30 June 2008
Honourable Speaker
Members of the Executive Council
Mayors and councillors
Leaders of political parties
Honourable members
The Director-General, Heads of Departments and CEOs of government agencies
The people of Gauteng
Distinguished guests
Today we present the ultimate budget for the Office of the Premier for our term of office. Taken together with the presentations by Members of the Executive, this represents our commitment to fulfil our mandate to work with the people of Gauteng to improve their lives.
We can boldly say that we will deliver on the commitments we made in 2004 that today will be better than yesterday. The budget further confirms that we will lay the foundation for the realisation of vision 2014 thus ensuring that tomorrow is better than today. During the 2004 elections, the people of Gauteng gave us a mandate to implement programmes that would help free them from the yoke of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, underdevelopment, disease and poverty. Over the past four years we have developed plans and allocated resources in our efforts to grow the economy, develop skills, grow small and micro enterprises, include women, people with disabilities, youth and blacks in economic activities, create income generating opportunities, and provide basic services for our people.
We have made significant progress in these areas. According to Statistics South Africa, the Gauteng economy has shown sustained growth since 1995, primarily due to growth in the finance, real estate and business services, manufacturing, construction, general government services and wholesale, retail and hospitality industries.
Over the last five years, employment across the Gauteng economy has grown by 20%, while unemployment has decreased from 25,7% to 19,5% between September 2004 and September 2007. Wholesale and retail, manufacturing, community and personal services, financial and business services and construction absorb nearly 60% of the active labour force in the province.
Our investment in infrastructure development has continued to play a central role in driving growth and development. By the end of the current financial year the Gauteng Provincial Government will have invested R37 billion in infrastructure development. Through the Expanded Public Works Programme 49,000 jobs were created in Gauteng in 2007, an increase of 80% from the 27,000 created the previous year.
Figures released by Stats SA earlier this year showed that income levels have increased across the board, including the poorest households, and that social grants play an important role in alleviating the plight of those living in poverty. The number of social grant beneficiaries in Gauteng now stands at over 1,4 million. The Bana Pele programme for children living in poverty that was initiated in 2005, has increased its beneficiary base from 522,000 in 2005 to over 876,000 in 2007. Across the province over 70% of poor households receive free water services.
Important strides have been made with regard to quality of life as well. The 2007 Community Survey results showed that since 2001, 20% more households now have access to piped water in their homes and 9% more households use electricity for cooking.
The general health of the population has also improved. Infant mortality and child mortality rates have declined since 2003, as has the ante-natal sero-prevalence rate as an indication of the numbers of new HIV infections. Since 2005, 18% more children are receiving immunization to protect them from childhood diseases, and according to the SA Health Review 2007, Gauteng has the highest TB cure rate in the country.
Every year, more children are enrolling in the education system. In 2007, there was a 10% increase from enrolment in 2004, and 8% more learners registered for maths and science subjects between 2006 and 2007. The Grade R programmes have seen a massive growth of 45% since 2004. The quality of education has also improved, with class sizes and learner to educator ratios continuing to decrease. By the end of 2009 we will have built an additional 57 schools since the beginning of our term of office, each at an average cost of R26 million.
We have also taken our commitment to skills development seriously, registering over 5900 learners in learnerships and internships in 2007.
As we conclude the final year of delivery on our programme of action, we are confident that we will complete our mandate and we will establish a firm foundation for the realization of our vision to drastically reduce unemployment and poverty by 2014. We will waste neither hour, nor day in the coming months as we engage in our final push to make Gauteng a better place to live in for its entire people.
This is not to say that all is well and that there are no challenges that we face. We know that some of our people, particularly the poor, are currently facing economic pressures such as increases in the cost of living. But, as we have said before, working with our people we will do everything to ensure that we weather this storm. By remaining focused on our strategic priorities we will achieve our objectives of a better life for all our people. We will continue to focus on:
To cushion the poor against the impact of the current situation, we are providing social assistance relief for those in dire need. The situation further demands that we accelerate our offensive against poverty and implement our social development strategy. Together with municipalities we will speed up the provision of a pro-poor package of services to the poorest households such as free basic water and electricity, rates rebates, social grants, free health care, free education, indigent burials, free scholar transport, home-based care for those affected and infected by HIV and Aids, food for poor children and families in distress and services for the elderly. Through the expanded public works programme, we will continue to provide jobs, skills development and other economic opportunities to help our people to look after themselves and their families. In response to the housing needs of the people, we will complete 120 000 housing units in 2009 including 13 upgraded hostels. The number of households with access to water and electricity will also increase resulting in general improvement in the living conditions of many of our people.
The drop in the percentage of informal settlements in the province to 22.6% indicates that the provincial government is on track in improving the lives of poor communities. The progress we have achieved so far clearly indicates that we are on course to reach our target of formalizing by 2009 and eradicating by 2014 all informal settlements identified in 2004. By the end of this financial year, a further 56 informal settlements will have been formalized, bringing the total to 124. This lays the basis for hundreds of thousands of our people to own a piece of land with basic services and a home they can call their own.
