WHITE PAPER ON SOCIAL WELFARE THROUGH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Issued by: SA Communication Service

STATEMENT BY MINISTER FOR WELFARE AND POPULATION DEVELOPMENT GERALDINE FRASER-MOLEKETI ON THE PASSAGE OF THE WHITE PAPER ON SOCIAL WELFARE THROUGH THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON WEDNESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 1997

The passage of the White Paper for Social Welfare through the National Assembly signals the start of a new era in welfare delivery in South Africa. For the first time in our country's history delivery in the welfare field will be driven by key principles such as democracy, partnership, ubuntu, equity, and inter-sectoral collaboration, among others.

Today's tabling for adoption follows months of extensive consultation, inputs and debates by reprensentatives of civil society, government, trade unions, welfare councils, the religious community and other non-governmental organisations.

It is therefore a document which reflects consensus among thousands of stakeholders on many major issues concerning welfare service delivery. The ground-breaking policy options set out in the White Paper seek to address past imbalances by making a paradigm shift to a developmental social welfare model. This will involve, among other things:

• the greater use of auxiliary workers and volunteers to move away from the highly professionalised services rendered in expensive institutions to family based and community based care.
• working out new funding criteria and mechanisms for the delivery of welfare services by shifting the emphasis from funding social work posts to financing developmental welfare programmes
• greater emphasis on anti-poverty programmes such as the flagship programme directed at unemployed women and children under five in rural areas
• building capacity and self-reliance among individuals and communities to empower them to play a meaningful and productive role in the economy.
• diverting children and juveniles from the criminal justice system with greater involvement of communities in the supervision of sentenced children and juveniles
• reforming the social security delivery system to improve efficiency and eliminate fraud and corruption
• commitment to continuing publicly funded non-contributory grants for the elderly and the disabled and the review of child and family support benefit as is being done through the Lund Committee Report
• putting the relationship between the government and the voluntary (NGO) sector on a new footing by redrafting the Fund Raising Act.

The White Paper also commits the Ministry to advocating for increased spending on welfare services and programmes based on developmental priorities.

Taken as a whole this Ministry is therefore convinced that the implementation of the proposals in the White Paper on Social Welfare will go a long way towards delivering, quality yet affordable and appropriate services to our people.

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