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Date : 17/06/2004
Source: Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Title: M van Schalkwyk: Environmental Affairs and Tourism Dept Budget Vote debate, NCOP


SPEECH DURING POLICY DEBATE ON BUDGET VOTE 28: ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS & TOURISM, BY MARTHINUS VAN SCHALKWYK, MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS & TOURISM, National Council of Provinces, 17 June 2004

Introduction

We find ourselves in the unusual and reversed position this year of debating the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Budget Vote in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) before we do so in the National Assembly. To some this may seem counter-convention, but I believe it is also loaded with positive significance.

There are few other portfolios in which close partnership and cooperation between national, provincial and local government is more critical for success, or in which there are greater public opportunities to deliver on the President's injunction to grow the First Economy and to intervene decisively in the Second. As a former delegate to the NCOP, I am greatly pleased today to have the opportunity of presenting my first Budget Vote in this chamber.

Chairperson, I approach the task of leading the Environmental Affairs and Tourism portfolio both with great enthusiasm and no small amount of caution. Enthusiasm, because I can think of no task more important or more exciting - in the first ten weeks alone of the new Government we have held the biggest and most successful Tourism Indaba to date, we have celebrated National Environment Week, and we have launched a new domestic tourism campaign. Caution, because, in less than a month and a half I have experienced, first-hand, the passion and emotion that is unleashed on issues like toll-road developments, beach bans on 4x4 vehicles, and of course, the culling of the Tahrs of Table Mountain.

Chairperson, the wide-ranging nature of Environmental Affairs and Tourism does not lend itself to complete coverage within the scope of a single Budget speech. With the understanding of Members I would like to focus today on two areas of particular relevance and concern to this House.

These focus areas are the protection and management of our marine resources - especially the fishing sector, and the importance of closer tourism cooperation and development - especially in our new Domestic Tourism Growth campaign. With both SALGA (South African Local Government Association) and our provinces represented in this House, I would like today to request your increased assistance and intensified partnership in these endeavours.

I shall, on Monday in the National Assembly debate, deal with issues such as our poverty relief programmes, the expansion of our protected areas, and the further regulation and enforcement of environmental protections, but Members should please feel free to raise any issues of concern to them, which I will then address in my reply.

Strengthening Marine and Coastal Enforcement

In the light of our celebrations of ten years of democracy, I would like to begin today by confirming that, by next May, our Department will have taken possession of four new state-of-the-art environmental patrol vessels - all four to be named after prominent South African women whose lives and deaths have became symbols of courage, dedication, and singular commitment. The spirit of Lilian Ngoyi, Sarah Baartman, Victoria Mxenge, and Ruth First will live on in these vessels, as they and their crews form the nucleus of what is effectively the first functional coast-guard for South and Southern Africa.

Chairperson, as Members will have seen during National Environment Week, we have now declared another four new Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) as part of our programme to create sustainable marine resources. The Table Mountain National Park, Bird Island, Aliwal Shoal and Pondoland MPA's bring the stretch of South African coastline under protection much closer to the 20% target set for 2010 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and the World Parks Congress.

Another major success has been the effective prosecution of environmental crimes in specialised environmental courts in Hermanus in the Western Cape and in Port Elizabeth. The Hermanus court has a prosecution success rate of 70%. An expansion of the environmental courts to KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng should be the next step over the next twelve to eighteen months. These measures are all linked to the ongoing strengthening by our Department of our enforcement and compliance capacity, both in marine and coastal management, and more broadly in environmental affairs.

New Fishing Right Allocations

Chairperson, as the Members from our coastal provinces will confirm, there are few people more passionate or more vocal than a South African fisherman. The allocation of fishing rights will always remain a high-profile and thorny issue because it impacts so directly and immediately on the lives of coastal families and communities.

We must recall that in 1994 there were only about 350 rights issued and only to white-owned companies. Today more than 5830 individuals and companies have been granted fishing rights, with more than 60% previously disadvantaged ownership and more than 70% from the small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMME) sector.