To further address marginalisation and inequality we will focus on completing the work we have started to improve the 20 priority townships and fast-track infrastructure development in these areas. By the end of 2009 all roads in these old established townships will be tarred and there will be parks and improved living conditions. We will also accelerate urban regeneration programmes and mixed housing development to ensure that we build sustainable socially integrated human settlements with access to essential services, community facilities and economic opportunities.
As we push ahead with our efforts to build Gauteng as a globally competitive city region, we are conscious of the fact that we need to take deliberate steps to ensure that this city region continues to be socially inclusive and indeed benefits the poorest of the poor and those historically excluded from participation in the mainstream economy. The city region will continue to invest in the provision of social infrastructure and provide quality social services to all its people, including health care and education, and build strong families and secure communities.
The current investment in health technology solutions such as the introduction of a smart card and the roll-out of telemedicine in community health facilities will help expand the availability of specialist services in poor communities, reduce long queues and improve cure rates. We will continue to increase the number of clinics with extended hours of service. Two new hospitals and 13 clinics have been completed since 2004 and there are major refurbishments at a number of institutions including the revitalisation of Chris Hani Baragwanath. The construction and extension of services goes hand in hand with the continued employment of health practitioners especially clinicians. Service packages for all primary health care facilities and standard operating procedures, protocols and guidelines for pharmacy have also been finalised.
Our comprehensive programme on HIV/AIDS continues to gather pace, bringing much needed services to those infected and affected and ensuring that they lead productive lives. Last month we launched the Gauteng City Region Academy and handed over 20 new schools to poor communities. This forms part of our response to the skills needs of our economy. We will continue to pay special attention to the attraction and retention of highly skilled people in the teaching profession, particularly in the scarce skill areas such as mathematics, science and technology in order to grow the economy and address unemployment, poverty and inequality.
A skills pipe-line development strategy has been formulated to fast-track the development of scarce skills, linking talented individuals to the appropriate training, workplace experience and career paths.
Crime remains a major challenge for all of us. Together with unemployment and housing it is one of the priority areas that communities from all walks of lives expect government to help bring down considerably. Since the launch of the Safety Strategy and the Take Charge Campaign last year, we have been able to mobilise substantial community and civil society support behind our effort to combat all categories of crime. We hope that the statistics on crime released by the minister of Safety today will show marked decrease in crimes especially murder, robbery and rape.
While we remain concerned about reckless driving on our roads and the number of unroadworthy vehicles, we remain on course to meet our target of 30% reduction in road fatalities. Together with the metro police and municipal traffic departments we will clamp down on lawlessness on our roads including drivers who deliberately remove their registration numbers to avoid being caught.
On this last day of the youth month, I would like to reiterate our commitment to mainstreaming and the empowerment of youth, women and people with disabilities. These are the groups that are most severely impacted by unemployment. Our programmes and policies will continue to prioritise them in our quest to reverse the many years of social and economic neglect. Government procurement will continue to be used to leverage support, particularly for enterprises owned by young people, women and people with disabilities. Through the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller, small, medium and micro enterprise will receive increased support with the aim of achieving 50% of funding for women-owned business and 30% funding for youth owned companies.
The Gauteng Youth Commission has created a strategic institutional platform for youth empowerment and development in the province. The Commission has put in place a youth skills development programme to equip young people with technical, entrepreneurial and life skills. 230 young people will be enrolled in the programme this year and the number will increase to 1800 in the next year. Following a preliminary review of the work of the Youth Commission we have together with them come to the determination that the commission should be located in the Office of The Premier. The MEC for Sports, Art, Culture and Recreation will continue to champion issues of youth development and provide political leadership to the commission. In the coming months, the implementation of our strategy to build Gauteng as a globally competitive city region will reach important milestones. In September this year the Gauteng City Observatory, which is a partnership between the Gauteng government, business, research and higher learning institutions anchored by the Universities of Johannesburg and Witwatersrand will be launched. This will provide an essential basis for ensuring that we effectively benchmark the GCR and tap the best knowledge and expertise in pursuing our development agenda.
The hosting of the International Association of Science Parks conference by the Innovation Hub in September this year will further put Gauteng on the map as a global city region.
Our claim to being South Africa's home of champions has again been reaffirmed by the crowning of SuperSport United and Mamelodi Sundowns as the Premier Soccer League champions and the Nedbank Cup respectively. Our strategy to host competitive sport will receive a further boost next month when we host UEFA and English League champions Manchester United during the Vodacom Cup Challenge. This year's Vodacom Challenge tournament seems to be generating interest beyond the borders of South Africa. A number of English football fanatics are reportedly planning to travel to South Africa to support Manchester United. The hosting of other major events this year will showcase our province and provide much needed support for the development of sport. These events, including SoccerEx and the Confederation Cup in 2009, will provide an opportunity to hone our skills to host major events ahead of the Soccer World Cup in 2010. Next year we will welcome teams that will be participating in the FIFA Confederations Cup including Espana, the newly crowned European champions. These high level international events help to enhance the socio-economic growth of our province and create a lasting impression of the province's global competitiveness.
