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SOCIAL CLUSTER

1. Our mandate for this briefing is to highlight key achievements and challenges facing the social cluster, both as individual departments and as a collective. In the nature of this presentation, we will therefore also touch on some of the important plans that we will be embarking upon in the course of this year and beyond.

2. As you might be aware, our cluster comprises the departments of Health and Welfare, Education, Sports, Arts and Culture, and Safety, Security and Liaison.

3. The social cluster has, amongst others, the responsibilities of:
* Co-ordinating programmes of the social cluster departments.
* Ensuring that projects undertaken in the cluster departments are implemented in an integrated manner, and
* Ensuring that objectives of delivering social services, as set by government, are achieved.

4. In the course of fulfilling these objectives, our various departments have managed to register some enormous achievements that we are highlighting here today.

ACHIEVEMENTS, CHALLENGES AND FUTURE PLANS

(A) Health and Welfare

During his speech on Friday, the Premier put emphasis on the amount of progress we are achieving towards the provision of primary health services. Indeed we have activated six more additional clinics in the past year, as well as increasing the number of clinics rendering 24-hour services from 115 to 175. We now have a total of 450 clinics operating in the province. It has always been the strategic focus of our department, as from 1994, to ensure that we move from a hospital centred approach to a primary health care system, which would ensure that our people have easy access to services.

Similarly, the system of community service doctors have assisted us a lot in terms of reducing the doctor-patient population ratio from 1:30 000 to 1:10 000, the national average being 1: 6 000. The 147 community doctors that were allocated to our province for the year 2000, as well as the Cuban programme, have gone a long way in addressing shortage of doctors particularly in the rural areas. We need to make good use of the 124 doctors that have been allocated to us for this calendar year.

Much has already been said about the great developments taking place at the Pietersburg-Mankweng Hospital Complex. It is important that we should recognise the contribution that MEDUNSA is continuing to make towards the development of this complex and such other initiatives as the establishment of the Health Professional Training Centre. Equally, we are determined to ensure that the programme for the training of specialists in community health medicine by the Polokwane campus is of great benefit to this province.

In the past year, our department had occasionally been dogged by incidents of negligence and ill treatment of patients by our personnel. Measures have already been put in place to address some of these problems. These ranged from internal discussions in the form of Health Workers Forums and workshops on Batho Pele standards to the administration of disciplinary measures against those who are found guilty. Whilst we take pride at the fact that the majority of our employees are disciplined and committed to quality service, we are nonetheless concerned that there are still a few elements that are bent on denting the image of government. The Premier has given us a clear mandate to deal harshly with those elements.

The scourge of HIV/AIDS remains a major challenge. The Premier alluded to a number of important initiatives aimed at addressing this problem, which took place in the past year. One of our major priorities for this year will be to strengthen co-ordination of all our efforts against this scourge. Accordingly, we will do everything to ensure that the Provincial AIDS Council and other inter-departmental initiatives are capacitated to make a meaningful impact.

We will also need to pay much focus on AIDS orphans, and generally on the issue of children infected and affected. Both our Health and Welfare branches will be looking in great details; the issues of school fees for affected children, nutritional programmes, capacity building for voluntary caregivers and home-based care in general.

We would like to announce that preparations for kick-starting the Mankweng and Siloam research sites on Mother To Child Transmissions (MTCT) are well on course. Various committees have already been established to look into protocol matters related to logistics and training of personnel. The programme will be in full swing in the next few months.

Our programme on malaria control has also been successful, and we are confident that we will reach the target of spraying more than 750 000 units during this season. The R16 million that was made available for this programme is assisting a lot in the purchasing of the necessary materials like coils and bed nets.

Cases of cholera in many of our treatment centres have decreased considerably, thanks to our hands- on interventions. The provincial, regional and hospital based response teams that we established would continue to monitor the situation and thus provide the necessary interventions. We are worried that there seems to be some small outbreaks in the various parts of the province. This calls on our communities to continue to heed our public hygiene messages, so that we can avoid prospects of large-scale outbreaks. All of us should be on full alert, more so that the occasional pouring of rains may serve to spread this epidemic. The programme of testing of wells and rivers for cholera organisms will continue throughout the province.

Our welfare division is also making a significant impact on areas of victim empowerment and poverty relief. We are planning to intensify, together with the department of Safety and Security and other role players, our outreach programmes for child abuse and victims of domestic violence.

In the past year, we successfully managed to engage in discussions with various business organisations, traditional leaders, NGOs and faith-based organisations about the need to join efforts in our poverty alleviation drive. We are faced with the challenge of drawing these organisations to assist us in strengthening the capacity and programmes of the 125 projects that we funded last year, as well as the other 225 projects that have been approved for this year.

For this year and beyond, we aim to continue with our programme of ensuring that beneficiaries of our social security grants receive their payments with the necessary convenience that they deserve.

(B) EDUCATION

The impressive matric results that we registered in 2000 constitute an important milestone in our quest to improve the state of education in the province. This achievement translates into yet another challenge for us a cluster to ensure that the province maintains this momentum for many years to come. This entails, amongst other things, that we should continue to empower the learners, teachers, school governing bodies, and communities to realise their full responsibilities.

