Issued by Office of the Premier Gauteng Province
23 May 2000.
Honourable Speaker
Honourable Members
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
These noble words uttered by Ramsay MacDonald, 70 years ago, sum up our feelings today. Almost a year ago, more than two thirds of the Gauteng citizens, gave the ANC an overwhelming mandate, to once again lead them in this second term of democratic governance. Our mandate came from the poor and well off, employed and unemployed, entrepreneurs and workers, those living in hostels and informal settlements, old and young, thus once more, showing faith in the ability of the ANC to marshal and lead the province in the march towards our goal of a better life for all.
These are the people who for many years had been treated as bystanders and outsiders in their own country. They were marginalised and subjected to brutal oppression since 1910, during the Union of South Africa, and later through the establishment of the white Republic in 1960, and through systemic oppressive legislative instruments. We remain humbled by this vote of confidence by our people. We know that their vote did not mean that we had achieved everything that we set out to do in 1994, but that as a people, they understood that a solid foundation had been laid. It was confirmation that they accept and know our political commitment to use government power and resources to create a better life for all. Unlike armchair critics - those who expect instant solutions - our people understand what John F. Kennedy meant when he said to his people: "All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in 1000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime in this planet. But let us begin." This is in line with what the ANC said during the election campaign.
We were elected to provide an antithesis of what our people have suffered and deprived of over many decades. We understood that we had to work hard, in partnership with all citizens, to ensure that they have the opportunity to experience a better and fulfilling life, that their children enjoy the benefit of quality education, that they become active participants in the mainstream economy of the country, that they live in this wonderful province without fear of criminals, and that ultimately they become an integral part of our transformation agenda. All of our government programmes, ranging from political representation to specific deliverables of each department are designed to meet our defined challenge of ensuring 'change at a faster pace'. We will change the living conditions of the people of Gauteng for the better.
Much has already been done to advance the strategic priorities we articulated last year and at the beginning of this year. In the areas of service delivery, economic growth and good governance, we have put in place an infrastructure, which will make it possible for us to realise our stated objective.
The budget as presented by MEC Moleketi is the surest pointer to how far we have gone to realign government priorities with our resources to address the challenges facing us. The budget is nothing else, but a government's statement of commitment and a response to the challenge of mobilising human and material resources, to give content to its political mandate. Through it we seek to fund our concrete plans put in place to strengthen accelerated service delivery.
These plans will be carried forward through co-ordinated and integrated planning; geographical social service integration; targeting the vulnerable and under-served groups; development and marketing of quality initiatives; partnerships with civil society; effective management of resources and monitoring and evaluation.
The Executive Council will continue to provide overall political leadership on the priorities and strategies outlined by the Provincial Government.
These priorities and strategies are informed by the mandate of the electorate as well as the national agenda for social transformation. The electorate dictated that the broad strategic priorities of the government should be quality service delivery, economic growth and good governance.
The Premier and the Executive Council, through the Office of the Premier are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the Provincial Government delivers on these priorities in a co-ordinated, integrated, effective and efficient manner. This requires effective communication with the people of Gauteng. It requires integration and co-ordination of our policies and programmes. It requires alignment of the policies and programmes of our different spheres of government. It requires ensuring that the ever-important issues of combating racism, promoting gender equality and empowering women, incorporating people with disability into the mainstream activity, safeguarding and promoting the rights of children, etc, are effectively incorporated into our policies and programmes.
Over the past year, we have restructured and realigned the Office of the Premier to ensure it fulfills its role effectively. We are now in a better position to monitor and evaluate the implementation of our policies and programmes for their effectiveness and qualitative socio-economic impact towards improving the quality of life for all our people.
The newly created Chief Directorate of Governance comprising the Directorates of Policy Implementation and Co-ordination, Youth, Executive Council Support and Communications is responsible for ensuring co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of government policies and programmes across all departments.
Functions related to monitoring and developing policies around key transformation issues such as combating racism, removing barriers to gender equalities and women empowerment, empowerment of people with disabilities, children as well as other human rights issues are located within the Policy Implementation and Co-ordination Unit. This allows the Province to adopt a broader approach to these matters and move away from quotas as our only indicator of progress. It also allows us to take collective responsibility for ensuring that we achieve in these specific areas and not rely solely on "gender experts" and "disability or children specialists". We want all of government employees to become experts on issues of gender, disability and the rights of children.
