12 September 2019
Frances Baard District Municipal Chamber in Kimberley

Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Northern Cape
Honourable Members of the Executive Council

The Leader of the Official Opposition Honourable Members Andrew Louw
Honourable Members of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature
Provincial Chairperson of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA)
Executive Mayors, Mayors and Councillors
Honoured Traditional Leaders represented by Kgosi Mme Toto
Veterans of our Liberation Struggle
The Director General, Heads of Departments and Public Servants
Secretary of the ANC and Leaders of the Alliance
The Head of the Police in the Province, General Shivuri
Leaders of Political Parties
Members of the Media
People of the Northern Cape
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
The new Honourable Member Ofentse Jeremiah Mokae

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to address this august house, this being my maiden budget vote as the Premier of this beautiful Province of the Northern Cape. It is this province that produced Judge Steven Madjiet one of the colossus figures in the construction of the country’s jurisprudence, and would like to congratulate him on his new appointment as a judge in the country’s apex court.

The significance of this day, which is a day on which Steve Biko was brutally murdered by the apartheid regime in 1977, forces us to reflect on the cardinal values of selflessness that was key in our struggle against apartheid. This cardinal value should continue to guide our actions in executing the difficult task to improve the quality of life of our people. Like many other revolutionaries, Steve Biko placed himself in a disadvantage to create an advantage for oppressed masses of our country. Biko cogently put it that “it is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die”.

Honourable Speaker, during this month, we must profile the Northern Cape as a preferred Tourism destination, especially in this time when the Namakwa District is covered in a beautiful colourful blanket of natural Namakwa Daisies.

This month offers us an opportunity to display the rich cultural heritage of the diverse people of the Northern Cape, especially the indigenous Nama, San !Xun and Khwe languages spoken only in this Province. Heritage Month serves as a catalyst for social-cohesion and nation building. Government calls on all South Africans to use Heritage Month to foster greater social cohesion, nation building and a shared national identity. Through our diversity and unique heritage, we can strengthen our unity and build a cohesive society.  The celebration of Heritage Month creates a conducive environment for all people to embrace and celebrate what is inherited from our forebears. This year, the Province will host the National Heritage day celebrations in Upington and will be addressed by the Deputy President of the country, Mr David Mabuza.

Madam Speaker, we are also celebrating Public Service Month, which serves as a reminder of what it is to serve, and it also offers us an opportunity to reflect on our services, their impact and how the work of Government is changing the lives of our communities.

Madam Speaker and Honourable Members we are deeply pained that our country has recently experienced an escalation of horrendous acts of violence against our women and children. This is a war that has to be fought by both men and women. We are extremely saddened by the senseless rape and murder of women such as Uyinene Mrwetyana, Valencia Davids, 14 year-old Esmeralda Isaacs who was found in the veld in Upington, and many other victims of gender-based violence. We send our heartfelt and sincere condolence to their respective families and relatives. We support the call that judicial officials should not give bail to perpetrators of gender violence.

Honourable Speaker the fight against gender violence is a fundamental part of our struggle and is not something to be joked of or trivialized. In 1985 OR Tambo had this say about the struggle for liberation:

“…struggle for liberation would not end until women are fully empowered in South Africa“

South Africa has one of the highest gender based violence rates in the world. The Crime against Women in South Africa, reported by Stats SA, indicates that femicide is five (5) times higher than the global average. There were about 3000 women murdered last year, which amounts to one woman murdered every three hours. There are daily reports of women and girls gone missing, for example here in Kimberley, there is the outstanding issue of Rehana Moshoeshoe who has been missing since 2013.

We heard the cries of Leihandre “Baby Lee” Jegels who was shot by her boyfriend, and Karabo Mokoena who was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend. The sad reality is that the issue is so pervasive within our society that 41% of rape survivors are children of which only one in nine cases are reported and only 4% of these result in prosecution. Despite these discouraging figures, we currently have 38 successful rape convictions throughout the Province, which range from a minimum of 10 years to life sentences.