I am pleased to announce today that preparations are well advanced for the next round of fishing right allocations - the long-term rights of between 8 and 15 years. This process will take place next year, across 19 commercial fisheries, and we anticipate receiving and evaluating more than 5000 applications. The result of these new allocations will be much-improved stability and certainty in the fishing industry, especially for our smaller operators for whom financing has been exceedingly difficult or impossible without longer-term guarantees. We will gazette our new Fisheries Policy by July.

I am also pleased to announce the new measures that we are instituting to ensure that the allocations process is raised to a level where the fairness and legality of rights issued is assured. Independent forensic auditors, who have already been employed, will examine both officials and fishing applicants. Separate and independent project management specialists and lawyers have also been retained as another level of checks and balances. Our forensic auditors have been briefed to verify not only the permit holders' conduct in the different fisheries, but also to carry out lifestyle audits of staff members to ensure that no staff member is influenced to under-report catches or act in any other wrongful manner. We are in the process of examining all of our checks and balances to ensure an even better system of fishing right allocations is developed - in which the integrity and credibility of the allocations is beyond question.

As far as right holders themselves are concerned, our Department issued 171 notices to right holders who appeared to have contravened permit conditions, including over-fishing. In addition, together with the Scorpions and the Department's forensic auditors, we are currently engaged in two very high profile audits and investigations into illegal and unreported fishing in the abalone and pelagic industries, the results of which will be announced in the near future.

Fishing Imbizo & Giving New Voice to Commercial Fisheries

Chairperson, the last four years has shown that, on average, 2 working days out of every week is spent by senior officials in our Department attending to queries from individual members of the fishing community.

Clearly though, there is a need for better coordination of interests and queries within less organised fisheries.

For this reason our Department will be looking to, and encouraging, over the next 12 months, each of our commercial fishing sectors - from the net and line fisheries to the hake longline and lobster fisheries - to establish reputable and representative industry bodies to speak for their members' interests.

Ons is absoluut daartoe verbind om met ons diverse vissersgemeenskappe te werk om hulle te oortuig dat die volhoubare benutting van die bron die enigste opsie is vir die huidige en ons volgende geslag. Voordat enige regte toegeken word, is ons daartoe verbind om so wyd as moontlik te konsulteer met ons vissersgemeenskappe.

Although much has changed for the better in South African fishing, I believe that the plight of our subsistence fishers is deserving of our focused attention. To this end I will be conducting, from next month, a series of "Fishing Imbizos", in which we will travel the length of our coast, starting in Port Elizabeth on 20 July, Saldanha on 29 July, Fish Hoek and Gansbaai on 30 July, and KwaZulu-Natal, Lamberts Bay, and Port Nolloth in September.

We will meet with fishers and their families. We will explain our approach to the management of resources. And we will take their advice about how best to develop our fishing policies - particularly with regard to the smaller commercial fisheries like line and net fisheries.

In albei hierdie prosesse om ons kommunikasie met die vissery industrie asook vissersgemeenskappe te verbeter - gaan ons afhanklik wees van die noue samewerking en ondersteuning van ons kollegas in Provinsiale en Plaaslike Regering.

Ensuring Closer Domestic Tourism Cooperation

Voorsitter, nog 'n gebied wat baie noue samewerking tussen ons Departement en die ander sfere van Regering gaan verg is die bemarking van ons nuwe Plaaslike Toerisme Groei-strategie.

This is the first time that such a campaign has ever been attempted on this scale - binding in all nine provinces and our national Government to convince our people that holiday travel in South Africa is both affordable and worth exploring. The domestic tourism market is already worth about R49 billion - only 13% less than the value of our international tourism market. It is estimated that there is an emerging group of over 6,3 million South Africans with the resources and the desire to travel, but most never do because they believe it is unaffordable, or that there are not holiday options to appeal to them within South Africa.