Gauteng has set aside the week beginning 28 May - June 03 to focus on children, as part of our commitment to champion and protect the rights of children. Activities to raise awareness in both children and adults on the issues of child abuse, children's rights and responsibilities, services available to children whose rights have been infringed and the procedure to follow in order to access these services, are being arranged.
On the 1st June 2000, we become the first Province to launch a Child Protection Register, which will eventually be linked to the Inter-Justice System, i.e. SAPS, Justice, Welfare and Health.
We should on an ongoing basis, work together with communities to eliminate the abuse of children. The public and the private sectors need to work with the trade unions to provide childcare centres near places of work. This will increase productivity and help working parents who sometimes stop working simply because they have to take care of their children.
Our children are our future investment. We are committed to working together to make that investment grow strong and healthy.
In the words of Comrade O R Tambo, 'Country, a Nation, a People that does not value it's children has no future and deserves none.' For many centuries, women in our country bore the brunt of apartheid oppression, denial of rights as well as economic exploitation. Most of them are unemployed, stay in informal settlement and are often overlooked for senior jobs. There can be no true liberation without the complete emancipation of women. We will continue with programmes to deal with those that rape, assault and abuse women. Those who fail the test of being gender sensitive, fail the nation. Out of eleven HOD's, in the Gauteng Government, four of them are women.
While this is no course for celebration, a great start, which we can all be proud of, has been made. All departments will continue to prioritise the employment of women, especially in senior position.
The Executive Council Office has been strengthened to enhance the strategic support provided to the Executive Council for it's constitutionally defined function of policy formulation. This strategic support will include monitoring and evaluating the implementation of Cabinet decisions and the effectiveness of these decisions; review and analysis of cabinet information regarding alignment, integration, co-ordination; review and analysis of international relations and agreements, as well as the effective functioning of NCOP and Legislature business.
Youth development remains high on our agenda. The Youth Directorate is tasked with monitoring and evaluating the co-ordination and integration of youth issues into Gauteng Provincial Government policies and programmes, the extent to which youth are specifically targeted as beneficiaries of government programmes and whether our programmes are taking into account the specific needs of the youth. When we visited the four local communities in which our Executive Council held its meetings, people raised many concerns regarding youth programmes and recreation. In Sebokeng for instance, the issue of the youth and their participation in the economic activities of the country was raised. The Youth Directorate, in partnership with all departments, youth formations and the private sector, will ensure that our commitment to such development becomes central in our policy development. Our economic growth ventures are alive to this call and all departments have been tasked to ensure that our youth are not left outside the realm of economic activities.
We are working very closely with all youth formations to ensure a successful commemoration of the National Youth day at Orlando stadium in Soweto on 16 June. We appeal to all the youth of our province, black and white to join hands with us as we remember the role played by the youth to bring about the new dispensation. We call on all political parities to use the occasion to unite our youth through joint provincial programme rather than divide our youth through a myriad of activities whose only outcome would be the continued division of our youth along racial and political lines.
Over the past few months, the Executive Council visited the people of Soweto, Centurion, Midrand and Lekoa-Vaal. This bears testimony to our commitment to communicating with ordinary people, not only through the media, but also on a face to face basis. We have always believed as the provincial government, that government work is public work, meaning that the people must take active part in the work of their government, influence its policy decisions, legislation drafting and any other programme. This is in addition to the sterling work by the Petitions and Public Participation Committee, which acts as the interface between the Legislature and our citizens. We have transformed the Communications Directorate in the Office of the Premier into a Government Communication and Information Directorate. The unit will ensure that the entire provincial government fulfils its commitment to communicate effectively with the people of Gauteng thereby making the work of government their own.
It will help forge closer working relations with the mass media to ensure access to the necessary information the media requires to accurately inform the people on an ongoing basis of what we are doing to improve their lives.
In addition, the GCIS will also be responsible for ensuring that all government institutions communicate one message to the people of Gauteng. Because of its demography and geographic location, Gauteng, can be said to be a good sample population of South Africa, reflecting all its challenges and contradictions. Many of our people from all over the country, including our neighbouring countries, transfer to Gauteng to seek better opportunities. This presents major challenges for our government. But these challenges coexist with greater opportunities for the economy of our country. Many of the contradictions of our society are to be found in this Province.
