3 June 2004
Honourable Minister
Honourable Deputy Minister
Honourable Members
Ladies and Gentlemen
Chairperson, one of the biggest challenges for South Africa, at this point in time, is to ensure that we develop in a way that supports government's firm commitment to confront joblessness and poverty. To paraphrase what the President said during the state of the nation address: A nation whose primary means of poverty alleviation is social grants is not on the road to sustainable development.
The government acknowledged long ago that we need to move away from the welfare approach to a more developmental approach that allows poor people to become self sufficient and economically active.
This emphasis on developmental services should not be seen as diminishing the importance of our social grants. For many South Africans, suffering as a result of poverty and unemployment, these grants are their only means of income. The ANC-led government's social security benefits compare favourably to most other poverty alleviation programmes and our grants provide substantial relief to vast numbers of poor people in this country. However, due to reasons such as human resource difficulties, instances of corruption and non-registration of especially rural grant beneficiaries: the system has not been as effective as it could have been.
Our government is attending to these challenges on a continuing basis.
The 2004 Budget allocates R180 million to the establishment of the National Social Security Agency, which will centralise the administration and payment of grants to a national authority. We foresee that the Agency will establish national norms and standards for service delivery. This will ensure that social grants will be delivered in a uniform manner across the country. We are, however, anxious to find out how the Department plans to address the human resource issue in the new Agency. We are aware that our grants system has often been affected by poor service delivery and bad administration and trust that these problems will be resolved before staff is transferred to the Agency.
The establishment of the Agency is one possible solution to the problems that plague grant administration, but this does not mean that we should ignore the problems within the present delivery system. We are, therefore, pleased to note the substantial allocation to improve grant administration and service delivery.
We also firmly believe that the new administration in Home Affairs will facilitate the registering of beneficiaries.
The 2004 budget allocation reserves almost R30 million to improve social security delivery. This allows the Department to implement their strategy for fraud prevention and detection at all levels. The Department estimates that fraud costs the state about R1, 5m per year and it is hoped that this national intervention will encourage people to report all instances of alleged fraud that come to their attention.
The Department also needs to continue to inform potential grant recipients of all their rights when applying for and receiving grants. An example, which we encountered on one oversight visit, is where certain social development officials ask our poor people to pay them to process applications and the people were unaware that they did not have to pay the officials. Besides addressing the obvious criminal act, we must also empower our applicants by making them aware of all their rights.
The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) forms part of government's renewed commitment to alleviate poverty and create jobs. Chairperson, let me emphasise that we will be spending almost R20 billion on this programme over the next five years.
The Department of Social Development is working together with the Departments of Health and Education to strengthen the public works programmes aimed at creating at least 185 000 jobs. These programmes focus on Home and Community Based Care Programmes and Early Childhood Development. We must remain mindful that these programmes will create mostly temporary jobs and the Department should continue to examine and implement long-term methods of poverty alleviation and human development.
Whilst the EPWP is a substantial and important intervention, it is but one part of a range of measures, which are together aimed at growing the economy, developing the country's skills base and encouraging higher levels of employment.
The president has also charged us with developing a cadre of committed community development workers. These people will be based in the civil service, but we want them to act as a link between communities and government. In essence, the community development workers must help communities access government services.
One of the most important structures in the fight against poverty should be the National Development Agency (NDA), which was set up to help meet most of the developmental needs of poor communities. It is also mandated to grant funds to civil society organisations. Unfortunately, the NDA has not been able to fulfil their mandate effectively as it has been plagued by mismanagement at a senior level. We commend the Minister for taking swift action to deal with these problems of corruption and mismanagement. However, the NDA can be critical to the development of our society if it is given the opportunity to fulfil its role properly. We must make sure that we provide this opportunity by appointing people of integrity to these senior positions as soon as possible.
In addition, we must complete work on outstanding policy and legislation to create an environment where our people are guaranteed the free and full enjoyment of their basic human dignity.
It was unfortunate that the Portfolio Committee on Social Development did not have the opportunity to complete work on the comprehensive children's legislation during the last Parliamentary term as the Committee has been committed to this crucial project from its inception.
The Portfolio Committee noted as early as 1996 that certain provisions of the Child Care Act of 1983 and other South African laws with regard to children are not in line with the Constitution of South Africa or the international instruments binding on South Africa.
The present Child Care Act focuses in essence on formal measures for the protection of children from harmful actions and from negligence, especially by those immediately responsible for their care. The emphasis in the current legislation is on tertiary prevention that involves dealing with abuse once it has occurred in order to prevent its re-occurrence. The 1983 Act makes little provision for measures and services to prevent children from being abused and it does not deal with the very real issue of child-headed households.
In the South African context where 60% of children live in poverty, where families are increasingly vulnerable because of the impact of HIV/AIDS and where services to poor and rural communities are still inequitably distributed, such a focus is inappropriate.
The new proposed children's legislation contains a number of provisions that are crucial in fulfilling South Africa's obligations both in terms of the Constitution and international treaties binding on the Republic. The Committee worked very hard on this piece of legislation and we are therefore pleased that the Minister recently identified the completion of the comprehensive Children's Act as one of the strategic priorities of the Department. It is my sincere belief that we will all co-operate to put in place children's legislation that provides protection for all children- the orphans (be it through HIV/AIDS or other circumstances), the street children, children caught up in the criminal justice system and those who are victims of abuse and neglect.
Apart from a commitment to establishing comprehensive children's legislation, the government has also accepted that children's needs span the work of different departments. This means that different government departments have to work together to respond to the needs of our children. The 2004 budget makes provision for this in that the amount allocated to child, family and youth development has nearly doubled in the period 2003(R8, 4 m) to 2004 (R15, 521m).
We were also unable to finish our work on the comprehensive Older Persons' Bill, which in hindsight, is probably a state of affairs that can work to the advantage of our elderly people.
The Older Persons' Bill, in our view, as it stood at the end of the last Parliamentary term, provides for the broader recognition of the needs of older persons, and the role they are able to play in communities. However, it appears that the policy imperative to move away from the exclusive focus on residential facilities has not been fully reflected in the Bill. As a result, there is still considerable focus on creating a regulatory framework for residential facilities. In our opinion, the present Older Persons' Bill does not pay enough attention to other aspects concerning the lives of older persons, such as the establishment of cluster villages and multi-purpose centres for the elderly within the poorer communities.
We are therefore looking forward to a continued engagement with the Department on the completion of this Bill and are very encouraged that the completion of the Older Persons' Bill has also been identified as one of the Department's strategic priorities.
There seems to be a lack of integration between the Departments of Social Development, Agriculture and Finance with regards to the Integrated Food Security Programme. This lack of integration has prevented the Department of Social Development from distributing food parcels to all the poor and vulnerable people. This situation is unacceptable and we appeal to all the Departments to continue to heed the President's call to work together in the fight against poverty.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we must remain mindful of our most fundamental commitments as contained in the Reconstruction and Development Programme. We must firstly, remain committed to creating policies, programmes and an environment to meet the basic needs of all South Africans. Secondly, we must create a society where all people experience the joy of earning decent incomes and living with human dignity.
We look forward to the day when the lives of even poorer South Africans will be about more than just meeting their basic needs.
I support the Budget Vote for Social Development.