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27 April 2008

Programme Director
Comrades and friends

Today marks the 14th anniversary of the achievement of our democratic freedom. 27 April 1994 signalled both an end and a beginning.

It was an end in that it ended decades of struggle against racial oppression and disenfranchisement for black South Africans. Our comrades on every front, both within South Africa and abroad, had fought valiantly for liberation, to bring us to that point at which we all, South Africans of every colour, creed, ethnic group and gender, could stand equally, to exercise our right to vote for the government of our choice

April 27, 1994, was also a beginning in that it signalled the start of the hard work which has needed to go into re-building our country in every respect, in terms of democratic values best reflected in our Constitution, in terms of governance and service delivery through the three tiers of government and across all departments and organs of sate, and in terms of the development of our economy. There were, and there remain, huge challenges. In that respect, the struggle has continued every day since April 27, 1994, and we are given an opportunity today to re-commit ourselves to continuing on these paths.

At this time, many people in our country feel a sense of foreboding as our country seemingly faces a new slate of challenges. Some of those challenges are beyond our power to control, rooted as they are in the intricacies of political, financial, and environmental decisions taken many thousands of miles from our borders. At best, we can only ensure that we have policies and systems in place which enable us as a country to withstand the most negative effects of those decisions taken in a globalised society.

We have done this successfully for 14 years now and we are not about to capitulate to the current cycle of stresses and strains that we are experiencing.

Other challenges, whether they relate to the electricity blackouts, or preparations for 2010, poverty alleviation, crime, transformation of our economy or dealing with the AIDS pandemic, are all within our power and ability to address. And so, while I urge all of us to remain vigilant to the difficulties that will confront us as we move forward, there is, in my view, no need for the doomsday attitude among some in our society. Our celebration of this Freedom Day for the past 14 years attests to our willingness and ability to take the challenges presented to us as a nation head on.

But, Programme Director and comrades, as we reflect on the successes which have been achieved in 14 years of democratic government of this province, we realize also that key areas of struggle are not yet at an end. These relate to the services and infrastructure which our people need especially in the deep rural areas of our province and in the eastern half.

In the State of the Province address earlier this year, we reflected on some of these challenges, especially the fact that 51 000 households in our Province still suffer from hunger, that half of all households are still without running water, that the terrible bucket system of disposing of sewage is still with many thousands of households, that learners in 250 schools in our province are taught in what are known as mud schools but which, in many cases, are no more than trees in the veld.

We know that, as important as the transition towards democracy of our country has been, the national democratic project will fail unless we also ensure that the material well being of our people improves. And so, across all government departments, there is an acknowledgement that our efforts must be rapidly increased to bring these basic services to our people which are taken for granted by many others especially in urban areas. The extent of the challenges has not caused the ANC in government to lose hope. Instead, it has galvanized us into further action.

I am happy to report, Programme Director and comrades, that in this 15th year of democracy, the Eastern Cape Province is taking huge strides to address the challenges which are there, the historic ones which we have carried with us for many years, as well as the fresh challenges for which we have to develop counter-strategies.

We have passed a budget of R38billion for this year, which is a very big increase almost R8billion over the budget for the previous financial year. We were able to do this because departments have stepped up their spending patterns. Taking the province as a whole during the last financial year, we succeeded in spending 99.8% of our budget. And that positive trend has continued into the start of the current financial year and we have no doubt will continue for the remainder of the year.

The overwhelming additional spending by government will be in areas that impact directly on the poor, especially in education and health. We are also seeing increased allocations directly to local municipalities.

We have made allocations to replace the mud structure schools with brick classrooms and to provide the necessary ancillary equipment and services to bolster education. We are increasing the number of no fee schools, the number of learners who receive transport to get to school each, as well as the number of learners who benefit from the food nutrition programme. There are also allocations for pre schools and disabled schools.

The Department of Health will make huge inroads this year into the Project 5000 to increase the number of health professionals serving our various communities as a result of more funds. We also have provided funds for generators for hospitals to deal with one of the new challenges we are facing in the province load shedding.