Madam Speaker, on the 23 August 2019, the Office of the Premier consciously convened a roundtable session with Sol Plaatje University, Provincial Public Service Commission, Commission on Gender Equality, SALGA, Civil society organizations and the departmental focal points on Gender, in order to develop strategies on combating this scourge of Gender-based Violence and Femicide. The report and recommendations will be tabled to the EXCO before the end of September 2019 for further processing and implementation.  We are planning to launch the Provincial Gender-Based Violence Strategy before the end of this financial year.

Honourable Speaker, we call and urge all MEN, stakeholders, government, civil society, NGO’s, faith based organisations to urgently join forces to bring an end to the violation of women and children.  The action must however start in our own individual spaces, be it at home, work or communities. The call for action begins with a single step by each individual assertively denouncing gender-based violence so that collectively we unite in joining the global movement in the fight against women and child abuse. As a result, my office is initiating an all-encompassing Public Service Men’s Dialogue, as a matter of extreme urgency. This must culminate in a comprehensive response by Men in society to proclaim without fear that #NOT IN OUR NAME! REAL MEN DO NOT RAPE! REAL MEN DO NOT ABUSE! REAL MEN DO NOT KILL!

Madam Speaker, in this Inaugural Budget Vote we have to answer one critical question, what are the governance challenges towards building state capacity for a modern, growing and successful province? With my three months in office I have roughly identified some of these challenges:

Corruption and rent-seeking, particularly in the procurement of government,

Bureaucratic fiefdoms, which results in silo approaches to service delivery,

Current IGR Framework focuses on the distinctiveness of spheres and not on the interdependency and interrelatedness,

Skills deficit,

Bureaucratic red tape - serves systems not people,

Citizen participation deficit,

Poor social compact – poor relationships with private sector, civil society and academia,

Weak planning and limited integration between projects,

Slow rollout due to capacity or financing constraints,

Lack of specialised skills such as planners, researchers, GIS specialists and Town Planners.

Inadequate community benefits from infrastructure development, community alienation from involvement in infrastructure rollouts and less community ‘ownership’ and pride in infrastructure assets,

Out-dated infrastructure audit, and

Poor implementation of High Impact Projects

Honourable Members, the envisaged governance model of the 6th Administration is to construct a capable developmental state with following attributes:

• Non-hierarchical and people driven,
• Focused on cooperative governance,
• Specialized skills based on the 4IR,
• Professional public service,
• Bottom-up pro-poor policy, and
• Driven by a social compact.

Madam Speaker, this budget will focus on a new approach for the 6th Administration based on the following Strategic Interventions:

1. Construct a Developmental State in the Province and ensure good governance.
2. Finalise the Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) and Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF) with a new social compact and joint funding model.
3. Adopt a new governance model incorporating the 4th Industrial Revolution in service delivery, infrastructural planning and spatial justice
4. The establishment of the Provincial Growth and Investment Council which is supported by a Provincial Planning Secretariat and a War Room on Poverty, Unemployment and Inequality.
5. Craft a PGDP five-year implementation plan accompanied by an annual budget mandate paper that informs the funding of priorities rather than sectors.
6. Leveraging the employment and transformation outcomes for the youth, women and the physically challenged.

Honourable Members, this budget must therefore, be understood within a completely different context. A complete shift in the paradigm! I am not intending to come and present cold figures to this house, but rather, how these figures impact on the lives of the ordinary and downtrodden masses. How are these figures going to ensure that our cardinal vision of a Modern, Growing and Successful province is attained at all cost.

Honourable Speaker, in our work to achieve this vision we need to pay immediate attention to the challenge of youth unemployment. Youth Development is at the centre of our developmental agenda and therefore our focus will be to drive innovation and skills development in our growing economic sectors. Hence, during the SOPA in July 2019, we announced that this critical developmental function be moved to the Office of the Premier and progress is being made in relocating this function. The team working on the Provincial Macro Re-Organisation of Government is exploring the different modalities.