The plans we have developed and resources we have allocated for social and economic development give us confidence that we shall weather the storms and lay firm foundations to achieve the levels of economic growth that will allow us to address unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment in the medium term.
Our flagship infrastructure investment project, the Gautrain, remains on track and will be completed on schedule. Progress in terms of civil construction can be clearly seen on many sites throughout the province. Together with the construction of roads and houses the construction of the Gautrain has turned our province into a construction site. Next Monday I will be in Derby with the Gautrain political Committee and the media to formally receive the first four-car train set for the Gautrain project. The completion of the train set represents yet another key milestone in the project and further confirms that the project will be delivered on time. Government will continue to invest money in other projects for the creation of strategic economic infrastructure. These include finalisation of the development of aerospace industries, automotive and related industries, and the establishment of the jewellery precinct at the OR Tambo International Airport and the expansion of the innovation hub.
Together with the Department of Minerals and Energy, the Department of Public Enterprise and municipalities we will prioritise the implementation of three Regional Electricity Distributors in Gauteng. Implementation of the REDs will enable us to invest more money for maintenance of electricity distribution infrastructure and decrease the probability of unplanned power outages. We call on Eskom and municipalities to continue to set aside resources to the maintenance of the service to avoid unnecessary power outages. Together with communities and business we should continue with the energy saving measures that we embarked upon during the electricity emergency period.
We continue to make good progress in our efforts to build the capacity and organisation of the state. Our major success in this term of office has been the strengthening of collective planning, alignment and integration across spheres of government. This has helped to remove obstacles to service delivery and improved joint planning and integrated implementation of projects.
We have already started with planning to develop a long-term strategy for the province which will be aligned with the provincial and local government strategies and city development plans that some municipalities have developed.
In terms of our international relations programme we continue to build and strengthen relations with provinces and regions in other countries guided by our national international relations policy. On the continent, working within the framework of NEPAD, we have established working relations with a number of countries. Our emphasis in this regard is on strengthening economic relations and in mutually beneficial exchanges to improve state capacity. Tomorrow we will be in Lubumbashi in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo attending an investment summit which we have planned jointly with the government of Katanga.
We will also pursue cooperation with Abuja in Nigeria as part of the strategic priority to promote political, economic and trade relations with West Africa. Being an economic power house, Nigeria presents important opportunities for trade and investment in various sectors. Similarly, we are exploring relations with provinces in neighbouring countries including Mozambique, Namibia and Angola.
Our accountability to the house has improved over the years and a strong public participation culture has been established in the province through izimbizo and other public engagement forums. This year an Intergovernmental Anti-corruption Framework will be concluded. This framework seeks to improve collaboration and alignment of anti-corruption initiatives between provincial departments and municipalities. A manual on public sector ethics and training of public sector managers will also be completed. We await the tabling of the Ministerial accountability manual and the secondary legislation framework which will further enhance the ability of the legislature to hold the Executive to account.
This year, we will make interventions where necessary to ensure that by the end of this term of office we have achieved our target of having black people in 70% of senior management positions with 50% of them being women. This must go hand in glove with our BBBEE strategy of ensuring that 70% of our spent goes to companies owned by black people including women. The launch of the GCR Academy last month has provided us with a platform to address our skills needs and improve the capacity of our managers to plan and implement projects. Learnerships and internship will continue to play a pivotal role particularly in developing critical and scarce skills in young people.
Last month our province was rocked by violent attacks on foreign nationals and South Africans in a number of communities. These attacks are against everything we have been doing to build a humane and caring society.
These actions of a small group among our people do not reflect the values of our people who for decades have lived together with their fellow African brothers and sisters - whom they accept, without question, truly as their own.
I would like to thank everybody that assisted and the NGOs that continue to provide food and other assistance in the shelters. Work to lay the ground for the reintegration of displaced people continues and we are determined that by August the temporary shelters would have been closed and people would have returned to their homes in their communities. Together with national government, the province will on the 3rd of July pay homage to those who died during the attacks.
During his inauguration in 1999, President Mbeki said: "Our country is in that period which the Setswana speaking people of Southern Africa graphically describe as 'Mahube a naka tsa kgomo' - the dawning of the dawn when only the tips of the horns of the cattle can be seen etched against the morning sky". We can now with confidence say to the people of our province that we can now see the full cattle.
We are nearing the final stages of our journey in completing the mandate of the people of Gauteng and in laying the basis for the realization of Vision 2014. Together with the people of Gauteng, we can say that we have laid a firm foundation and that a better Gauteng is in the making where:
My sincere thanks to the Executive Council, the Director-General and his team and HODs for the tireless work they have done to bring us to the point where we are confident to declare that we will deliver on the mandate given to us by the electorate and we will finish the work we set out to do.
I would like to express our appreciation of the work of the Oversight Committee on the Premiers Office and the Legislature, the Gender, Youth and Disabled Persons Committee and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for keeping us on our toes. I thank you.