Date: 21/09/2004
Source: The Presidency
Title: Zuma: Answers to questions in NCOP


DEPUTY PRESIDENT ZUMA RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS IN NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES, 21 September 2004

QUESTION NUMBER: 1

Mr T S Ralane to ask the Deputy President:

Whether, in light of recent media reports expressing concern regarding the impact of floor-crossing on stability and continuity in municipalities, he will make a statement to allay the fears of the people and to explain the constitutional legality of floor-crossing and its practicability within democracies?

Reply:

As the Honourable Member is aware, we amended the Constitution in 2002 to allow members of the National Assembly, Provincial Legislatures and municipal councils to change parties while still maintaining their seats.

Until the amendments took effect, members of these bodies would lose their seats should they resign from the party they belonged to.

Until we made provision for floor crossing, political representation remained frozen every five years. In other words the representation a party received in the 1999 Provincial and National elections would have remained the representation of that party until the next elections five years later.

This would be the case regardless of whatever political changes and developments took place in that party or the country as a whole. In municipalities, by-elections could be held for ward councillors but the proportional representation was similarly frozen every five years.

We made provision for floor crossing in recognition of the fact that human life in general, and political life in particular, are dynamic and that in the event of major changes to the political landscape of our country, public representatives needed to be allowed to leave their parties, join other parties and even form new ones without losing their seats.

In order to avoid the political instability that could result from whole scale floor-crossing at any time, we limited the times that this could take place to two periods in the beginning of September in the 2nd year and 4th years after an election.

I must remind members that the amendments to our Constitution were supported by all nine provinces and all but three of the parties represented in this House, namely the UDM, the IFP and the FF plus.

The few parties that opposed floor crossing took the matter to the Constitutional Court and asked the court to rule that the amendments were unconstitutional. The court however rejected these arguments and ruled in favour of the floor crossing legislation.

The court also recognised that, and I quote "the limitation of floor crossing to two window periods in the life of the legislature is clearly directed to concerns relating to stability within the legislatures that had been identified in the debates that had taken place concerning floor crossing".

QUESTION NUMBER: 2

Mr. DJ Botha to ask the Deputy President:

With reference to his oral reply to Question 7 in the National Assembly on

1 September 2004, (a) what will be the role of (i) provinces (ii) municipalities in achieving the Government's poverty alleviation and intervention in the economy and (b) how has the launch of the Expanded Public Works Programme been received in each province?

Reply:

(i) and (ii)

A number of institutional arrangements have been put in place at both national and provincial level to achieve the Extended Public Works Programme targets of creating one million job opportunities in its first five years.

Provincial Steering Committees have been established in all the provinces, and efforts are currently underway to obtain municipal representation on these Provincial Steering Committees.

Approximately R45 billion will be transferred from the national fiscus to provinces and municipalities for infrastructure expenditure over the next five years, through the Provincial and Municipal Infrastructure Grant Programmes. Through the Expanded Public Works Programme, this infrastructure expenditure will be carried out labour-intensively to create work opportunities coupled with training for approximately 750 000 unemployed people over the next five years.

In order to equip the provincial and municipal officials with the necessary skills to implement the programme, various training programmes have been put in place by the Department of Public Works.

b. To date, the Extended Public Works Programme has been launched in seven provinces, with launches in the North West and the Free State planned to take place before the end of September.

The launches have been well received by all the role players. National and provincial departments and municipalities, the SETA's, and in some cases private sector partners, the local leaders and the communities at large are enthusiastically working in an integrated fashion to plan the launches and implement the public works programmes;

The high turn-out at the launches has also demonstrated the value which people on the ground attach to this programme.

In the launches that I have attended in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng I have heard countless stories from people who say that the programme has drastically changed their lives. They are all unanimous in urging government to accelerate and intensify this programme because of the positive impact that it has on the poor and needy

QUESTION NUMBER: 3

Ms F Nyanda to ask the Deputy President:

(1) Whether, in light of the celebration of August as a women's month and following the spate of child murders in various provinces in that month, the government has taken or intends taking any steps to prevent such murders, if not why not, if so, what steps?

(2) Whether the Moral Regeneration Movement can play any role in the in the provinces to quell this situation, if so, what are the relevant details;

(3) Whether the media can play any positive role in raising awareness in communities around these issues, if so, what are the relevant details?

Reply:

(1) The issue of child murders is one of the most diabolical and distressing crimes we have to deal with, and our interventions in this regard fall under the broader spectrum of government's fight against crime.

We have set ourselves a reduction rate target of between seven and ten percent per annum for the next ten years. We are giving particular attention to murder, rape, assault, and aggravated robbery.

While we have realized considerable gains against certain categories of serious crimes between 1994 and 2004, the declines have not been to our satisfaction hence our determination to achieve reduction rates of between 7% and 10% per annum.

We have made the point several times that the people bearing the brunt of crime mostly live in socio-economically depressed areas. We have just finalized a socio-graphic profiling of the 63 priority police station areas where most of these serious crimes occur.

Furthermore government intends making other interventions directed at improving employment opportunities, creating appropriate recreational facilities, making sure that street names are erected, reducing the number of firearms, clamping down on illegal drugs and substance abuse, effecting tighter controls in respect of the operations of liquor outlets, and raising awareness against violence against women and children.

With all these strategies in place and the various forms of crime mentioned above put under control, we are confident that incidents of child murders will be drastically reduced and eventually eradicated.

(2) Yes the MRM has a role to play in the provinces to address this problem. It was established precisely to respond to ills of this nature and to promote a good ethical and moral grounding for our society.

One example of efforts already underway are efforts aimed at stemming killing for "muti" purposes. This programme, falling under the banner of the MRM, entails co-operation between traditional healers, religious leaders and the police.

We have also noticed, with great sadness, that some of the child murders are committed by men apparently for the purpose of hitting back at the mothers of the children. We cannot allow children to become weapons in squabbles between couples.

We therefore have to strengthen social and extended family networks to provide a cushion for children.

In addition, the question of gender inequalities is one of the underlying causes of the problem. The MRM has already embarked on an initiative with the Commission on Gender Equality, South African Men's Forum and the SA Council of Churches, to mobilize men as a sector into the gender transformation processes.

The intention is to familiarize men with issues of gender equality. Provincial dialogues have been held in Limpopo, North West, Gauteng, Free State, Western Cape and plans have been made for the remaining provinces. A national summit on men and gender transformation will then be held early in the new year to develop a comprehensive strategy on these and related issues.

(3) The media has a crucial role to play in raising awareness in our communities against this diabolic practice. Part of the challenge facing the media is to find ways of sustaining awareness campaigns on these matters and thus keep the public on alert, and not wait for public awareness to be triggered only once a deplorable act has been committed.

The media also needs to contribute in educating the public on issues of gender equality and help to demystify processes around ways and methods of traditional healing. These and other such interventions require conscious commitment from media houses, as they would normally not come cheap or sell newspapers and adverts, but would certainly contribute in building a moral society.

Issued by: The Presidency
21 September 2004