Honourable Speaker, the National Development Plan (NDP), adopted in September 2012, seeks to enhance the transformation of our society, a new roadmap, a new way of thinking in terms of integrated planning, resource allocation and monitoring and evaluation. The primary objective of the NDP is to eradicate unemployment, poverty and inequality. The Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) and Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF) 2019 are aligned to the NDP. The PGDP and PSDF are currently undergoing a rigorous process of engagement with the private sector, civil society and academia. The Provincial Growth and Investment Council will facilitate the implementation of PGDP.

The key focus of the Provincial Growth and Investment Council (PGIC) is to focus on building relations with labour, civil society, private sector, and academia. The PGIC will offer a platform to actively engage all stakeholders in building a modern, growing and successful province.

Honourable Speaker, ten of the eighteen Strategic Integrated Projects (SIP’s) affects the Province, therefore it is important to establish SIP integration structures. In responding to the urgency of the tasks of the PGIC we have finalised the terms of reference thereto and they are currently subjected to consultations. Furthermore, my resolve is to appoint competent and skilled members of the PGIC by end of October 2019.

Honourable Members, South African Reserve Bank projects a growth rate of 0, 6% for the year, which places fiscal and monetary constraints on our programme to deliver quality services.  Due to this difficult fiscal position, the National Treasury has requested government departments to cut budgets and prepare proposals to reduce expenditure in a way that will not compromise service delivery. The aim is to cut 5% for 2020-21; 6% for 2021-22 and 7% for 2022-23. That could amount to a cut of R300 billion over the next three years. This could be the first step in containing the country’s budget deficit.

This means that the Northern Cape has to do a lot more with less resources, which will require joint planning, joint budgeting and cutting of wastage, inefficiencies and executive frills in the system.

Honourable Speaker, the 2019/20 budget allocation for the Office of the Premier is R 273, 4 million, which is R 25, 1 million more compared to last year’s budget of R 248.3 million. The increase is due to a once-off R20 million earmarked to fund the centralization of Provincial ICT services.

There are three Programmes in the Office of the Premier, namely:

Programme One: Administration R114, 6 million. This programme is responsible for Administration and has a responsibility for long-term planning as it plays a strategic role of interface between administration and political office to ensure the implementation of the electoral mandate. This is the programme that must ensure that the ‘Centre holds’, in the coordination of the work of government.

Programme Two: Institutional Development: R107, 3 million. It is has the mandate to strategically lead the province towards long-term planning for human capital towards a development-oriented public service and the provision of advisory legal and communication services. This includes the sub-programmes that deal with Strategic Human Resource Management; Strategic Human Capital Development; Advisory Legal Services; Information Communication Services and Provincial Special Programmes.

The mandate of the development of a capable, ethical developmental state resides entirely in this programme. It must lead the process of creating a public service that will respond to the call of creating a Modern, Growing and Successful Province. Through this programme, government will have to rollout the skills development, training and re-training programmes, as well as to ensure that the centralization of the bursaries under the Premier’s Bursary Trust Fund is properly managed and accurately accounted for. In order to create a Modern, Growing and Successful province we need an administration that is responsive, proactive and out-of-the box thinkers.

Programme Three: Policy and Governance R51, 5 million. This programme is responsible for managing policies and strategies towards the achievement of sustainable provincial growth and development. This includes the monitoring and evaluating the provincial programme of action and service delivery. The work of Policy and Governance is subdivided under Development Planning, Policy Coordination, Research and Development, as well as Performance Monitoring and Evaluation. This programme has the strategic responsibility to coordinate economic growth opportunities and spatial planning. Such coordination is aimed at stimulating growth, development and job creation in the province. Its work is guided by the objective of facilitating the implementation of the government Programme of Action aligned to the National Development Plan – vision 2030 and the NDP 5 Year Implementation Plan 2019-2024 supported by the Provincial Growth and Development Plan – Visions 2040.

