Deputy Minister of Social Development, Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu

Speech by the Minister of Social Development, Ms Bathabile Dlamini, MP on the occasion of the Debate on Budget Vote 17, National Council of Provinces-Cape Town

10 May 2016

Honourable Chairperson,

Deputy Minister of Social Development, Ms Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu,

Chairperson and Members of the Select Committee on Social Development,

Honourable Members of the National Council of Provinces,

MECs of Social Development here present,

Distinguished guests and representatives of FBOs, CBOs and the civil society at large,

Comrades and friends,

It gives me great pleasure to present to this house Budget Vote 17 through which we remain firmly focused on fulfilling our Constitutional mandate and the progressive building of a shared future envisioned in the National Development Plan (Vision 2030).

In framing this Budget Vote, we are guided by the enduring principles of our Constitution that was born from the sweat, tears and blood of the forbearers of our liberation struggle.

On the 4thof May when I presented this Budget Vote in the National Assembly I reaffirmed our commitment to responding to the economic and many other vulnerabilities that confront our people on a daily basis. Contrary to the opposition propaganda, ours is a party founded on constitutional values and principles, and ours is a constitutional government. We will always defend and uphold our most cherished Constitution, derived from a struggle against the values and the repressive policies of the past.

A painful past for so many of our people – a past we are told to “forget and to move on” from, but a past that so many on the opposition benches reminisce nostalgically about.

In presenting this Budget Vote, I would like to reiterate a statement made by the founding father of our democracy, the late President Nelson Mandela during the opening of the first democratic Parliament in 1994. He stated that “freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression. He further stated that “our endeavours must be about the liberation of women, the emancipation of the man and the liberty of the child”. This clarion call remains relevant to the struggles of women in this country.

And this is what we aim to achieve through this Budget, particularly during the tough economic times.

Honourable Members, in this financial year the Department of Social Development received a budget ofR148 Billion. Of this amount,R140 Billiongoes towards protecting the most vulnerable households, older persons, people with disabilities and children. Our primary goal remains the eradication of poverty.

In addition, the budget allocation for the Provincial Departments of Social Development will grow from overR17 Billionin 2016/17 to just aboveR20 Billionin 2018/19. Following the recent approval of the ECD Policy by Cabinet, an allocation ofR810 Millionis allocated as conditional grant to the nine provincial departments over the MTEF period. With this allocation, we remain true to our commitment and the resolutions of the 52ndANC Conference in Mangaung that declared ECD a public good. Posterity will judge us all harshly if we do not invest in the future of our children because ECD is the cornerstone of any Human Resource Development Strategy of a country.

I must emphasise that this allocation is directed specifically at investing in and increasing access to effective ECD services. We remain steadfast in our commitment to ensure that no child, whether in Manini or in Matatiele is left behind.

We also remain focused in addressing social ills through the expansion of social services in key areas such as social crime prevention, combating alcohol and substance abuse and continuous strengthening of victim empowerment services. Gender Based Violence remains one of the most prevalent human rights violations that affect women and children disproportionately. It cuts across the lines of race, culture, ethnicity, religion, income, or class. It takes place behind high walls in the posh suburbs of Sandton or the panoramic sea views of Clifton.

Ladies and gentlemen, RAPE IS NOT A“BLACK CULTURE”as the likes of theLEARNEDNorth Gauteng High Court Judge, Maria Mabel Jansen, who by virtue of her profession andposition is supposed to uphold the rule of law, would like us to believe.

Addressing this scourge remains our top priority. As the latest crime surveys shows, the drivers of violence are structural and ideological. Structural factors include poverty and inequality, while patriarchy underpins violence against women and girls because of their gender.

This kind of violence seeks to perpetuate gender inequalities, including harmful traditional practices targeting women and girls such as ukuthwala and virginity testing.

Also, we cannot delink violence from the blatant racism, stigma, sexism, religious intolerance and anti-LGBTI sentiments held by some political leaders and the general society. This is irrespective of whether these discriminatory attitudes emerge as sermons in conservative church settings or on social media platforms.

Combating this scourge effectively requires a multifaceted approach. Key amongst these is addressing poverty and inequality to give effect to outcome 13 which seeks to build an inclusive and responsive social protection system as envisaged in the NDP. Structural interventions must include women’s economic empowerment as a prerequisite for sustainable development and on-going engagement and mobilisation of key sectors such as NGOs, CBOs and FBOs. We will also need to engage in horizontal advocacy to change the consciousness of people in our society.

