ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2, No. 7, 15 - 21 February 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: Public service needs to put people first * Poverty alleviation: Improving the lives of the country's poorest * Health care: Massive effort to tackle emerging and re-emerging diseases * Place names: A part of South Africa reclaims its birthright --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Public service needs to put people first Yesterday we announced in parliament that the government would, by next month, make available a sum of R2 billion to pay pensions owed to many old age pensioners. This debt to the elderly arose because in some instances, civil servants took as long as two years to register pensioners. However the law requires that pensioners should receive their pensions with effect from the time that they qualify and not the time they register. Accordingly, long delays in registration result in large unforeseen expenditure. This means that the necessary funds are not set aside to meet the pension obligations, as the national budget is worked out without the information being available about the actual number of pensioners in the country. Of course it is obvious that new pensioners would continue to be added to the register during the course of any financial year as people reach their pensionable age. This can be accommodated relatively easily if the registration process is handled speedily and effectively. Such speedy registration is therefore an important element in ensuring that we have proper financial planning and management. The matter also extends beyond this. It relates very directly to the concept, programme and campaign of Batho Pele! The government elaborated this programme to address the critical issue of improved service delivery by the government as a whole. Of particular importance in this regard is the entire state machinery whose most important component are the civil servants who are directly responsible for delivery of services to the people. The particular issue of the delayed registration of pensioners speaks of an attitude among some of our civil servants that is cruel and uncaring. We all know that the majority of pensioners in our country are poor people. Their pensions are in many cases, their only means of stable livelihood. In many instances, the pensioners also have an obligation to maintain their grand children and others members of their families. Their pensions are therefore critical to the lives of more than just the pensioners. Accordingly, to deny elderly people what is due to them for as long as two years is to condemn them to intolerable suffering and even early death. This should not be allowed to continue. The document from the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) promoting Batho Pele says: "People means everybody. Batho Pele will deliver services to all people, and particularly to those who do not benefit from services intended for all our citizens. Traditionally disadvantaged groups include millions who live below the breadline, disabled persons and rural black women." The document promises and undertakes that: "For a change public servants will listen to you. They will treat you with consideration and respect. New systems, procedures and structures will be custom-orientated and will ensure high-quality services. Drastic action will be taken when service falls short of promises." Batho Pele is based on the following eight principles: Consultation: you should be consulted about the level and quality of the public service you receive. Service standards: you should be told what level and quality of public services you will receive. Access: you and all citizens should have equal access to the services to which you are entitled. Courtesy: you should be treated with courtesy and consideration. Information: you should be given full, accurate information about the public services you are entitled to receive. Openness and transparency: you should be told how national and provincial departments are run, how much they cost, and who is in charge. Redress: If the promised standard of service is not delivered, you should be offered an apology, a full explanation and a speedy and effective remedy. Value for money: public services should be provided economically and efficiently in order to give you the best possible value for money. All these are important principles for the entirety of the public service at all levels. If observed, they would help greatly to improve the quality of life of all our people. They are binding on all our civil servants. But as the people said to the DPSA, "the transformation of our Public Service is to be judged by the practical difference people see in their everyday lives." And as the DPSA says, "drastic action will be taken when service falls short of promises." All responsible authorities in all the three spheres of government should make sure that this public commitment is in fact honoured. Of course, none of us wants anybody in the public service to lose his or her job. We are fully aware of what it means to anybody to be unemployed. The civil servants must themselves understand clearly the consequences of irresponsible and reckless behaviour on their part. They should therefore not act in any manner that renders them open to stern disciplinary action. The masses of our people have responded very well to the call to render voluntary public service. The public service should understand that our people are working as volunteers in part to assist those who are employed in the public service. In this way, they are lending a hand to those who have been hired to render public service. An important contribution the civil servants can make to the Volunteer Campaign, apart from also giving something to our communities during their free time, is to ensure that they implement the principles of Batho Pele. By itself, that would make a great contribution to the improvement of the quality of life of all our people, especially the most vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled and children. This must be the first response to the challenge we face of ensuring that the government machinery assists in the process of securing a better life for all our people. As we have said, it cannot be our first aim to fire people from their jobs. Our first task is to ensure that those employed to render service to the public actual render this service in keeping with the Batho Pele principles. The first responsibility for this falls on the shoulders of the civil servants themselves. It also falls on the shoulders of the public sector trade unions to which these civil servants belong. This is particularly the case with those trade unions that describe themselves as progressive and see themselves as central players in the process of the fundamental social transformation our country. They have a responsibility to educate their members about their responsibilities to the people. They have a task to assist their members to ensure that they actually do what they are supposed to do. They have a duty to monitor the performance of their members so that they are able to correct any mistakes that may occur. As progressive trade unions, they must be able to elaborate their own programmes directed at