Madam Speaker, the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework and Regulations aim to ensure that the public procurement is a lever to promote socio-economic transformation, empowerment of small enterprises, rural and township enterprises, designated groups and promotion of local industrial development. In this regard, the Office of the Premier will ring-fence 70% of goods and services budget for previously disadvantaged and designated groups.

Honourable Speaker, in April this year we celebrated twenty-five (25) years of our democratic breakthrough. As we reached our 25-year milestone, there was a need for reflection.  To this end, we successfully concluded the 25 Year Review of performance of this provincial administration. It focused on achievements, challenges, dynamics and trends of performance and will be used as a critical source to inform policy implementation and service delivery intervention for the current term of government. 

Madam Speaker, one of the key lessons has been to review our approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation in the province.  The need to reduce fragmented planning through improved integration and breaking down of silos becomes critical as we move forward.  The need to redirect the focus on monitoring of compliance driven matters to one of robust analysis is of paramount importance. 

Honourable Speaker, this Administration is committed to build a capable and developmental state. It must be non-hierarchical, with capacity to eliminate wastage and corruption in the system. The developmental state must focus on integrated cooperative governance, with specialized skills sets that are at the cutting edge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the capability of long term planning.

Madam Speaker, from now onwards the coordination and implementation challenges faced by local municipalities will receive attention through the New District Co-ordination Model. The Model is aimed to improve co-ordination and alignment of developmental priorities and objectives between the three spheres of government.

Honourable Members in an effort to fast track the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in the Northern Cape, work to review the Northern Cape Information Society Strategy has started to ensure alignment with national and provincial mandates. A task team from Sol Plaatje University, Department of Economic Development and Tourism and the Office of the Premier has been established to drive this process.

Honourable Speaker, in order for us to jointly attain the vision of a Modern, Growing and Successful Province, the Office of the Premier as the nerve centre of the provincial government must play a pivotal role in managing the implementation of the electoral mandate. We are therefore obliged to coordinate the implementation of the Provincial Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF).

Madam Speaker, the time when the Office of the Premier was viewed and worked as some kind of Cinderella appendage in the configuration of the provincial government will come to an end. This office is the strategic centre and nerve of the Provincial Government. To achieve the vision of a modern, growing and successful province we need a  very strong Office of the Premier with critical capacity on four levels:

• To give leadership throughout the entire system of government,
• To create strategic initiatives,
• To plan, and
• To monitor and evaluate.

Furthermore the Office of the Premier must have capacity to do systematic high level analysis and evaluation of the work of government.  The best of plans always run the risk of failure if not subjected to continuous and rigorous scrutiny during implementation and thus the focus of the next five years will be evidence-based monitoring. 

Madam Speaker, the finalisation of the Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (IMEF) during this year will provide for evidence-based monitoring through integration and co-ordination from the strategic centre of government. Integrated performance monitoring and evaluation is directed at improving the implementation of provincial plans. The integrated M & E will guide the province on the operational processes relating to the co-ordination of provincial monitoring and evaluation. This will be done through tools that will integrate information from all levels of government as well as tracking different aspects of service delivery.  The framework will further ensure systematic synchronisation of all elements of performance monitoring and evaluation into a single space.

The Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation Framework will more importantly create the strategic institutional linkages that will be steered from the Office of the Premier. Critical stakeholders such as Provincial Treasury and COGHSTA will collaboratively work with OTP to achieve results based M & E.

The monitoring of the Programme of Action and priorities will further be refined through an extensive district based Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring (FSDM) system, which will seek to unlock blockages in service delivery and raise red flags that require urgent intervention. The FSDM programme will be repositioned to become the monitoring mechanism that will be at the forefront of evidenced based monitoring. 

The importance of comprehensive, qualitative performance information in supporting planning and research, as well as highlighting risks of underperformance, cannot be emphasized more.  Madame Speaker, a change in approach towards monitoring things that matters, will guarantee monitoring for success.  We must at all times know what works and what does not, in order to devise remedial plans in a short space of time. 

