MEDIA STATEMENT

27 February 2007

SOCIAL SERVICES CLUSTER

Members of the media, Premier Thabang Makwetla in the State of the Province Address outlined clearly the Government programme to accelerate service delivery.

Today, the Social Service Cluster of the Executive Council elaborates on the programme of action to realize the stated objectives.

The creation of a caring society is at the centre of our development agenda. This agenda is contained in the January 8 statement of the African National Congress which proclaimed 2007 as : “The Year To Intensify The Struggle Against Poverty As We Advance In Unity Towards 2012”.

  To this end, the support for the families affected and infected by HIV and AIDS, extreme poverty, violence and abuse will receive maximum attention through close collaboration between communities, civil society and government.

The Honourable Premier clearly stated our commitment to the emancipation of “Not- So- Perfect Kids from the Not- So- Perfect families, who know how to grow up unceremoniously with pain of deprivation of one kind or another”. Accordingly, The Provincial Government has set aside 60 operational Early Childhood Development (ECD) sites for integrated plan in the province. In addition, 80 new sites will be created this year to cater for over 9 600 children at the cost of R9,6 million

The ECD programme will enhance child care and add necessary impetus on Government efforts to create job opportunities in line with the Expanded Public

Works Programme. In each site there will be a cook, gardener and a child minder. Training will be provided for the above employees. The new sites will be operational from the 1 st April 2007 and each region will have 20 new sites including Bushbuckridge.

Training will also be provided for educators in HIV and AIDS. 309 Centre managers and 1050 members of Centre Governing Bodies will be empowered in Management and Governance in 150 ABET Centres.

To make freedom a reality for those who were denied opportunities by apartheid, we will enrol 26,000 participants in Adult Basic Education and Training courses in 2007/08 at a cost of R90 million .

  We have also set aside R40 million to support 175 Home Community Based Care Centres that provide community level support to vulnerable families.

In further strengthening the contribution of the social sector to the EPWP, 600 learners will be trained on construction and 200 learners on Elconop II, which is one of our ABET programs.

  The Social Services Cluster has the task of driving, Heritage, Greening Mpumalanga and Tourism , which is one of the Flagships known as the Big Five. This program's goal is to preserve the heritage and environment of Mpumalanga by optimizing socio-economic development through the promotion of sustainable and responsible tourism.

This program has gone past the initial planning stage and has some of its elements already being implemented. These include the Heritage Summit held last year, the popularization of the History and Heritage Report mentioned by our Honourable Premier and the symposium on Stonewalling in Mpumalanga , which continued to lay the foundation for further work on this program.

We have indeed made strides in this regard and the programme of action will be made available soon for the further roll out of the project. Plans will include a dedicated website, identified heritage sites, consultation processes, promotion and marketing of heritage icons and sites of the province information on Cenotaphs, holding of Heritage Symposium, training of tour guides and provisioning of Promotional material.

This flagship will also see communities and staff planting trees and shrubs in the province's schools, clinics, hospitals and parks. A budget of at least R950 000 has been set aside for this project. The project brings together provincial departments, local municipalities and parastatals to plan and deliver services.

The Social Service Cluster in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Land Administration and the Agricultural Research Council will assist schools, Health Care centres and home based care centres to roll out this initiative.

  In our quest to further advance the objectives of the Big Five through Greening Mpumalanga, the Social Service Cluster has in January this year launched the Food Production Initiative in the three Regions. This will continue in the coming financial year as directed by the Honourable Premier.

This will further entrench a Culture of Food Production for a better life. It will also complement all other initiatives aimed at fighting poverty and improving the environment.

Studies conducted by institutions such as the Food & Agriculture Organizations, UNESCO and the World Health Organization, show that hunger, nutrition and poverty are strongly correlated. The same studies note that in the World as a whole, hunger impacts negatively to the attainment of Millennium Development goals, namely universal primary education, gender equity, child mortality, maternal health.

All communities, labour, business and all other stakeholders are hereby invited to be part of this innovative program, which seeks to further integrate our work on heritage with the beauty of our province which will add to economic growth to be brought about by accelerated projects that will promote Mpumalanga as the ultimate tourist destination.

In order to advance the province's social development agenda, the Siyadlala Mass Participation Programme which focuses on rural communities, farms and areas that were identified as crime hot spots, such as KaNyamazane, Vosman, Siyabuswa and Embalenhle, the programme has R15,9 million to implement five (5) community sport and recreation programmes in each district municipality.

We call upon our people to participate in sport, in all communities, schools and hospitals of the province of the rising sun. This is in line with Government healthy lifestyle campaign.

Currently the programme has 21 central points or hubs in 18 local municipalities. A total of 144 volunteers have been identified and are receiving monthly stipend as part of job creation. Activities include aerobics, general gymnastics, fun run/ big walk, street ball (basketball, street soccer and street handball) and indigenous games (intonga, incuva, diketo, morabaraba ). Equipment for these activities is supplied by the Sport and Recreation South Africa.

The target group is youth, women, and disabled people. The main purpose for this programme is not only about promotion of mass participation but also an attempt to combat crime. This will further ensure that there's a proper fan mobilisation plan.

Furthermore the Social Services Cluster will spend R6, 9 million to ensure that school sport programmes are kept alive.

Sport assistants will be appointed and equipment procured for schools. Capacity building will be provided for volunteers and educators and there are currently 105 schools in the programme.

The Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation will soon employ the 2010 coordinator to enhance our readiness to provide quality 2010 World Cup standards.

One of the cluster priorities is the reduction by 3% in the number of deaths caused by communicable diseases, amongst which TB remains the greatest challenge for the province particularly in the Nkangala District. A budget of at least R94,6 million has been set aside for that purpose. This includes the work that the cluster will do to combat TB, particularly MDR and XDR TB. The province has succeeded in improving the cure rate of TB from about 34,5% in August 2006 to about 50,5% at the end of December 2006.

On HIV and AIDS, Government commits itself to intensify the campaign against HIV and AIDS and to improve the implementation of all elements of the comprehensive approach such as Prevention, Home Based Care and Treatment We shall also enhance partnerships with all relevant stakeholders.

The Social Services Cluster has been very forthright about challenges of attracting suitably skilled people into our facilities, where more often than not, we advertise posts but fail to appoint either because people did not apply or could not get people with necessary technical expertise. Notwithstanding this challenge, we have made some milestones in filling the vacant funded posts in all levels in the member departments, more critically the professional posts such as those we need in our libraries, hospitals, clinics and schools.

To achieve these noble objectives we will continue to rely on the wisdom of our people to provide critical support to all these initiatives, but more significantly to partner us by offering their insightful analysis of our performance.

You and all communities are once more invited to be part of our effort to provide solutions to challenges to take service delivery to greater heights in Mpumalanga .

Thank You.

  Issued by Hon MEC Mr SW Lubisi Chairperson: Executive Council Committee on Social Services

Mpumalanga Provincial Government