Mthembi-Mahanyele: Debate on State of the Nation Address, NA 

Speech delivered by Minister of Housing Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele in Parliament, 17 February 2003

17 Feb 2003

Madame Speaker
His Excellency the President
Honourable Deputy President
Honourable Members

The African National Congress continues to exercise its passion and commitment to part the curtain, to shift and ultimately remove the invisible shadow that has been created and sometimes falls between people. The ANC continues to fight the indifference that sometimes surfaces to create an attitude that ignores the presence of other people. The ANC seeks to bring amongst us the passion of caring about each others plight. 

It should therefore not be surprising that the African National Congress has been in the frontline with those who have adopted the sober position cautioning against a war that would in the end destroy families, maim individuals, produce a population of orphans and widows of those who will have survived the war. The numerous anti-war marches by peace-loving citizens in the world have demonstrated that we have more peace-loving people who want the United Nations and all relevant players to explore all possible means of resolving the conflict between the USA and Iraq. The marches that took place this weekend are an echo of a resounding NO to war against Iraq and an insistence on dismantling whatever weapons of mass destruction Iraq may have.

It is to the benefit of humanity that we all avoid getting caught up in status and the desire to conquer the vulnerable amongst us and in the process lose sight of everything else. We must begin to see things in their totality and then maybe the priorities will change for the better, because, honourable members, in war there are no unwounded soldiers, especially when you hear the story of an American Vietnam Veteran who witnessed a Vietnamese woman forced to choose between her child and a piglet. She chose the piglet and dropped her child in the stream to be allowed to jump into the boat that was ferrying escaping locals for safety across the stream. The ANC and the rest of peace-loving citizens in the world have joined the march for peace.

We are a new democracy confronted by the ravages of poverty and want, and we have as a committed government led by the ANC put into place policies and programmes guided by the determination and preparedness to redress the inequalities of the past and bring about transformation and change in our country. This challenging demand requires peace and stability for us to be able to proceed with the mandate of changing the quality of life of our people.

The Government has made strides in policies such as the ISRDS and the URP (Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy and the Urban Renewal Programme) aimed at reducing and eradicating poverty in a systematic and focussed manner, planned, implemented, co-ordinated and integrated under the auspices of the cluster programme. I am therefore happy to inform the honourable members that progress has been made in this respect, in that in all the Urban and Rural Nodes implementation has taken off even though it may be in an uneven level as a result of the different local capacities available.

Thirteen (13) Planning and Implementation Management Support Centres (PIMS Centres) with professional and administration staff and institutional capacity to support the work in the nodes are progressing. But I must hastily add that this does not mean we have resolved our entire problem of lack of appropriate skills needed to carry the programmes, as development expands and grows under the pressure of an economy, which is beginning to require different and advanced skills to cope with high quality productivity that is so essential in keeping us in the trade markets.

To address this complex problem Government has intervened by promoting a skills development programme in the nodes for a start, to also help us consolidate the Independent Development Plans and the Provincial Development Strategies, to ensure that the nodal programmes are in sync with the regular provincial programmes. We are learning and refining our approach and understanding of the developmental environment, which continues to reveal to us, the depth of under-development we inherited when we moved into office. 

Anchor projects in the nodes have been identified and developed on the basis of the Independent Development Plans, formulated to structure development patterns. The importance of organising our work in an effective way in the nodes requires that all role-players co-ordinate, co-operate and align their work in a manner that enhances the alignment of budgets to achieve maximum benefit on both the short and long-term basis. 

Honourable members, the infrastructure backlog in our society is enormous, and where it exists, it is at different levels of decay and dilapidation. To change this state of affair partnerships with the private sector are crucial because Government on its own will not be able to carry the burden of reviving this infrastructure. This is just but one area of need which is receiving Governments attention, including the need to produce more project and programme managers who will assist us in accelerating the delivery pace and ensuring that there is adequate implementation of our people-centred programmes. It is therefore going to be critical that Community Development Workers are mobilised to complement the work of municipal council structures. This will also help in extending the capacity of Planning and Implementation Management Support Centres (PIMS Centres). The local levels of government with a democratic participation of such workers become a pre-requisite to the effective management of development especially infrastructure management.

Many of our communities, through the URP and the ISRDP, are beginning to benefit from programmes of rehabilitation and the revitalisation of our settlements. Alexandra provides us with an excellent example of a community that has started to engage and participate in its development and planning programmes for an improved environment. A partnership has emerged between the residents and the local authorities where community-based development processes are contributing to a better co-operation in cleaning the area, creating centres that are a foundation for tourist attraction, archiving the history of this vibrant place, constructing houses for rental and ownership purposes, depopulating the communities to create space and manageable infrastructure. The de-banking and cleaning of the Jukskei River has brought back a breath of clean, healthy air without the polluted stench that used to remind of us the negligence experienced by a community that has been there for years. Our aim is to replicate the success of our strategies to other similar nodes requiring similar approaches. 