Honourable Speaker, we remain committed to the Macro Reorganization of Government in order to streamline government, eliminate duplication of functions and put in place an efficient government machinery focused on service delivery. We have established a Provincial Committee to oversee this process and we anticipate this work will be finalized by March 2020.

Honourable Speaker, the Human Resource Development (HRD) strategy for the province will be finalized during this financial year. The strategy will address the historic and chronic challenges of skills shortages and deficiencies, thus advancing our strategic goal of overcoming the triple fault-lines of unemployment, poverty and inequality. 

Madam Speaker and Honourable Members, the centralization of all Bursaries to the Office of the Premier in order to build capacity in the province to respond to the vision of government in a coordinated and integrated approach is proceeding smoothly. We have established a Provincial Technical Bursary Steering Committee to oversee the bursary process and the development of a Provincial Bursary Policy.

Various youth and skills development programmes are currently being implemented through the coordination of the Premier’s office and the different SETAs.

Honourable Speaker, HIV/ AIDS and tuberculosis remain critical challenges facing our Province and our country. Our approach to the pandemic is guided by the Focus for Impact Approach, adopted by the South African National Aids Council (SANC) and is being implemented in our Province and monitored by the Provincial Council on Aids.

In conclusion, I table the budget vote of the Office of the Premier with that resolve and clarion call for prudent financial management. We dare not fail our people in implementing the seven programmatic priorities as articulated by President Cyril Ramaphosa namely:

• Economic transformation and job creation
• Education, skills development and health
• Consolidating the social wage through reliable and quality basic services
• Spatial integration, human settlements and local government
• Social cohesion and safe communities
• A capable, ethical and developmental state
• A better Africa and a better world

Madam Speaker, together with my colleagues in the Executive Council I can confidently state that we are on track in the work to construct a Modern, Growing and Successful Province. We got this rare and borrowed opportunity to bring about substantive changes in the lives of the poor and unemployed of the Northern Cape. We are not here for self-preservation and indulgence. We will, therefore, continue with the radical approach to governance and I can assure the people of the province that no amount of blackmail and resistance will threaten us. I want to accentuate this by the words of Kirstin that, “Sometimes the hardest and the right thing are same”.

I listened carefully to all budget speeches and went home to read all of them, I must mention that I’m quite happy with the work my colleagues in the executive are doing with regard to key strategic projects that we have announced, such as:

Establishment of state construction company, which will implement 30% of our infrastructure projects and at the same time serve as training institution and incubator for small businesses.

Remodelling of Department of Roads and Public Works with regard to implementation of infrastructure projects.

The establishment of the Northern Cape Mining Company that will help us to have comprehensive understanding of our ore deposits and to present shovel-ready projects to investors.

Work is underway to have a soccer team from the Northern Cape in the premier league and different models on how to implement this are presented to us.

There is visible work that is taking place to improve on our schooling system.

There is also visible work to improve the public health system in the province. We are busy establishing a partnership with the Western Cape Provincial Government for the introduction of electronic files in all health care centres.

Fast-tracking our programme for human settlements and building of road infrastructure.

There is a plan for phased insourcing.

Honourable Speaker, pending the finalization by the President of the framework on lifestyle audits, we will develop a programme for life-style audits for entire Provincial Executive Council, starting with the Premier. The DG, DDGs, Chief Directors and all Directors will be subjected to lifestyle audits in the province.

These are all hard things to do, but right things at the same. We must therefore have moral fortitude, to continue doing what is right over and over again.

Allow me to express my profound appreciation to the team in the Office of the Premier, led by the Director General, as well as the staff in the private office for their dedication, hard work and support. I also wish to thank the opposition parties (Honourable Low, Tlhaole and Coetzee) for the rigorous engagements in this house and committees. We must view these criticisms within a context that not a single one of us in this house is perfect or beyond criticism. In our work to build a modern, growing and successful province there will be missteps and the opposition should therefore serve as dashboard to bring our attention to these weaknesses. Criticisms are a valuable tool for individuals to learn and grow.

Building a modern, growing and successful province is an idea that will live for more generations to come.

I thank you.