Driven by our Department, SA Tourism, and the Provincial Marketing Forum, the process to turn this situation around has already been underway since June last year. Our unique South African brand that has been the result, rests on four essential South African experiences - adventure, urban vibe, affordable luxury, and discovery.

It is this identity, this South African brand, which has resulted in the Sho't Left Media Campaign, launched last week in Langa. We want South Africans to travel more in our own country.

Chairperson, I encourage all of our provinces to play their part in nudging South Africans to explore and discover the wonder and beauty of our country. This campaign offers an excellent opportunity to all nine provinces to create greater awareness about what they offer in terms of leisure travel.

New BEE Scorecard for Tourism

As with the domestic growth campaign, another aspect of tourism that is of direct importance to this House is our transformation plan. For some years Government has been encouraging transformation in the industry, and despite many successes, we know that no one should underestimate the hard work that remains to expand the ownership and benefits of tourism in South Africa to include all our people.

One of the critical tourism transformation interventions of our Department this year will be the development of a BEE scorecard for the tourism industry. I shall be announcing the appointment of a Task Team on 13 July to advise me on this process. We are doing this in partnership with the Tourism Business Council of South Africa.

The scorecard will be informed by the Broad-Based BEE Act, developed by the DTI, and will provide clear targets and time-frames for the transformation of the tourism industry. Provinces will need to play an active role in this process, because implementation of the scorecard will happen at provincial and local levels, and these spheres of government will also be central in monitoring the implementation of the scorecard.

Developing our People, to Grow Tourism

Chairperson, we know that the response of many within the tourism sector to calls for transformation is that the will to transform is not met by the skills to do so. We understand that the key to future success in tourism is training and skills transfer of the highest order, and this why our Department will, from the end of this month, be taking over the funding of the Tourism Enterprise Programme (TEP). Initiated by the Business Trust over four years ago, this business linkages programme has already facilitated more than R1 billion worth of transactions, and created thousands of jobs.

Particularly in the light of the Growth and Development Summit Agreement, I am pleased to announce that we have now secured funding from the Treasury to continue the programme - R10 million this year, with a further R12 million and R15 million in the next two financial years. We are particularly pleased that the Business Trust will continue to assist us, in a Public-Private-Partnership, to the further value of R5 million this year.

We will be agreeing on specific provincial targets for the programme with our provincial coordinators as soon as the Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by the end of this month. A SMME training package is also being finalised by the Department and will be piloted in August this year.

Conclusion

Voorsitter, ter afsluiting, alles is in plek vir Omgewingsake en Toerisme om van krag tot krag te groei oor die volgende vyf jaar, die volgende dekade en die volgende geslag. Die sleutel tot daardie sukses is die ondersteuning, samewerking en vennootskappe van die belangegroepe vandag hier teenwoordig.

I would like to express my excitement to the NCOP about the team of MECs for environment and tourism with whom it will be my pleasure to work for the next five years. This is a critical portfolio, which has been blessed by skilled and dedicated men and women in every province.

My appreciation must also be recorded to the team in our Department under the leadership of our Director General, Dr Olver, our Ministry, and every statutory body for their professionalism and unflagging energy. The transition to a new Minister is almost never easy, but this process has been both smooth and efficient - an accomplishment worthy of recognition.

I would like to take this opportunity to convey to the House the greetings of our Deputy Minister, Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, who sends her sincere regrets about not participating in this debate today - she is currently attending a very important international meeting.

I would also like to thank all of the Members of this House who worked with our Department during the last term of government, and also to welcome those who have joined us in the new term. A special word of thanks must be extended to Rev. Moatshe and the other members of the select committee for all of the work that has already been invested in the Budget Vote deliberations. I have no doubt that we will continue to work in close partnership in facing the challenges ahead of us.

ENQUIRIES: RIAAN AUCAMP
Cell:(083) 778 9923)
Phindile Makwakwa
Cell: (082) 850 9559)
Issued by: Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
17 June 2004

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