We will also implement elements of the Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Strategy such as Comprehensive Sexuality Education as part of our prevention and empowerment programme.

In this financial year, we will also expand the reach and coverage of the Command Centre on gender based violence to also include the Child Line and SASSA so that they too can benefit from the counselling services that address all forms of trauma.

In the last financial year, we established ten White Door Safe Spaces in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, North West and in Northern Cape. We will expand on these services by establishing additional five White Doors of Hope in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Free State and Limpopo in this financial year.

Honourable Members, the provision of social security remains the most effective anti-poverty strategy of government. This programme has been exceedingly successful in reducing poverty and inequality and has been hailed internationally. As we have stated before, SASSA will take charge of the overall administration and payment of social grants in the next financial year.

I would like to assure this house that we are dealing decisively with the issue of unauthorised and unlawful deductions that bedevil our current payment system. I am therefore, pleased to inform this house that the regulations to the Social Assistance Act have been amended and published on Friday, 6 May 2016. The revised regulations will enable us to put to an end to the recurrence of unauthorised, unlawful and immoral deductions and also tighten control of the payment environment. We have also instituted recourse mechanisms for deductions and I am pleased that many of these cases have been successfully resolved.

Chair, we cannot allow unscrupulous business people to exploit gaps in the system to profiteer off the backs of the poor. Such predatory business practices undermine our efforts to eradicate poverty. I therefore urge all Honourable Members to join us in theHANDS OFF OUR GRANTScampaign and to use every platform to help us spread the message and educate our beneficiaries.

Over the past 10 years SASSA has improved the quality of lives of many of our people. The biggest and most successful initiative was the transition from a fragmented social security system inherited in 1994 into a single and effective national social assistance programme. Under the leadership of the former Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, the Social Assistance Act was amended, paving the way for a social assistance system that is deracialised, facilitated access for all children and fostered age equalisation in respect of Old Age Pension.

Each passing year, we continue to live up to our slogan:PAYING THE RIGHT SOCIAL GRANT, TO THE RIGHT PERSON, AT THE RIGHT TIME AND PLACE. NJALO!

With regard to all the achievements I have spoken of, I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the African National Congress, stands at the centre of these advances. These achievements Honourable Members, did not come by chance. Our actions will continue to be informed by the pledge we made to the people, by the goal that our movement has pursued from its birth, the objective of securing a better life for all.

Honourable Members, the implementation of the Household Food and Nutrition Security Strategy is at the apex of our priorities. The approach we follow in the implementation of this strategy is a developmental one in that the Community Nutrition Development Centres are run by cooperatives and NPOs. We purchase food from local cooperatives and encourage them to produce more and of a higher quality so that they can graduate to supply supermarkets in the tertiary economy.

Together with NPOs, we have created a network of 166 Community Nutrition and Development Centres in targeted poor communities affected by high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition. In return, these centres have created over 600 jobs. We will increase these centres to at least 200 in this financial year.

Chair, we are in the midst of a drought and an economic downturn. This has resulted in higher food prices which means that poor people will have reduced access to nutritious food.

The Department of Social Development is duty bound to intervene in such instances. We cannot in good conscience stop our Social Relief of Distress programme because there may be an election taking place in the same region where people are experiencing undue hardship. We are looking at an intervention and recovery programme for Malamulele, a particularly marginalised community. We are also going to host a conference in the second half of this year to develop a comprehensive implementation strategy to deal with challenges to food security and malnutrition.We should not politicise the hunger of our people!

The constant false link that is made by certain sectors of our society to the distribution of nutritious food through the SRD programme and the issue of ‘buying votes’ is an insult to the poor. People will not be swayed by government departments doing their work. They will vote based on their political values. The spurious nature of these accusations were the reasons that the Western Cape High Court, dismissed a case with costs, which was brought to it by the DA in 2014.

In line with government’s pronouncement on preferential procurement, the Department has introduced programmes to plug the outflow of resources including social assistance out of poor communities. We have linked over 200 cooperatives to economic opportunities through programmes such as the Social Relief of Distress and Community Nutrition Development Centres. In addition, we will facilitate the signing of agreements between the implementing agencies and cooperatives providing food.