Programmes such as MASETEP (Mathematics, science and English teachers empowerment program) played an important role in the enhancement of skills for under-qualified teachers in the Northern and Southern regions. Plans are underway to introduce another similar project during the course of this year.

In the same vein, we need to continue to give support to such other initiatives as Learner Performance Improvement Strategy Project, which is focussing on improving the performance of the Maths, Physics and Biology grade 12 learners. The performance improvement programmes, which take place on Saturdays and during some holidays, also need to be given adequate attention. The same should go for the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) centres, which are focussing on the development of teachers, classrooms and schools. The cluster is determined to look into the improvement of all these programmes, as most of them operate on an ad-hoc or piece-meal basis because of lack of adequate funding. We need to engage the business community and the rest of the society to buy into these programmes.

The need for districts and schools to take greater responsibility for the running of schools present some challenges to all of us. Our cluster will ensure that appropriate programmes for the empowerment of principals, SGBs and communities take place in a much more focussed and co-ordinated manner to avoid messing up this objective.

For the success of these and many other initiatives, the Provincial Executive Council and members of the Legislature, will continue to visit schools to assess general performance and also to provide support to teachers, managers and learners.

(c) SPORTS, ARTS AND CULTURE

Various legislations have been passed to provide the establishment of such important bodies as the Provincial Arts and Culture Council, the Provincial Language Committee, Crafters Development Committee and a Sport and Recreation Council.

The Premier has made it very clear that these committees are expected to start their work in earnest. As a cluster, we will ensure that indeed the activities and programmes of these structures are co-ordinated and implemented.

Many other important initiatives have taken place in the province. These include the provincial Sports Gala that was held at Klein Kariba to honour our best athletes who participate in the various national teams, the establishment of the Xitsonga lexicography Unit at Tivumbeni College of education, and the general promotion of multilingualism in the province. A number of workshops are being planned throughout the province for this
Purpose.

A significant challenge that we are facing is for us to develop creative mechanisms of ensuring that indeed, 'the promotion of local arts and craft become an integral part of our provincial marketing strategy and an important contributor to local development and empowerment programmes'. Ongoing discussions will, in this context, take place with the Offices responsible for the status of women and the disabled, and other relevant structures, with a view to ensuring that women and the disabled are empowered in the process.

It is also important to recognise the fact that the department has played a significant role in planning and co-ordinating important events that took place in the province, such as the Freedom Day and the national Heritage Day celebrations that were held in Pietersburg.

Although much has been done in the past year, the years ahead demand that we should give much focus to the promotion of arts, culture and sports in the province. To this end, we are putting even much focus for the realisation of the Northern Province Cultural Melting Pot project, which is a partnership comprising government, local media, business, and community organisations. This initiative aims to foster a spirit of unity-in-diversity and therefore mutual acceptance of our diverse cultures in the province. Every effort is being put in place to realise the success of the first annual festival, which is earmarked for the end of April 2001. This festival is just but one of the many nation-building programmes that constitute this project.

Mention should also be made of the fact that the Premier has alluded to the need to engage the public in discussions about some distasteful geographical or historical names, and of course the need to revisit the name of the province. These are complex and sensitive tasks to undertake. We will nonetheless ensure that these projects are co-ordinated successfully.

The Premier also touched the issue of the R8, 5 million allocations made for the development of basic sports facilities in the province. The department is in the process of identifying some disadvantaged areas in the province, which will benefit from this allocation. Our cluster will ensure that there is proper planning and co-ordination of this initiative.

(D) SAFETY, SECURITY AND LIAISON

The Premier has drawn our attention to the remarkable strides that the SAPS and the communities are making in arresting the levels of crime in the province.

We are all aware of the impressive results brought about by the success of Operation Crackdown and other similar initiatives throughout the province. We have succeeded in stabilising most serious crimes. The recent decision to amalgamate some of our specialised units, as well as the resolve to strategically rationalise and optimally utilise the resources that are available, will definitely go a long way towards stabilising the situation even further.

The high incidence of social fabric crimes indeed remains a matter of grave concern to all of us. It is our intention to strengthen our programmes of mobilising broader communities against this category of criminality. To this end, we plan to continue holding rallies and meetings with various communities in the province, including community police forums, religious bodies, schools etc. We will also target the traditional authorities as we have realised that most of the incidents of rapes, domestic violence and abuse either take place in the context of traditional practises or are not exposed as a result of the same stereotypes.

One of the challenges that we are facing is to ensure that the Local Crime Prevention Manual, which we launched in 2000, is devolved to local government structures so that the local communities are empowered to address the priority crimes that are specific to their localities. We will continue to engage in discussions with the CPFs and municipalities on this programme. Alongside this programme, is the need for us to strengthen the capacity of our CPFs so that they remain central to the eradication of crime at the local level?

We remain satisfied that the consistency and commitment of the rural safety units that we have established in the province will continue to curb the incidents of attacks on farms and smallholdings.

We should perhaps indicate that these inputs mostly relate to the issues that were raised in the Premier's speech. Individual departments will present their comprehensive reports during their budgets votes in the coming month.

We thank you.

Enquiries: Charley Nkadimeng at 082 803 1687

Issued by Health and Welfare, Northern Province

19 February 2001