promoting the reconstruction and development of our country. They have to put in place benchmarks that will enable them to measure whether they are in fact making progress with regard to the implementation of those programmes. In addition to assisting the public servants, as they are doing through the letsema campaign, in the spirit of vuk' uzenzele, the people themselves should also monitor the performance of these civil servants to ensure that they are working in a manner consistent with the principles of Batho Pele. In the event that they find that wrong things are being done, they should report to the relevant government authorities to ensure that any wrong behaviour on the part of the civil servants is stopped or corrected. These government authorities also have a responsibility to exercise the necessary oversight and supervision of the public service. In the end, if wrong things continue to happen, they will have to take responsibility for the failure to discharge their responsibilities as the overall authority in their particular areas. The failure to observe the principles of Batho Pele also means a failure to implement the programmes directed at securing a better life for our people as approved by our democratically elected legislatures and executives. These executives have a responsibility to ensure that the approved policies are transformed into practical programmes that improve the quality of life of our people. Any blame for the failure to implement these policies must, in the first instance, be attributed to the elected executive authorities. They must therefore ensure that these policies are implemented. Accordingly they have to ensure that the civil servants that fall under them do their work actually to implement these policies. In this regard, we cannot allow cronyism, nepotism and timidity to result in a failure to serve the people of South Africa. The victory of our struggle against apartheid oppression depended on the involvement of the masses of our people in their millions. It demanded that all of us show a spirit of self-sacrifice and sustained dedication to justice. It required that the people as a whole, especially the oppressed, regardless of their social status, should understand that they are their own liberators. In the period since 1994, in many respects these masses became immobilised. A tendency began to grow suggesting that the people have no responsibility any longer to act constructively to help to change their lives for the better. It seemed that it was only the government that was expected to act, while all the people had to do was to wait for government to hand over to them the good things of life. The Volunteer letsema campaign has begun to change this. We are beginning to realise the important principle of a people-driven process of change. Once more, this requires that the people should understand that they are their own liberators from poverty and underdevelopment. They too have a direct responsibility to push back the frontiers of poverty and to expand access to a better life. As happened before, this requires that we mobilise all sections of our people e, regardless of their social status. Whereas during the apartheid years the state was an instrument of repression and an enemy of the people, in the period of democracy the state must be a social instrument for the advancement of the interests of the people. It is this which places our civil servants at the heart of the process of the reconstruction and development of our country. Without them, this process cannot succeed. It requires of them not only that they turn up at work and do the minimum required of them. It demands that they approach their work in a new way and with a new spirit. They should approach their work as valued members of society charged with the implementation of the transformation programmes that will turn South Africa into a truly democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, peaceful and prosperous country. They should approach their work in a manner that recognises the fact that they are midwives of the people-centred and caring society we are working to build. We should never allow it to happen again that elderly people are deprived of their pensions and others denied what is due to them, because of a cruel and uncaring attitude among our civil servants. Thabo Mbeki --------------------------------------------------------------------- POVERTY ALLEVIATION Improving the lives of the country's poorest Briefing the media on their plans for the year, ministers this week outlined key programmes targeted at improving the lives of the countries poorest. In addition to work being done in economic development and education and training, government is working to improve the lives of millions who subsist in extreme poverty by tackling a range of basic needs. One area of focus is the development of a new comprehensive social security system. A committee of inquiry has recently completed a report on this, which will be considered by a group of five ministers assigned by cabinet. The committee dealt with pensions, social insurance and social health insurance. Alongside this policy work, government will build on the substantial progress made in the administration of social grants and their impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The number of grants paid out last year increased by half a million to 3,8 million by December 2001. A major focus of the year will be to increase the numbers of people registered and able to receive social grants. The social development department aims to register a further one million children to receive the Child Support Grant in 2002. It will also work to ensure as many children as possible benefit from other grants, such as foster care grants and care dependency grants, aimed at helping children with disabilities. This will be among a number of initiatives which target children in the first six years of their life. This year will see the finalisation of legislation to protect all children from neglect, abuse and exploitation and provide a framework for appropriate systems of care. Free health care for children under six years continues to be provided at all government hospitals and clinics. To improve the standard of services offered at these centres, a basic 'package' of services has been designed, all clinics have been audited to identify gaps, and all clinics will be expected to meet the requirements of the package by 2004. There has been significant progress in programmes that benefit children. Around 73 percent of children are now fully immunised, a ten percent improvement on recent years. To meet the target of 90 percent by 2004, efforts will be concentrated on districts not doing that well, particularly in the Eastern Cape and Northern Province. The Primary School Nutrition Programme feeds a total of 4.7 million school children in 15,400 schools daily, which is around 86 percent of the target. Efforts will be made towards reaching the target number of school children by 2004. Communities will be encouraged to participate and benefit from this programme by prioritising community garden groups as suppliers of food for the programme. The large-scale provision of water and sanitation to rural areas will benefit young children in particular, who