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18 February 2009

Honourable Deputy Speaker of the Provincial Legislature
Colleagues in the Executive Council
Honourable members of the provincial legislature
The Director-General and Deputy Director-General of our different provincial departments
Members of the public here present.
As we met last week Friday to open the last session of the democratic legislature, we pronounced that even as we conclude the business of the third democratic government “the vision lives on”. We pronounced as we did because growing out of experience we know where we come from and where we want to go. We very well understand the challenges faced by our country and have gained better experience how to move forward in addressing the task of building a better live for all our people. Hence we continue to commit ourselves to build a truly democratic, non-sexist, non-racial, peaceful and prosperous South Africa. We have also acknowledged that there are still challenges we are facing, there is still some distance we need to travel and we believe that we are on course.

Honourable deputy speaker let me profoundly thank all those members who have contributed to the debate on the state of our province. A special word of thanks goes to all members who have gone beyond listening to the address but went further to research and contextualised some of deliver record. The Honourable Chief Whip and Honourable Tselapedi aptly spelled out our departure points and actual baselines as well as up to date delivery and its positive impact on the people during yesterday’s debate. They have proven that indeed they are solid founders of our government policies. Their knowledge of our policy frameworks will certainly enhance the oversight work that this august house is tasked to perform.

Land redistribution and agriculture

Honourable Gerber spoke of the importance of ensuring the right balance between land redistribution, land use and increasing our productive capacity. We do indeed agree with Honourable Gerber. What he said is exactly and largely the intention of our policy drives on land reform. We are making a point and an observation that our country is currently a net import of food. This important point is made in the ruling party manifesto as well.

We therefore need to transform our economic footprint as a net importer of food products to a net exporter of food products, and this we can achieve through working effectively and productively on our land. It means that we must ensure that no land lies fallow. Therefore, the assistance and continued support to all our farmers and in particular the small and emerging farmers in this regard becomes an endeavour we never have to postpone. We will intensify this effort in order to get maximum utilisation of all farming land.

This goes along with the entire program of rural development. It is for this reason that our government will implement the policy of a holistic rural development. The second face of Expanded Public Works program implementation is a direct response to rural development policy. Through this program, we will look at upgrading of roads and other forms of infrastructure in rural areas.
Once again we welcome the fact that Honourable Member Gerber has raised this matter. We simultaneously make a call that our commercial and emerging farmers should take this important matter forward in real implementation.

Honourable deputy speaker we have recorded some achievements and have spelt them out in the state of the province address delivered from this podium last week. We still have challenges as we go further in our journey to a better society. These challenges will only be met if all of us resolve to work together in concert. Therefore, we must really encourage all the farmers, black and white, to work together for the common good of our country. We commit the government of the people to work together with all who want to put their shoulder to the wheel of change.

Second economy matters

Honourable deputy speaker, it is indeed true that we had, referring to page fourteen (14) of our State of Province Address (SOPA), we spoke widely of our efforts to build local economies and to continuously support our Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs). We share the view of Honourable Mahlakeng Mahlakeng and this august house that more can and should be done. We want to acknowledge as Honourable Mahlakeng has put it, that SMMEs can create a lot of jobs. We are consistently working towards achieving this goal, through the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, other key departments like Public Works, Agriculture Conservation and Environment as well as other key partners and stakeholders. We have finalised the provincial approach and strategy on local economic development, which will be implemented also within the context of Regional Industrial Development and revival of smaller towns. The MEC for Economic Development will elaborate on this matter further. The Local Economic Development (LED) task is a key deliverable in our local government strategic agenda and thus remains in the radar screen for monitoring and continuous focus.

Poverty alleviation

Honourable Mahlakeng also raised the critical issue of poverty alleviation. Once again we agree with the sentiments raised. We must indeed prioritise the very poor areas like Mazista, Sonop, Willowpark and many of our farming areas. The overall objective of our antipoverty, household surveys and campaign is to enable us to work with our communities to eradicate poverty or deprivation that some of our citizens still experience. We will ensure that in these communities and households, change agents in families and communities are identified, and working with and through them our people are taken out of the fierce cycle of poverty.

FFC formula and equitable share to the North West province

Honourable deputy speaker, our consistent attempts to convince the National Treasury of all the matters correctly raised in this august house by the Honourable Mahlakeng, have been on our list of critical issues to be consistently engaged with the relevant structures and the Honourable Minister of Finance. We have made inputs to the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and also met them for further motivation during one of our Makgotla. We will continue to do so at every opportune moment we get. Indeed, as we have alluded to during SOPA last Friday and as the MEC for Finance will indicate tomorrow in the overall provincial budget speech, we have been affected by severe budget reduction due to cross boundary adjustments and lately by the reduced revenue collection. If we don’t move with speed to readjust some of our expenditure line items to allow spending on real developmental programs, this may constrain us and defeat the purpose of developing the province to the best of our ability and to its optimum.