By mid year, we will launch our centralised supplier data base which will list all suppliers to government. It will allow us to profile every single job being done by or for government. Local communities will be able to see very easily the extent to which public funds are being spent on suppliers from their area and how much goes to empowered businesses or to Small Micro and Medium Enterprise (SMMEs).

Government is also assessing the benefits including improved efficiencies which will flow from shared service centres for finance, procurement and human resource management across all departments in the Province. We already have such an approach in respect of legal and auditing services which are provided centrally to all departments.

Improved efficiency is also at the heart of the establishment of a fully fledged provincial Housing Department and we have appointed a monitoring team to analyse problems in the department to avoid the situation we have had in the past of funds not being spent and being returned to National Treasury. We will shortly also receive the report of a comprehensive study on municipalities which are not
performing in terms of their mandate.

As part of our preparations for the 2010 World Cup, we have allocated R220 million for the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium, R100 million for the Mthatha Stadium and related services and R50 million for the upgrading of the Buffalo City Stadium.

As the ruling party, we have also realised that it is not enough to ensure that the poorest of the poor have access to basic services. We have needed to address the structural and historic under development which permeates parts of our province. It is against this background that government has put in place initiatives around Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA) to promote economic growth in the eastern part of our province.

Beginning with reforms to promote land availability, promoting appropriate technologies for emerging farmers, developing transportation corridors to ensure access to markets, and identifying value adding industrial initiatives, government has played a key role in the rural transformation programme which has the promotion of our agricultural sector as its key objective.

We have realised that it could not continue to be the case that development in one node of the province for example in our coastal urban centres is promoted at the expense of another node. We have had to ensure the sustained growth of our urban nodes, while introducing measures to promote development in rural areas. Key components of this strategy are the Mzimvubu Project and right here, the Ukhahlamba initiative. We have witnessed just last week the commissioning of the PG Bison wood processing factory at Ugie, which is an important pillar in the revitalisation of this region through the North Eastern Cape Forests. The knock-on effect of this investment of R1,3 billion by the private sector, together with the R800 million government has spent on public infrastructure to promote the forestry and wood beneficiation industries, will reverberate throughout this region.

A third broad area of opportunity for rural development is in the tourism sector and here, again, Ukhahlamba is showing the rest of our province exactly what can be done. Last year, we launched the R400 million Tiffendell re-development, which will see this ski resort attract thousands of new visitors throughout the year. This investment which will include opportunities for learnerships for young people has huge positive implications for the region and it can only be a matter of time before the north-eastern part of our province becomes a significant node of tourist activity, with resultant benefits to local residents.

All of these, within the over-arching Provincial Growth and Development Programme, are aimed at unlocking the potential of our province, promoting economic growth, reducing unemployment, eliminating poverty, increasing literacy, ensuring food self-sufficiency, reducing infant mortality and halting the spread of HIV-Aids and Tuber Colossis (TB).

The programme of economic development at Ukhahlamba has taught us a number of key lessons, most notably that Government delivery agents cannot hope to achieve much if they work in a vacuum. First and foremost, there must be close co-operation and integration between the various tiers of government and between departments.

Secondly, there must be partnerships between government and the private sector, as we have witnessed in the PG Bison initiative. Without integration within government and between government and its external partners, not only will opportunities for effective service delivery and growth and development be missed, but we run the real risk of consigning our communities to the rubbish heap of life. Worse, we will expose our people to death and disease. The report we have received of babies dying in this district allegedly as a result of drinking contaminated water is a horror story. We are working with the local authority and with the national Department of Water Affairs to understand and address the cause of the deaths and to be able to say quietly and with conviction, that no baby will die because he or she does not have access to pure drinking water.

Director of ceremonies and comrades, this celebration today also signals an end, as we acknowledge the ending of the term of this government ahead of next year's elections. But government's programmes can never be hampered by short-termism. If we are to ensure access to basic services, sustainable development and freedom from poverty, we must promote programmes that are multi-year and multi-term in nature. That is inherent to our Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP). And so, I am confident that, during this necessary period of transition that we must go through as government, there will be nothing short of acceleration in service delivery achievements in our province.

Issued by: Eastern Cape Provincial Government
27 April 2008
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecpg.gov.za)