are prone to water-borne diseases. Since 1994, more than seven million rural people have gained access to clean safe water. It is expected that more than R1.2 billion will spent on rural water supply this financial year. If this level of spending is maintained, it is expected the remaining 7 million rural people without clean water will be reached by 2008. The allocation of 6,000 litres of free water per household a month currently benefits 26 million people. In many poor communities, this is a critically needed household subsidy. Government will this year focus on the significant backlog in households without adequate sanitation, which currently affects around 18 million people. This need has been highlighted by last year's cholera outbreaks in KwaZulu Natal and Eastern Cape. Around R124 million will be spent on sanitation programmes this financial year, benefitting almost half a million people, with the intention of increasing the allocation of funds to sanitation programmes over the coming years. --------------------------------------------------------------------- HEALTH CARE Massive effort to tackle emerging and re-emerging diseases Government will this year intensify its comprehensive response emerging and re-emerging diseases like HIV/Aids, sexually transmitted infections, malaria and tuberculosis. Several hundred million rand is going to the injected into the strengthening of provincial hospitals and clinics to enable them to better cope with the demand for treatment, especially of illnesses associated with HIV/Aids. It is estimated around R4 billion a year is spent treating illnesses associated with HIV/Aids. Government will double its contribution to the South African Aids Vaccine Initiative, which reaches its human trial phase early this year, to R20 million. New initiatives are to be developed to strengthen 466 existing home-based care projects and expand to more sites in all provinces. Tenders to provide home-based care kits, including gloves, bandages and medication used without professional supervision, is being processed. Condom supply will be increased to approximately 250 million male condoms and about 700,000 female condoms. Access to these will be increased through non-traditional sites like shebeens, spaza shops, hostels and through collaboration with the taxi industry will ensure condoms are distributed to the furthest parts of the country. A number of other campaigns spread throughout the year will build on the current high level of awareness and translate this into a change in lifestyle or action to reduce the impact of HIV/Aids. Prevention campaigns, targeting different groups of young people, will seek to delay sexual onset and promote safer sex. A health worker excellence campaign will target nurses, doctors and traditional healers to encourage a positive response to HIV/Aids care and boost morale among health workers. Access to voluntary counselling and testing will continue to be expanded, including the scaling up of this service in identified nodal points. About 1,800 HIV/Aids counsellors have been trained and further training will be provided for additional sites that are being identified. A report on the research sites using the drug nevirapine to reduce mother-to-child-transmission of HIV indicates varying challenges and progress. It is clear from the report that effective implementation is unavoidably linked to the general strengthening of primary health care provision, particularly the maternal and child health components. Provinces are considering the report and consulting with an aim of formulating a response based on the national protocols. This process will guide government 's policy direction. Effective prevention and treatment of tuberculosis will be a specific priority in the coming year. About half of all tuberculosis (TB) patients are found to be HIV positive and TB is the biggest killer of South Africans living with HIV/Aids. Control of TB therefore becomes one of the main determining factors in sustaining the health of people living with HIV/Aids. Access to voluntary counselling and HIV testing for all TB patients, and prevention and screening for active TB among people with HIV/Aids, will be intensified. Malaria control is one area where tremendous progress continues to be made. Through the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, malaria cases have been reduced by 76 percent in KwaZulu Natal, 64 percent in Swaziland, and 40 percent in the southern parts of Mozambique. Government plans to sustain this initiative and broaden it in order to benefit other countries in SADC region. Preliminary negotiations have started to explore the possibility of cross-border malaria control with Zimbabwe and malaria control experts are being sent to other SADC countries to provide technical assistance and strengthen control programmes. More Information: Parliamentary Media Briefings, February 2002 http://www.gov.za/events/2002/briefingsfeb.htm#brief --------------------------------------------------------------------- PLACE NAMES A part of South Africa reclaims its birthright By the simple act of renaming itself Limpopo, the Northern Province has affirmed the humanity and equal worth of all its people. Announced this week by Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, the name change will come into effect following an amendment of the national constitution. He also announced changes to the names of a number of the province's towns. The changing of place names, like the introduction of new national symbols, is an important part of the transformation of South Africa into a democracy in which the culture and heritage of all its people are recognised and celebrated. From the onset of the colonial period, the cultures, languages and traditions of South Africa's indigenous population were displaced by those of the white minority. This part of the same process of the deliberate and consistent erosion of the political, social and economic status of the country's black population. Ramatlhodi said that part of the task of the liberation struggle was to regain the humanity of the country's African population, including their right to call themselves by their own names. "Contrary to some opinions, the renaming of the province and our towns is not aimed at humiliating the Afrikaner. What we seek and hope to achieve, is to elevate the status of the African to that of their fellow compatriots. By this act, we are also saying to ourselves and to our compatriots, that none is superior and none inferior in this our common motherland," he said. Those who opposed the name changes as being too expensive were missing the point: "In the name of our people, we are prepared to pay the price," he said. The total costs for the name change was estimated at R40 million. A phased approach would be taken in ushering in the new names to mitigate the costs. The town of Warmbaths will now be known as Bela-Bela, Nylstroom becomes Modimolle, Potgietersrus becomes Mokpane, Pietersburg becomes Polokwane and Messina becomes Musina. More consultation will take place around other names due to be changed. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2002/at07.htm To receive ANC Today free of charge by e-mail each week go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html