BUDGET VOTE 3 BY MS L JACOBUS: FOREIGN AFFAIRS

03 June 2004

Honourable Speaker,
Honourable Minister,
Deputy Ministers,
Members,

Introduction:

It is indeed my privilege and honour to rise for the first time in this House to make my humble contribution in this debate on Budget Vote no 3 - Foreign Affairs.

The area I will be focussing on will be Human Resources under the broad theme of "Transformation, and celebrating ten years of Democracy" Under this theme, Madam Speaker I will be speaking to 4 sub-themes, namely:

• Gender and Race Transformation
• Training and Human Resource Development,
• Deployment of human resources(both domestically and abroad), and lastly to highlight some
• Challenges we face as we enter our second decade of freedom By way of introduction, honourable Speaker, I would like to highlight what we, the African National Congress committed ourselves to do (through our Election Manifesto). We committed ourselves to work tirelessly to create a better Africa and indeed a better world. In doing so we will:
• work with others to speed up economic integration in Southern Africa and strengthen Democracy,
• ensure the realisation of the Constitutive Act of the African Union and the implementation of NEPAD,
• improve co-operation among countries of the South,
• strengthen economic and other relations with industrialised countries, and
• promote a collective multilateral approach to global challenges and work for the democratisation of global institutions

At the centre or core of realising these objectives or commitments, Madam Speaker, are "warm bodies" in other words human resources or person power. The Department lead by the Director-General, Dr Ntsaluba, submitted during the course of last week to the ad-hoc Committee the Department's Strategic Plan. In this Strategic Plan were outlined the broad priorities to be realised over the next decade. One of the five broad priority areas is to facilitate human resource development, locally and I would assume Regionally and indeed throughout the Continent. It is therefore also appropriate that I mention, Madam Speaker that one of the sectoral priorities of NEPAD Programme of Action is Human Resource Development - commendable indeed.

Having made these few introductory remarks Madam Speaker, I wish to move on to the first sub-theme of my input:

Gender and Race transformation:

Does the current gender and race distribution speak to the county's demographics? Addressing the multitudes of economic imbalances inherited by our history, has seen government departments set in motion plans and policies to remedy these imbalances and ensure employment equity. In the Department of Foreign Affairs, employment equity, in so far as race, gender and disability is concerned, continues to be a challenge. But I must hasten to say that a lot has been done around employment equity as is evident in the workforce composition and profile in the Strategic Plan of March 2004.

Reaching employment equity targets has been set out as a key human resource challenge for the current financial year.

In order to increase representivity, the departmental employment equity plan for April 2001-March 2004, has set the following targets for race, gender and disability: African 58%; White 30%, Coloured 7%, Asian 5%, female 50%, male 50% and people with disabilities 2%.

Through the Consultative Work Group, the Department will review the EE plan and ensure that targets for designated groups are set per occupational level. It is envisaged that the process will be finalised by the end of September 2004.

Because of these set targets, and our interest in ensuring that the progress of the implementation plan is paramount, we believe that continuous oversight by the Portfolio Committee would be crucial.

Training and Human Resource Development:

The Director-General when he addressed us extended an invitation to the Committee to visit the Foreign Service training Institute in Pretoria - our Chairperson has graciously accepted the invitation on behalf of the Committee to visit this facility. During the Committee briefings we were informed that the current training programme spans over a period of six weeks - this clearly has to be a crash course!

I think we would all agree that if we want to churn out quality individuals (especially those entering the Foreign Service for the first time), we would want to ensure that they are familiar with our foreign policy and strategic objectives, priorities for the Ministry as well as South Africa's regional and multilateral interests. Some of the things we may want to examine would then be:

• the content of the training curriculum,
• the duration of the programme (is the current six weeks sufficient?), and
• whether the curriculum caters for and serves the ever changing needs of our Foreign Service and global dynamics

Deployment of human resources:

Here Madam Speaker, to begin with, I wish to quote from our President's State of the Nation Address of 6 February 2004: " We must ensure that our country and people are properly positioned within the global community of nations, fully understanding and responding to the diverse political, economic, social and technological challenges of the process of globalisation.

In this regard, we will have to persist in the work we are doing towards the regeneration of Africa and the construction of a new and more equitable world order" In the spirit of NEPAD and the AU, one of our priorities is clearly Africa, and correctly so. I at this point want to referee members to table 3.4 of the medium term expenditure estimates, which deals with foreign relations. Over this period the Department intends to open 16 new missions in Africa (including the 5 to be opened in the current financial year).

Rough calculations, Madam Speaker, brings me to an average increase of R47.1m over this period. If one looks at the capacity that needs to be deployed into these additional missions, the question then arises - Is this a realistic increase in expenditure over the medium term (taking into account the AU with all it's sub-structures and the NEPAD? With this average increase will we as South Africa be able to respond to some of the challenges facing the Continent appropriately? Will we be able to ensure that our staff compliment in our missions abroad respond to our various needs and objectives? Challenges (in conclusion)

I would assume, the Dept of Foreign Affairs, like any other Government Department, are also faced with enormous challenges financially and otherwise. To this end, Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight a few of these that I think collectively we need to put our heads together to find solutions to. However, they are in no particular order and some of them are also highlighted in the Strat Plan.

• Recruitment and deployment of competent South Africans into multilateral bodies, eg. AU, UN, and others with all their sub-structures, - Strategic vacancies - how and what criteria are we using to recruit candidates to fill these positions or vacanciesf equal importance is the development of a recruitment and retention plan for the Dept. especially at it's Head Quarters.
• Human resource development in the Region and the Continent as a whole, taking into account all the structures of the AU and its programme NEPAD. What kind of support are we able to give to the Region and Continent to develop the required human resourceol to deploy in these structures
• Compatibility of information systems - are various Govt Departments in a position to talk to each other? At the heart of successful delivery lies information technology and communication. Is the information and communication technology of the Security ster Departments (Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Safety and Security, Justice, and the SARS speaking to each other? Are they compatible?
• The mainstreaming of HIV and AIDS issues. I note that the Dept. has this as one of the objectives under the "strengthening of the Institution" in it's Strategic Plan. The question then arises, Madam Speaker, how is the Dept planning to respond to this llenge and what does it mean in the context of the Department? I am asking this question because this is indeed one of the major threats to our human resource pool, not just in this Dept. but in the country as a whole

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, may I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the Minister for a job well done over the past five years since she took up Office in 1999. She and her department (under the very able leadership of the Director-General, Dr. Ntsaluba) can count on our support as they continue with the mammoth task of building a better life, a better Africa and indeed a better world. The ANC supports budget vote 3.

I thank you