[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

From 15 - 21 April there will be a national Imbizo Focus Week during which the Deputy President, Cabinet Ministers, Premiers, MECs, Mayors and Councillors will be interacting directly with citizens in all provinces across the country. This period of intensified interactive communication will culminate in a Presidential Imbizo from 25 - 27 April in the Free State province, the last day of which will mark the Freedom Day celebrations.

Over 250 events have been organised across all levels of government compared with just over 100 in the Focus Week in November last year.

Reflecting the theme of the Focus Week - "Lend a Hand! Push back the frontiers of poverty to broaden access to a better life" - the programme will see interaction over the whole range of government's programme of action for the year. This outreach will afford to promote participation of the public in government's programme of action for the year and to receive feedback from the people. The Imbizo affords government the opportunity to listen and learn from the people on how to speed up implementation of services.

Imbizo gives concrete expression to the Presidential call for Vuk'uzenzele (Arise and Act), for all South Africans to participate in the process of social transformation.

There will be particular emphasis on programmes aimed at poverty alleviation through rural and urban development, and at broadening access to social services. There will also be attention, in the context of the health letsema, on the establishment of food gardens and provision of funding and land to communities for the establishment of such gardens.

The Deputy President will participate at the Moral Regeneration Summit.

In seeking to promote interactive governance and communication Cabinet decided that there should be two Imbizo Focus Weeks each year, as periods of intensified activity when all spheres of government, national, provincial and local, interact with the people around government's programme to improve their lives.

The President's Imbizo visit to the Free State follows those to Limpopo Province in April 2001 and the Eastern Cape in October 2001, where the President interacted with the people around the government's program of action, and what communities themselves can do in partnership with the government to improve their quality of life.

The Imbizo Focus Week program is available on the government website: www.gov.za.

Enquiries: Harold Maloka, Media Liaison, GCIS
Tel: 012 314 2148
Cell: 082 450 7304

Issued by GCIS, 13 April 2002