Honourable Members, a year ago, we informed this house about the work of the Ministerial Committee appointed to review the implementation of White Paper for Social Welfare under the leadership of our eminent academic, Professor Vivienne Taylor. The Committee has completed its work and has made valuable proposals in line with our radical transformation agenda. The report will be tabled to the FOSAD Cluster tomorrow, 11 May 2016, before it is brought to Cabinet and we count on the support of this august house when we bring the report of the Committee through Parliament.

Chairperson, substance abuse continues to destroy our children and families. As a department we will continue to work with civil society to strengthen the implementation of the national drug master plan following the three strategies of demand reduction, supply and harm reduction. To date we have seven government facilities, 73 outpatient facilities and 48 registered private treatment centres.

We have identified 5 provinces; namely Northern Cape, North-West, Limpopo, Free State and Eastern Cape, for the establishment of public treatment centres. Eastern Cape completed its facility and both Free State and Northern Cape will complete building during the current financial year.

Honourable Chairperson, this budget provides an opportunity to accelerate our march towards Vision 2030. We will this year begin with efforts to respond to the call by the NDP for 55 thousand additional social service professionals. The intention is to ultimately have at least 1 social worker per ward and in the long term, resources permitting, 1 per school.

To date we have absorbed seven thousand two hundred and ninety one social workers into the public service. We have employed an additional two hundred and forty eight social workers for specific programmes such as family finders for both Child Support and Foster Care Grants. Through our collaboration with other partners we have been able to employ ninety four social workers to strengthen child protection services.

Honourable Members, both the national and provincial departments remain concerned about the high level of child abuse, neglect and exploitation. Through the implementation of the Children’s Act and specific interventions such as Child Protection Week Campaign, we will continue to ensure that this issue remains in the public spotlight. We make a heartfelt appeal to all our people to join us in this campaign.

Honourable Members, President Zuma launched the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in March this year. The Policy entrenches disability mainstreaming in our government systemsand will strengthen recourse mechanisms for persons with disabilities and their families.

We will be piloting the policy through multi-stakeholder involvement on selected sites in Limpopo, Free State, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal during the current financial year. Our initiative with Stats SA on the Disability Inequality Index will also continue.

Our investment in the lives of the poor and vulnerable is showing positive results. Children in our Isibindi Programme and the CSG are performing well in school. Last year, out of the 455 922 who passed their matric examinations, 304 913 learners received a social grant. To ensure that the education of these learners continues without interruption, we are negotiating with the NSFAS to make sure that learners that had qualified for grants are not subjected to a means test to qualify for financial support to further their studies.

We are busy with the mid-term review and a sustainability plan to instutionalise the programme within the department beyond the initial 5 year plan. Indeed social assistance has proven to be an important tool for human capital development and the biggest contributor to reducing poverty and inequality.

Adoption is one of the priority care and protection options for securing permanency in the lives of children in need of care and support. We intend to increase the number of adoptions by raising awareness and promoting this service.

All provinces now have accredited adoption services providers. Government social workers will now be capacitated to provide adoption services so as to expand the services once the Children’s Act amendments submitted to parliament, are approved.

Chairperson, foster care remains our key priority in the protection of children. As at the end of March this year, there were 470 682 children receiving Foster Care Grants, in the care of 330 247 foster parents. Last year, we appointed a Ministerial Committee on Foster Care to review the implementation of the foster care system throughout the country.

The objective is to ensure that no child is excluded as a result of administrative processes. The Committee will finalise its work in the current financial year.

Honourable Chairperson, three years ago, we launched our service delivery improvement flagship initiative, Project Mikondzo. Through this initiative, we have interfaced with ordinary people and obtained deeper understanding of the plight of our people. In the past year alone, we reached and touched the lives of over three hundred thousand people in over 1200 wards throughout the country. We will continue to increase the DSD footprint and visibility in communities and make our services responsive to the people we serve.

Honourable Members, the repositioning and the expansion of the NDA footprint will continue in earnest in the current financial year. To this end, we have identified 9 districts to pilot the decentralisation model in each of the 9 provinces.

This will go a long way in making the Agency not only visible and accessible, but maximise its impact as well. Gone are the days when our communities have to travel long distances to major cities to access the NDA. This is right at the heart of Operation Phakisa.

We welcome the appointment of the new NDA Board by Cabinet and we look forward to working with them in this endeavour.

Our expanded Public Works Programme continues to make a difference in the lives of our people. Our focus as a sector is on the provision of services to children, people with disabilities and older persons.