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8 November 2007

The programme director
The MEC for Housing and Local Government, Mr Van Wyk
Honourable Mayor of the Sol Plaatje Municipality, Mr Patrick Lenyibi
Government officials
Community Development Workers
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

I am delighted to be with you all today and be part of this occasion which I believe is a building block for continuous change in our communities, this is also an event which I believe give us an opportunity to recommit ourselves to bringing services closer to our people.

It is my belief that the reason you have all responded to the call of being part of this event is not only to seek solutions to the problems of inequality and underdevelopment, but most of all its because we all believe that together we will make a difference.

This indaba should be a platform that inspires you as our foot soldiers in all communities to continue implementing the Batho Pele principles. I hope therefore that thus far, you have participated in the deliberations with great optimism and vigour.

Ladies and gentlemen, I say this as your contribution in these discussions should for all intent and purpose, chart the way forward and produce clear strategies that will then drive us all towards a clear programme of actions.
When the government initiated the establishment of the Community Development Workers' (CDW) Programme we were, as we still are, convinced of the need to maintain contact with the people as part of the People's Contract for a better life.

To validate this assertion, President Thabo Mbeki in his 2003 state of the nation address, declared that and I quote: "Government will create a public service echelon of multi-skilled community development workers who will maintain direct contact with people where these masses live."

Allow me ladies and gentlemen to further quote the President who once said: I quote, "We are determined to ensure that government goes to the people so that we sharply improve the quality of the outcome of public expenditure intended to raise the standards of living of our people. It is wrong that government should oblige people to come to government even in circumstances in which people do not know what services the government offers and have no means for transport to reach government offices" end quote.

It is important for us to reaffirm our commitment as government to the objectives of the CDW Programme and its effective implementation. It is against this background that, as government we called for a gathering of this nature, to assess the impact of the CDW Programme in maintaining direct contact with the people, where our people are. As we reflect and assess during our deliberations, we must take into cognisance the objectives of the CDW Programme, which are:

* to improve social equity and justice
* to enhance service delivery
* to deepen our democracy and
* to contribute to citizen education.

This conference must assist in ensuring that the spheres of government, through the CDW Programme, respond in an integrated way to the service delivery needs of our people.

The deliberations in this conference should be geared towards further enhancing intergovernmental co-operation to ensure that government services are brought closer to our people in an accelerated way.

This conference is an opportune moment to express our sincere gratitude to those of our Community Development Workers, who continue to be of service to our people throughout the province.

Your commitment and dedication to community development is acknowledged and applauded indeed. As the Northern Cape Provincial Government, we recognise with admiration the initiatives taken by some of our Community Development Workers across the province who are working closely with government departments and organs of civil society to deal with challenges facing our communities.

Since the inception of the CDW Programme, many challenges have been addressed especially in relation to how you continue to provide assistance to members of the community with the registration of indigents, registration for social grants and identity documents, linking communities with economic opportunities by establishing co-operatives, deepening public participation by mobilising communities around government programmes such as Local Economic Development (LED) processes, TB campaigns, HIV and AIDS campaigns, anti-crime campaigns and many other government driven initiatives.

Of particular significance programme director, is the role CDW played in taking the consultative process of the African Peer Review Mechanism to the people, this contribution has also been acknowledged as one best practice that needs to be emulated by other African States.

As a public service echelon of multi-skilled community development workers who maintain direct contact with people, you have made an important contribution in bringing government's social security and municipal services nearer to our people.

As the frontline combatants in the fight against poverty you have worked with our communities to ensure a better life for all. Allow me therefore to also use this platform on behalf of the provincial government to thank you for your work. We are encouraged by the existing changes you are all making in integrating our services.

Having said all of this, it is also important to reflect honestly to the challenges that our CDW Programme is faced with in our province.

The key challenge relate to ensuring better co-ordination between the CDW Programme, sector departments and local municipalities.

Your collective deliberations during this conference must respond to this critical challenge and ensure that we sharply improve the quality of the outcome of public expenditure intended to raise the standards of living of our people.

