24 February 04
Madam Speaker
Honourable Members
Ladies and Gentlemen
Madam Speaker, allow me to digress a slight bit in order to illustrate the social context within which the ANC-led government seeks to introduce the Drought Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill. It is important to know where we come from, before we can really know where we are heading.
There are those in our country today who, for their own reasons, want to forget where we came from. Those who want to deny the fact that our country is still suffering as a result of the scourge of Apartheid. Those, who want to tell our people that they were better off under the previous regime and that the strides taken by the ANC-led government in the past 10 years have done nothing to improve our peoples' lives.
Surely South Africa demands better than these doomsayers who want to take us back to a time when the majority of people lived in conditions of oppression and fear. To these people, we want to say…it will take a lot longer than 10 years to erase the centuries of deprivation and dehumanising treatment meted out to the majority of our people. However, this ANC-led government is committed to doing just that and the last decade can bear testimony to our efforts, both our resounding successes and our unfortunate failures. Through good planning and hard work, our successes have consistently outweighed our failures. And where we have failed, we have learnt from such mistakes. Our people know that we are a caring government, which takes care of all South Africans- not just a chosen few.
Despite our ongoing efforts, it is an unfortunate truth that many people in our country continue to live in conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition. The ANC-led government is committed to changing this situation around and has put in place many programmes to fulfil this goal. In order to further address this problem, our government launched the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Strategy and Programme during July 2002.
A very successful part of the Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Strategy and Programme is the Food Emergency Scheme, which is aimed at significantly reducing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity by 2005.
The Food Emergency Scheme also aims to develop a comprehensive Food Production and Trade Scheme through establishing household and communal food gardens and ensuring that the poorest families have food on the table. Communities therefore empower themselves by developing the skills necessary to maintain such communal gardens and contributing to their own sustenance.
The Food Emergency Scheme targets families with little or no income, children, orphans, child-headed households and people living with HIV/AIDS and has assisted over a million of the most vulnerable people since its inception. The Minister of Social Development announced recently that about 300 000 of the poorest households have thus far been provided with food parcels as part of this scheme and that this has had a significant impact in ensuring that the most vulnerable and poor in our country has had some sort of food security.
Another important part of the Food Emergency Scheme has been that whilst beneficiaries have been receiving these food parcels, they are being registered for social grants.
Significant numbers of the people who benefited from the distribution of food parcels need not rely on this form of assistance, if they receive the social grants to which they are entitled.
Many of these beneficiaries are also participating in sustainable poverty relief and income generating programmes, which allows them to move to positions where they become more self-reliant. We want our people to move out of what President Mbeki has called the "second economy" where they are continuously reliant on informal jobs and social assistance in order to survive to situations where they can become full participants in our economy.
Madam Speaker, the Portfolio Committee on Social Development has had first-hand experience of the many successes of our government's anti-poverty programmes on our various oversight visits and in our constituencies, but we have also seen that much more can be done to improve the lives of our people.
Despite the undeniable success of the Food Emergency Scheme, we are all aware that our country is currently in a situation where as many as four million South Africans are still at risk of food shortages due to drought.
Our government has put in place a co-ordinated and integrated drought mitigation plan, which aims to reduce the impact of the drought by:
Madam Speaker; Honourable Members, the Minister of Finance recently introduced the Drought Relief Adjustments Appropriation Bill, which aims to make funds available to provide for further drought relief to the most vulnerable in our country.
The Department of Social Development has been entrusted with the allocation of a further R60 million in order to fund emergency relief to vulnerable communities affected by the drought. The Department has decided to give our people once-off cash payments instead of food parcels, which will be distributed with the aid of traditional leaders, faith-based and non-governmental organisations. It is important that communities assist the government in ensuring that the right people benefit from this assistance.
We ask our people to remember that it is only through partnership in the people's contract that we can fight all forms of poverty.
Our government intends to pay those households, which are hardest hit by the drought once-off cash payments of at least R900 for survival. The benefit will be available in certain parts of those areas, which our president has declared disaster areas.
This benefit will go to significant numbers of people who depend on farming and will provide immediate relief instead of food parcels and fertiliser packs, which may take a long time to reach our people. The aim with this programme is to make sure that our people have the immediate tools to provide food during this time of drought. Fertiliser packs and other measures do not provide an immediate solution to those people who need food today.
The following people will be entitled to apply for emergency drought relief:
This programme is another example of the inclusive approach taken by the ANC-led government. We are committed to ensuring that all South Africans, who are suffering as a result of this drought, benefit from this emergency relief. We will provide the same relief to all eligible people, according to the same criteria. Not more benefits to some than to others based on arbitrary and meaningless distinctions… we all know the consequences of such practices. We know where we come from unlike some members of the opposition. Of course, there is a very real concern that people could use the money for alcohol and other non-essential items. The ANC-led government is committed to providing relief to our people in this time, but we appeal to people to remember that this is a once-off payment meant to provide immediate relief and ask them to use the money responsibly. The peoples' contract asks us to work together to fight poverty and corruption. The peoples' contract will not be as successful as it could be if one/ both parties do not fulfil their ends of the bargain.
The bargain in this instance is: The ANC-led government is giving our people money during their time of need and we ask the people to use the money to buy food and other necessary items.
The purpose of this form of assistance is to ensure that our ANC-led government provides crucial humanitarian relief to people affected in order to reduce the serious impact of this drought.
The African National Congress supports this Bill.
I thank you