An amount of R1,3 billion has been allocated for the provision of basic services, roads and transportation, construction of dams, water connections, electrical substations and network upgrading to support the local economic programmes aimed at creating jobs in those localities.

Honourable members, programmes funded and monitored by the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs have initiated agriculture and food production projects, and seed packets have been distributed to empower the poor in producing food for themselves. Local business centres and commercial outlets will assist in ensuring that people in those localities have access to goods and services.

The DPLG is ensuring that the distribution of powers and functions between the different spheres of government, especially districts and local councils, are streamlined to effect the implementation of programmes. The comprehensive health care package, for example established by the Department of Health, will receive sufficient attention where the relevant structures, including local councils, are capacitated to absorb and optimise delivery in this respect. 

We are, in our rural and urban nodes, promoting development in its various modes, including issues of crime prevention, pension payout systems are being upgraded and improved, sport and culture as well as small and medium enterprise ventures, and small scale farming. The Kgalagadi Rural Node bordering the North West and the Northern Cape is also registering advances in terms of projects initiated to promote development. This node has in it potential hubs of growth that are gradually being tapped through detailed assessment of by-products that can be extracted from our Dipudi (goat) project. Government will make the necessary announcements as soon as the plans have been completed. It is, honourable members, important to realise that each node will prioritise its programmes according to need. 

Programmes in the nodes are also linked to governments policies of land redistribution and land restitution including the secure land rights related to human settlements. To date, government has awarded 1,854 million land claims through the two programmes managed by the departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs. The restitution programme is linked to economic projects that provide an opportunity to communities to engage in productive agriculture with the potential to expand to economies of scale but also enhance food security.

Secure tenure for households is also implemented through the provision of housing to the poor. The UN Habitat agency identified South Africa two and half years ago as host to the launch of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure as recognition and support for the enormous progress made by the country in this regard. Eight million (8m) people now have shelter legally confirmed through title deeds issued to recipients of our housing subsidies. This is an indication of governments commitment to its land redistribution policy, which is progressing in an orderly, systematic and responsible manner. 

Other forms of tenure are also being promoted through the various housing programmes to accommodate the varied needs of different households and the programme on Agri-Villages and Co-operative Housing are underway. To date government has constructed 1,45 million homes using affordable forms of tenure to house the poor. 

Development in the nodes has not ignored the need for the enhancement of municipal institutional capacity that can begin to increase the ability of these institutions to generate revenue enhancement programmes that will extend the local revenue base critical for the smooth running of the municipalities. Households are linked to their municipalities; development rests specifically in the integrated approach and synchronisation of governments projects that service these communities. Local government programmes are proceeding relatively well and as LG continues to stabilise prospects of sustaining work done in these areas will increase. 

The Governments commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS remains as stated in the April 17th Cabinet statement and elaborated in the National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS, TB and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. We remain firmly committed to strengthening our prevention programmes, treatment, care and support as well as the elimination of stigmatisation of both the affected and infected. There is also ongoing research undertaken by government to gain better understanding of all aspects of the course and manifestation of HIV/AIDS in our South African socio-economic environment. 

It is in this context that we continue to invest significant resources in our public prevention programmes, and in strengthening and consolidating the treatment programmes for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including the further enhancement of the Life Skills Programme as a component of the school curriculum. All these efforts are being done along with a variety of other initiatives that include the increase of government contribution to the South African Vaccine Initiative of R20 million allocated per year and the publishing of guidelines for treatment of opportunistic infections for immediate implementation.

This approach is firmly anchored on a clear understanding that whilst HIV/AIDS can affect everyone, it strikes with greater ferocity and virulence among those with limited coping capabilities as a consequence particularly of poverty that afflicts so many in our country. Consequently, we have continuously reiterated the fact that we require a comprehensive approach to succeed against the epidemic. It is with this understanding that we also focus, inter alia, on the role of good nutrition; and support the research to include supplements and immune modulators as part of a comprehensive strategy.

There is no doubt that Government is committed to broadening the scope of interventions available to all our people for all illnesses including HIV/AIDS. The reality, however, is that Government is limited in its efforts by competing challenges and the needs in the health sector itself and other related areas of need which have to be addressed to enable us to achieve a comprehensive success in our endeavour to reduce the impact of illnesses and poverty in our midst.

Government reaffirms its commitment to comply with the High Court decision and is working towards ensuring that trained personnel, use of optimal combination of drugs, adequate infrastructure for monitoring, good patient compliance and the ability of the public health system to limit the emergence of resistant strains of the virus are matters that are given attention, must however be taken into consideration. 

Lastly, there is no doubt, honourable members, that the people out there realise that there are progressive improvements of their lives since the inception of democracy ten years ago. 

I thank you.