These realities impose a serious challenge on us as public representatives, to ensure that these contradictory realities are reconciled in a manner consistent with the greater goal of poverty eradication, equitable wealth distribution, better education, safety for our citizens, efficient transportation and many other such challenges. Our resolve to create a better life through qualitative service delivery was once more confirmed in the sessions we had with communities. Together with the masses we are agreed that qualitative delivery, and not only quantitative is at the core of our mandate of ensuring quality life for all citizens of this Province.
Our visits to communities and the many lessons we learnt from them will continue to inform further refinement of our priorities as well as allocation of resources to realise them. For this we must express our unreserved gratitude to the people of this Province who continue to give us support and constructive criticism. These visits confirmed the challenges that we already know are facing South Africa and this Province. Poverty and unemployment remain critical challenges for this government. It was clear to all of us who took part in these discussions that our people are not calling for handouts from government. Instead they state very clearly that they need jobs and business opportunities, so that they can sustain themselves and their families. They have the determination to be part and parcel of the workforce and entrepreneurs of this country and thereby play a meaningful role in the economic development of the Province and country as a whole.
The Premier's Committee on AIDS continues to meet to assess the impact of our programmes, as well as advise on new policy directions and campaigns.
Names for the Provincial AIDS Council have been finalised. They will be announced at a function scheduled for 20 June 2000. Its primary function will be to create awareness about HIV/AIDS, as well as steps that all of us need to take to curb its spread. I want to thank all sectors of our community who have engaged in various activities to help prevent AIDS as well as ensure continued care for those who are infected. My friend with HIV/AIDS is still my friend, and deserves my care.
The legislature resolved that the government should conduct an audit on all stated qualifications from the position of Assistant director upwards. All departments have been given until the end of this month to complete the exercise. There may be delays in certain departments due to the slow response of certain institutions. Anyone found to have misrepresented his or her qualifications would be dealt with accordingly. Despite progress made the province still face many challenges. A few weeks ago we read of workers forced to stay with pigs. This Sunday we read of a prominent journalist outlining a series of racial incident she has encountered. Workers can say the same about racism in the work place. We call on all citizens to work with us to bring about genuine reconciliation and transformation. This is only possible if we continue to struggle to realise a truly non-racial society.
Our province still has an unemployment rate at 28.2%. Whilst it is lower than the national average, it poses a serious challenge to all of us. It tells us about the levels of poverty and the huge task that lies ahead for us.
According to a Satour survey, the number of international tourists coming to SA for meetings, staff incentive trips, conferences and exhibitions grew from 11600 in 1993 to 81000 in 1998, a compound growth of 48% compared with 19% for ordinary tourists. The study further indicates that about 60% of foreign tourists and 12% of domestic tourists visit Gauteng, mostly greater Johannesburg. It is in this regard that we have earmarked business tourism as one of the province's major priority. Meeting challenges of poverty alleviation and improving the quality of life of our citizens must be the yardstick by which we assess the utilisation of our resources and measuring our performance.
All departments are working in a co-ordinated effort to ensure that together with national and local government we respond effectively to the flood disasters that befell our people especially in Alex. We are also ready to second people to assist other provinces, as was done for the fires in the Western Cape.
We will continue to work with national and local government to improve the lives of our people. Working in a multi-disciplinary manner will ensure that resources are utilised effectively. We are in constant discussion with the IEC, to ensure that we give them all the necessary support they require in order to run a free and fair election.
I know that the coming election is likely to raise temperatures in the house as parties seek to position themselves positively in front of the eyes of the electorate. While this is inevitable, we should ensure that we do not in the process destroy the image and integrity of this House.
My sincere thanks to the African National Congress, Inkatha Freedom Party, New National Party, African Christian Democratic Party, United Democratic Movement, Federal Alliance and the Freedom Front for your support and constructive engagement whose intention was to help us to advance our obligation to our people. In two months time FIFA will make a decision about the country to host the 2006 World Cup. We remain convinced that our bid is the best one, not out of sentiments because, we have met all the FIFA requirements. Our Province stands to benefit immensely from a successful bid. Like the rest of the country, we are ready for this big event.
In conclusion, I wish to take this opportunity to thank old and new managers who have recently joined the Office of the Premier. Together with them we remain committed to discharge our mandate effectively.
We are ready and willing to serve the people.
I thank you