Budget Vote Speech by the Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, to the National Council of Provinces, 3 June
Honourable Chairperson
Honourable Delegates
Honourable Deputy Minister of Social Development
Members of the Provincial Executive Councils
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
On Sunday, 1st June, we marked International Children’s Day, under the theme --- “listen to children.” We have listened, with our heads bowed down in shame, as children of foreign nationals screamed for help on account of what has been called xenophobic attacks. Speaking to us during the ‘Take a Girl Child to Work’ campaign, the girls of Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mamelodi pleaded with the DG and I to go beyond listening by acting decisively to root out this societal anomaly. Over the past two weeks I have moved from settlement to settlement in order to better appreciate the situation. I have noted the positive actions of people from all walks of life who have given their time and resources to lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters from across the continent and elsewhere. Ndithi Ningadinwa Nangamso!!
Long after the aid has dried up and the tents have been folded, shall the emotional scars of this unfortunate turn of events remain with these children and their caregivers. Consequently we will over the next few days work with social workers from various provinces and organisations to ensure that we begin to provide psycho-social support to these children. This we believe will reverse the tide and build for us a more caring society.
This we believe sits squarely within the mandate of the Department. Together with the provinces we remain determined to create islands of hope amidst the sea of poverty that surrounds us. Our efforts have been challenged by the rising food and energy prices. To address this and the root causes of poverty and inequality we remain determined, more than ever before, to ensure that:
“Our responses to poverty…empower people to access economic opportunities, while creating a comprehensive social safety net to protect the most vulnerable in our society.”
This is reflected in both the Apex Priorities of Government as well as the Vote 16 provincial allocations. Central to the objectives of the Apex priorities is the war against poverty, which is anchored on quality education and health as an objective measure of building a caring society. Given that poverty has both spatial and gender dimensions, we have allocated just under sixty percent of our resources to the largely rural and impoverished provinces of Kwa Zulu Natal, Eastern Cape and Limpopo. We are also actively engaged in reversing the descriptive of poverty of a rural woman with a child on her back.
For us the passing of the Children’s Amendment Act holds the promise of reversing this picture and is the dawn of a new era in the care and protection of children. To advance this prospect we are relying on national, provincial and local government as well as all relevant stakeholders to implement the Act in a coordinated manner so as to maximize the minuscule resources available. It was with this in mind that last week during Child Protection Week, we hosted a conference on ‘Getting South Africa ready to implement the Children’s Act.’ We have allocated over R22 million to this end.
Over the last ten years we have been progressively widening the safety net for children through the care dependency, child support and foster care grants. The Child Support Grant has been fundamental to these efforts and currently 8, 6 million children are in receipt of this grant. R19, 3 billion has been allocated to the CSG, which has been increased to R210 per month and will further increase to R220 from October. The remaining challenge is the linking of social grant recipients to economic opportunities as well as other public services and goods. Consequently, we are currently examining proposals to link certain child related grants to health and education outcomes, as displayed in internationally acclaimed programmes such as the Bolsa Familia in Brazil.
Honourable delegates, integral to overcoming the effects of child poverty is Early Childhood Development. Consequently we have renewed our registration drive of ECD centres. Already we have registered close on two thousand ECD sites during the last year. Going forward, we intend to register another 1 thousand new sites by March 2009, this would bring to total over 12 thousand registered ECD sites throughout the country. In order to ensure quality education and reach the objective of ensuring that every child in South Africa receives at least one nutritional meal a day we will subsidise 600 thousand children at a minimum of R9 per child, per day during this financial year. Our ultimate aim is to ensure that our work permeates the lives of the poor by also lending a human face to the work of our Government.
Such a human face requires of us to respond speedily and effectively to the needs and requirements of our people. It is with this in mind that as from the 1st of June this year we have accepted all social grant applications from potentially eligible applicants even if they are not in possession of all the necessary documentation. SASSA will accept sworn affidavits deposed to before a commissioner of oaths testifying to, amongst other details, the names, age, parentage of the child and any other applicant. Since this will go a long way to giving government a more human countenance, I take this opportunity to members of this house to assist in their constituencies with the issuance of such affidavits.
As can be witnessed through our programmes, accelerated and integrated service delivery remains a cornerstone of our war against poverty, as is income support. Consequently we will, amongst other measures, accelerate delivery towards the alleviation of poverty amongst older persons. In this regard the old age grant has increased by 27% since 2004. We are also working towards a progressive realization of age equalization with regards the qualification for Old Age Grant, which we will implement, as follows;
- 63 and 64 year old men in 2008 once the law is amended;
- 61 and 62 years in 2009;
- 60 year olds in 2010.
I urge all those eligible to wait patiently until the Social Assistance Amendment Bill is passed during the course of this year. In the meantime we will ensure that SASSA reaches the poorest of the poor through the Integrated Community Registration Outreach Programme which involves the participation of DSD, SASSA together with Home Affairs, Health, Education and the SA Police Service.