Building safer communities

Honourable deputy speaker, Honourable Members raised the challenge of crime in our society. We acknowledge that a lot must be done to fight and eradicate this problem. Our strategy to revamp our criminal justice system speaks directly to this challenge. It is indeed important that we work together with our people on all issues including in fighting crime and corruption. If our people are mobilised and vigilant, my neighbourhood on a farm will be able to speedily engage the security forces when a break in happens like it happened at Hon Maloyi’s private residence. Police will and must act swiftly. Our courts will and must process cases speedily. We are confident that all the measures included in the newly revamped criminal justice system will contribute in crime reduction.

Honourable deputy speaker, we must also never let the self-defeating argument that we would have at any stage of development arrive at a point where there is absolutism in adjustment and strengthening of policy. What I mean by this, Honourable members is that we will always strive for formulation of watertight policies, and where we realise loopholes, we will always work hard to close them, ahead of criminals. It therefore means that all of us in this chamber, in the villages, townships and cities of our province and country, have to be on high alert to identify any loophole that might be there in our criminal justice system. We will win this fight and be successful through continued partnership between the police, community policing forums and the business community.” Our vision will by so doing continue to live on.

Building a strong public service

Honourable speaker the issue of “cronyism” as raised by Honourable Chris Hatting is premised and based on wobbly grounds and the myth that this government has developed a policy called “jobs for pals”. This is a fallacy. Our clear policy is “affirmative action”. We know that the Freedom Front agrees with us on this policy even though some other newly formed parties completely miss the point. This policy has worked for the Afrikaner Community which was to be dominated by the British.

So honourable deputy speaker, we do not subscribe to “jobs for pals”, as Honourable Hatting refers to, but rather to affirmative action. Our affirmative action policy does not say only the previously disadvantaged will be appointed. We are always inclusive and representative of the demographics of our province and country. That’s what makes us different. We therefore agree with Honourable Members Tselapedi and Africa.

We will continue to ensure that we appoint relevant people to drive relevant policy positions of this government as they currently do. We will however not shy away from ensuring that we appoint people who were for a very long time deprived by the system of apartheid to serve their country. We strongly believe that those who qualify as they always do must be appointed.

As Honourable Hatting would know, the Constitution of the country dictates that there should be a professional and efficient public service based on democratic values and principles. The Constitution further provides for the Public Service Commission which is charged among other things with the responsibility to investigate, monitor and evaluate the personnel practices in the Public Service.
We are still confirming our commitment to building a strong Public service and also restate that together with the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), relevant policies and tools like “The competency assessment policies and tools” for managers in the public service are developed and implemented.

This is precisely intended to enable us to strengthen our recruitment and retention initiatives within our public service. We are also proud to say that we are, as stated in the previous year SOPA, still the leaders in reporting various legislative requirements related to Staff matters through the Public Service Commission. We have consistently evaluated staff, tested senior managers for competency and have consistently been acknowledged and praised by the Public Service Commission (PSC) in this regard.

We would encourage all of our people, including Honourable Hatting, to report all of the cases which might in their view work against these profound principles laid out by the Constitution of the Republic to this Organ of State as clearly identified in chapter nine and ten of our Constitution. We have to unapologetically, implement and re-emphasise the value of all policies in the Public sector that speaks to the cause of building a better leadership core in all spheres of government.

Building a strong local government

The SOPA goes in details to outline the successes we have achieved we have made. The successes we have made at local level in relation to delivery of services like provision of water, sanitation, electricity, houses etc, as alluded to in the SOPA and further by Honourable Members like Honourable Maloyi in this august house yesterday, have been delivered at a municipal level and mainly by Municipalities supported by and also working with the province and national government. When we say there are still challenges within our municipalities, let us therefore not be misunderstood to mean that there is absolute non functionality at municipal level. We can and must do better at that level so that we attend to the many vexing questions and issues at that level. We need more capacity, more attention to people issues and increased pace of delivery.

The five year strategic local government agenda enables us to ensure that we continuously support the local sphere for an effective services deliver program and to make local government work better.

Honourable deputy speaker, as government we work with official statistics released. On the matter of economic growth indicators what has been released by Statistics South Africa is until 2006. We have achieved growth of 4,9 percent in 2006, 4,3 percent in 2007 and projected growth for 2008 stands at 3,9 percent. We believe that this is very positive a development towards attaining the target of 6,6 percent by 2014. If this is negative Honourable Hatting, then it means we don’t live in the same world.

Economic meltdown

Honourable deputy speaker, we acknowledged the depressing downturn of the economy in the last months and we as a government has never denied that this phenomenon has never affected our people. Honourable Hatting should not attempt to sensationalise the lives of the affected people, through cheap politics, and by referring to my report as a joke. I want to believe that Honourable Tselapedi has also dealt with this matter to the satisfaction of this house and that of Honourable Hatting. The effects of the economic meltdown will be felt in future and far below and we will still endeavour to cushion these effects for the good of our people, as we promised them a better life.

Thank you for this opportunity to respond and for the lively debates. We look forward to a good year and election period. Once again we echo the words of our President when he said that as all political parties must ensure that we have successful elections, free of intimidation and allow our people to once again express their desire in the party and the government to lead them.

I thank you

Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
18 February 2009