
Social cluster briefing by Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on the Monitoring and Evaluation of Government’s Plan of Action, Cape Town
Ladies and gentlemen
As you may be aware, we have come to the end of the second quarter of this financial year. We will report progress on the following issues this morning:
* Comprehensive social security
* Comprehensive health care
* Meeting the increasing challenge of housing and human settlement
* Education – broadening access and improving quality.
Comprehensive Social Security
Extension of the child support grant
With regards to Comprehensive Social Security, good progress has been made on the extension of the child support grant. The overall target set by government was to reach 3,2 million children by 2006 and as at the end of September 2005, we have reached more than 2.7 million children. Of these 1.1 million are aged between seven and eight years, over 970 000 aged between nine and 10 years, and over 660 000 children are aged between 11 and 13 years.
A remaining challenge is to meet the targets for provinces such as the Eastern Cape, Free State and North West, where despite major efforts, targets have not been reached. The Department of Social Development will be intensifying its efforts to assist these provinces.
National Social Security Agency
As you know, we decided to shift the social assistance function from provinces to the national sphere and established the South African Social Security Agency earlier this year. The Department of Social Development is setting up this structure that will take over the function from the provinces at an appropriate time.
The agency is currently building its capacity and expertise base with the assistance of the Government of Netherlands. It has also developed a new service delivery model to assist with quality in its service delivery.
Comprehensive Anti Fraud plan
We reported earlier that the Department of Social Development entered into a partnership agreement with the Special Investigating Unit to address corruption in the sector. To date over 300 civil servants have been arrested and thousands more cases will be investigated over the next two years. Some 270 officials have been prosecuted, of which 83 cases have been finalised, all resulting in convictions. It is expected that another 423 officials will be arrested in November 2005. As we speak, 67 officials are appearing in court in the Western Cape today and 40 others will appear in KwaZulu-Natal courts tomorrow.
All convicted officials are required to sign an acknowledgement of debt in terms of which they are obligated to repay the money unlawfully received. They will also face internal disciplinary measures.
Nine-thousand eight-hundred (9 800) officials will be suspended from the Socpen system, which will result in an estimated saving of R224 million. In addition, approximately R2 million will be recovered from government officials.
Perverse incentives
Many assumptions are being made about the growth of numbers of people accessing grants and the massive fraud experienced in the system. To assess the impact of social grants on our communities, we have commissioned research on perverse incentives. These incentives refer to behavioural changes in our communities and examples include, alleged increase in teenage pregnancies relating to the child support grant and potential fostering of children by biological family members in order to access the foster care grant.
Dealing with the remaining challenges of sanitation
We are pleased to report that the National Sanitation Task Team is now operational and that, government is well on its way towards meeting its target of replacing 35 000 buckets with appropriate sanitation technology by 1 April 2006. So far, more than 11 700 buckets have been replaced by end of August this year.
We have revised the national target for eradicating the bucket system from 2006 to 2008 and Treasury has approved R1,2 billion towards achieving this target. The key challenges we still face include the increasing demand for services in mushrooming informal settlements on urban fringes as well as the lack of dedicated human resources and skill for sustainable implementation.
Comprehensive Healthcare
We have come a long way in implementing our transformation agenda in the health sector of this country.
Healthy lifestyle and the Vuka! South Africa move for your Health Campaign
The promotion of healthy lifestyles campaign is gaining momentum and more and more communities are initiating and participating in projects to improve their health. During August and September numerous healthy lifestyles events were held in all provinces, 21 000 community members attended the events, 2 000 were screened for blood sugar, blood pressure and body mass index, and over 15 000 people participated in our health walks.
The healthy lifestyles network has broadened from 14 to 24, mainly from the private and non-governmental organisation (NGO) sectors. We are working closely with the University of Cape Town to develop a monitoring system to evaluate the impact of the healthy lifestyle programmes including the Move for Health campaign.
Update on malaria control in South Africa and collaborative work with Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Our efforts to improve interdepartmental and inter country co-ordination to address malaria in the country has met with some success as can be seen in the reduction of reported cases and fatalities. The total number of reported cases for the period July to August 2005 is 247 with two fatalities. During the same period last year, 930 cases were reported with four fatalities. This indicates a 72% reduction of cases and 50% reduction in deaths.
Besides the inter country collaboration, the use of DDT and indoor residual spraying have contributed to the success of the programme.
Next week, SADC Health Ministers will meet in South Africa to discuss challenges still facing the region in combating Malaria. We will be marking SADC Malaria in KwaZulu-Natal to encourage malaria affected communities to take preventative measures such as spraying their homes.
Education: Broadening access and improving quality
The Recapitalisation Plan for all the 50 Further Education and Training (FET) colleges for capacity building remains well on track. The new funding framework allows for greater alignment between resource allocation and national human resource development needs. National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NFSAS) is in line with the national human resource development targets set out in the National Plan for Higher Education.
Since April 2005 401 schools have been provided with water, 983 schools with sanitation facilities and 167 with electricity. The number of schools without water has declined from 4774 in September 2005 to 3926 indicating that 848 schools have been provided with water since September 2004. The number of schools without sanitation facilities has declined from 4300 in September 2004 to 2 912 in September 2005.
Meeting the increasing challenge of Housing and Human Settlement
The National Housing Strategy received a financial boost in September with the approval of R17.4 billion over the MTEF period. An Inter Ministerial Committee was established to oversee implementation.
Government is undertaking the following steps to fast track implementation:
* Piloting innovative partnerships to upgrade informal settlements
* Accrediting local municipalities to deliver housing
* Building capacity; and
* Unbundling legislation and administrative measures, which stifles housing delivery.
The restructuring of the national and provincial housing departments have commenced. All mandates of housing institutions and all legislation impacting on the new housing plan are being reviewed.
Subsidy bands have been collapsed and more beneficiaries can now access housing. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with four major banks to invest R42 billion in low cost housing over the next three years.
A subsidy mechanism for the people earning more that R3 500 and less than R7 000 has also been established to enable more South Africans to access housing.
From this report, I can state with confidence that the social cluster has worked hard and achieved many milestones. Clearly, challenges remain as I have indicated.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health
3 November 2005
Advertisement
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