Our aim is to enhance the quality of life of all persons including older persons. It is therefore heartening to note the success of initiatives such as the Golden Games in the Western Cape. These initiatives will be enhanced by the establishment of Older Persons Forums in all provinces so as to provide a voice for the elderly.
Honourable delegates, family violence and child abuse continues to eat away the fabric which has bound our communities together. Together with other departments in the JCPS Cluster, we have enhanced measures to tackle family violence and child abuse. Our work has also received the support of the European Union which has supported our service improvement initiatives in the King Sabata Dalindyebo, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City and the Lukhanji localities. These efforts will be complemented by the establishment of some children’s homes as well as places of safety. This will, amongst others, ensure that children in conflict with the law are separated from hardened criminals.
In order to deter young people from a life of crime and engage them in community development we will launch the Masupatsela Youth Pioneer Programme. These Masupatsela youth will form part of our broad National Youth Service Programme. So far we have also trained 198 young people as Voluntary Assistant Probation Officers. I am pleased to announce that the Department has permanently employed 140 of these young people.
Chairperson, our own studies have linked maternal mortality with child birth and have also indicated that there are currently just over 1.5 million maternal orphans in our country. Consequently, we will this financial year improve the number of community based cluster homes in provinces. This will ensure that the likelihood of having to remove orphaned children from their homes is minimized. This requires added support to these households through the various Home Community Based Care programmes. These programmes are beginning to also provide psycho-social support to these children. One such organisation is the Ububele Community Programme in Alexandria, which has innovatively partnered with the University of Witwatersrand to train care givers in the provision of this vital service. In honouring the work of Ububele, the Department will scale up the model, together with the University of Witwatersrand, the Global Fund, and the German Development Bank (through Kfw).
All these actions, and those that are directed towards the upkeep of children, are to be coordinated by functional community based childcare forums. Unfortunately the pace of establishing these forums has somewhat been slow, mainly because childcare skills at that level are scarce. We have therefore, through the generous support of UNICEF, also partnered with the University of Witwatersrand, in order to train child care forum facilitators. These facilitators will be at the frontline of ensuring that children’s needs are ultimately addressed at a community level.
The meeting of these needs requires that we have at our disposal all the necessary information in order to make the right service and policy choices. In order to meet this objective we have allocated R11 million towards the development of a management information system for social welfare services. This will complement our long-term infrastructure plans for welfare infrastructure in provinces which includes the upgrading of Social Development offices in all the provinces and districts.
Chairperson, the addressing of the needs of vulnerable households also requires that we attract, retain, and re-orientate social service professionals. Consequently, the implementation of the Recruitment and Retention Strategy for social workers remains important in realising our long term objective of building a caring society. We will in the coming weeks finalise our negotiation processes with labour so as to implement the proposed Occupation Specific Dispensation for social service professionals in the public sector.
The finalization of these negotiations will enable us to also pay greater attention to conditions of service for social service professionals outside the public service. In the meantime we have already trained over 1 126 social auxiliary workers and supported 1 428 student social workers in the last academic year. Through the bursary scheme we will reach an additional 1 917 social work students with a view of guaranteeing employment to five thousand of them by 2010.
These initiatives have also offered us an opportunity to complement the international work we have conducted in the context of the UNESCO Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme. This initiative seeks to build solid bridges between communities, academics and policymakers in the social sector. The realization of the objectives of MOST requires, amongst others, the strengthening of South-South collaboration. This has motivated us to establish the Social Development Working Group of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) trilateral. These collaborations will also strengthen and guide the proposed national anti-poverty strategy. The strategy will, amongst others, address the multi-dimensional aspects of poverty through government and societal wide actions.
Given this multidimensional nature of poverty, we must also implement multidimensional partnerships. Such partnerships require the involvement of all sectors of society. This was our principal motivator in setting up the National Development Agency (NDA). Through supporting projects directed at meeting the developmental needs of poor communities the NDA has developed expertise in social facilitation and community development. Through strengthening institutional capacity of civil society organizations providing services to these communities, the NDA is beginning to ensure sustainable forms of community mobilization and asset management. Despite these excellent examples of groundbreaking work, the NDA continues to receive resources that are disproportionate to its mandate. I therefore take this opportunity to recognize the efforts of the Board and staff at the NDA, and also wish to invite the donor and corporate sector to offer its support to the NDA.
In concluding let me recall the words of former President Nelson Mandela, who in reaction to the so called xenophobia attacks said; “Remember the horror from which we come from. Never forget the greatness of a nation that has overcome its divisions. Let us never descend into destructive divisiveness."
Budget Vote 16 reaffirms our commitment to ensuring a united South Africa and Africa with a more human face which is emancipated from the brutality of poverty and inequality. I urge all members gathered here to lend their support to Vote 16.
I thank you.
ISSUED BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
PRETORIA
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