As participants in this conference we must explore better ways of monitoring the implementation of the programme precisely because the current monitoring systems are inadequate. The monitoring and mentoring systems that we use together with our municipalities must be improved.

Of course there are challenges related to lack of minimum resources. These challenges are compounded by the distances that you have to travel to service our people. We are constantly engaging with our social partners to ensure that minimum sets of resources are available.

We will also continue to give attention to improving the capacity of the government. We will do this because we believe that in the Northern Cape more than anywhere else in the country, we need a team of devoted men and women who will bring together this common vision of our President and our government, and convey positive values enshrined in our country's Constitution.

Community development is central to our democratic values, what we need now are innovative mechanisms to improve the manner in which we provide essential services to our people and implement the aspirations of our people captured in the Freedom Charter.

Accordingly ladies and gentlemen, when we speak about a better life for all and of people centred community development initiatives, the progress we make must be measured by the impact our programmes of social transformation have on those people who are in the rural areas.

Through your discussions, you must also monitor closely the impact that your individual contribution is making in social transformation programmes. We should as CDW be committed fully to the cause of redress and not allow party-political squabbles to influence the manner in which you provide assistance to our people.

We must also understand that we cannot achieve the constitutional objective of creating a development country unless we simultaneously, as part of this objective, we assist in improving the lives of all our people.

Equally ladies and gentlemen, the struggle to overcome the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment must result in the radical improvement of the conditions of women in rural and urban areas.

All of us have to ensure that we discharge our obligation to make progressive change. Many of our people are still prey to deprivations that result in homelessness, lack of jobs to maintain a secure standard of living. Many die young from preventable diseases. Our people have pinned their hopes on you and me to assist where we can. We therefore need to confront the situations in our communities with the necessary determination in a sustained manner that translates to principle of the rights of people to a better life.

Many of our people are in circumstances that make it difficult to access the necessary knowledge and skills that drive the evolution of modern society. As government we are convinced that the situation can and must be corrected.

New steps will have to be taken to ensure that we move faster towards the realisation of our goal.

Government has enacted progressive laws and formulated policies and programmes that address our service delivery initiatives, these all seek to give meaning to equality. We therefore have no doubt that all these policies and programmes will be a reality if they are communicated to our people.

With your goodwill and dedication, we will succeed. This to me is the thrust of what your role encompasses. I hope through further engagements you will seek solutions to some of the key issues I have raised.

I also hope that this Indaba has given you a rare opportunity of being empowered and enriched with the necessary knowledge and skills to seamlessly implement your objectives. We have to ensure that after this Indaba, you respond positively to the social challenges facing all our people. We have to strive towards removing the social barriers that hinder our people from developing their lives.

I am saying this because I believe that if you are all empowered as our men and women, our foot-soldiers and our eyes and ears on the ground, then you are more likely to learn from past mistakes and you will therefore learn new skills. This is all because the act of learning is contagious; it tends to spread to new challenges. But most of all ladies and gentlemen is that, an empowered team of CDWs is more likely to teach each other.

This process requires a shared destiny and a common vision amongst all of you. My optimism stems from the fact that there is a political will that exists to turn the situation around for a better life and a lot has happened already to demonstrate this.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we are to make continued progress towards the fundamental objective of our country, then we need your continued dedication and hard work to reinforce and consolidate our democracy.

Lastly, allow me to once more applaud all of you who have taken this programme to heart. I urge you to continue working closely with our government departments and other developmental partners in other sectors.

I hope what I have shared with you will be useful enough and trigger more ideas of how best we can continue to turn the situation around.

I wish you all the best in the course of your deliberations and call upon you to continue with the commitment and enthusiasm displayed by your presence, by working harder and harder to make our united response effective and efficient.

Let me leave you with the remarks of the Minister of Public Service, Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi who once said: I quote "You must live with the people, walk with them and talk their language".

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Northern Cape Provincial Government
8 November 2007