On economic intervention measures following unrests in KwaZulu-Natal
Honourable Chairperson
As government we strongly condemn public violence and accompanying acts of criminality such as the looting of businesses and destruction of property that took place in the country last month. No amount of grievance should lead us on a path of destruction and not upholding the law.
The provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng were adversely affected by the riots that resulted to the disruption of delivery of basic services and stoppages to economic activities. Most municipalities including the eThekwini Metro and Johannesburg had to cease rendering some of the basic services including bus transport service, waste collection, construction work in the interest of protecting workers, commuters and assets during the volatile situation.
As a measure to stimulate economic recovery, government has availed 2.3 billion Rands to support businesses that were affected by ongoing restrictions as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and further exacerbated by looting and destruction of logistics infrastructure during last month’s unrests. This amount is made up of reprioritisation of 700 million Rands by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition and 300 million Rands by the Department of Small Business Development.
This government support is directed at:
• Critical infrastructure refurbishment to support bulk infrastructure development in the affected economic areas such as industrial parks, shopping centres and factories;
• Industrial Loan Facility to support manufacturing companies affected by looting and Covid-19 with specific focus at rebuilding of the infrastructure, fittings for the premises, restocking and working capital;
• Retail recovery support fund, which will provide interest free loan to companies that have been affected by the unrest towards funding for the rebuilding of the infrastructure, with fittings for the premises, stock and working capital; and
• Business Survival Support Programme to assist affected small enterprises with working capital including stock, machinery and equipment, revolving credit facilities, payment moratorium of up to a maximum of 12 months and the repayment period up to 84 months.
There has been an additional 1.3 billion Rands allocated to the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition for the funding of uninsured businesses that were affected by the riots.
Our immediate priority is to accelerate the implementation of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan to revive destroyed businesses, create and protect existing employment, and drive inclusive growth. Further to this, Government is working with social partners to implement extensive social and economic relief packages that will support poor households and provide assistance to affected businesses and employees.
In addition, the Unemployment Insurance Fund has set aside 5.3 billion Rands for the extension of the Covid-TERS coverage. This will mainly cover those who have lost their jobs due to the lockdown, and the recent looting and destruction of businesses.
Honourable Chairperson
With regard to KwaZulu-Natal Province, the Office of the Premier has advised us that over 3 000 businesses including public facilities were looted, vandalised and burnt, resulting in more than 15 billion Rands of damage to property and equipment. This affected a number of small towns and other economic corridors that are dependent on grants for the revitalisation of the local economy and business retention.
The Province has developed a plan to renovate, and support vandalised township shopping malls, and shopping centres that are based in rural areas. We commend the work that has been done by Premiers of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces in engaging and taking into confidence investors whose businesses have been affected by looting and public violence to continue with their business operations.
We also remain committed to our efforts of economic reconstruction and recovery of the economy, which should result in empowerment and sustainable development especially women and young people.
Thank you very much.
On dealing with incompetence at Eskom
Honourable Chairperson
At a meeting of the Political Task Team on Eskom that took place on 13 August 2021, we were briefed on the extent of the damage that took place at Medupi Power Station’s Unit 4. We were advised that the generator failure incident of 08 August 2021 has been classified as a major event. It is anticipated that the affected unit is likely to be offline for a considerable time.
That is why an investigation team comprising of Eskom experts and the Original Equipment Manufacturer has been appointed to determine the root cause and full extent of the damage caused.
The people contributory aspect of the generator failure event is part of the investigation scope.
For now, it is too early in the investigation to address remedial actions. Having said that, Eskom has in the meantime, placed employees who were responsible for the management and execution of the generator purging activity on precautionary suspension pending the outcome of the investigation. Upon completion of the investigation, we expect that the leadership of Eskom will take appropriate remedial action.
Thank you very much.
On addressing increasing levels of youth unemployment
Honourable Chairperson
As government we have recognised that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on our efforts to create jobs particularly for the youth, and people with disabilities. Since the advent of Covid-19 in 2020 the share of young people under 35 years old in all employment levels has fallen from 56 percent before the pandemic to 50 percent today.
Notwithstanding these current conditions, government is making targeted interventions to address youth unemployment and poverty. These government-led interventions are multi-sectoral, and include a number of structured programmes.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy and livelihoods, the President announced in October 2020, the Employment Stimulus aimed at generating employment. As of March 2021, it had supported almost 600 000 employment and self-employment opportunities. Through this programme, government has allocated a total of 13 billion Rands in the 2020/2021 financial year which prioritises young people and women across various sectors
The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, as custodians of the Expanded Public Works Programme has created 963 650 work opportunities for youth across all sectors. Through the Expanded Public Works National Youth Service programme, 3 900 youths have been trained.
Government is advancing an integrated service delivery model through the Department of Cooperative Governance which is contributing towards youth employment opportunities through the Community Work Programme. During the 2020/2021 financial year, 65 000 young people benefitted from the Community Work Programme by receiving an average monthly income of 880 Rands.
During the last three financial years, the Industrial Development Corporation has provided support of approximately 2.6 billion Rands to youth-owned enterprises, which contributed to the creation or retention of over 3 800 jobs over the past three years.
By the end of March 2021, the National Empowerment Fund had already approved a total of 1 146 transactions with a value of 11.1 billion Rands. A total of 54 transactions are youth-empowered or youth-owned, valued at 372 million Rands.
These pro-poor programmes are cross-sectoral interventions and seek to achieve the following objectives:
• Provide relief packages to young people denied tangible participation in the economic mainstream,
• Break down structural barriers keeping young people out of economic opportunities,
• Build back better from the Covid-19 pandemic by targeting low-income earners worst affected by worsening inequalities,
• Prioritise continuous training and reskilling young people with requisite skills demanded by the new world of work and knowledge economy, and
• Support young people who live in townships and rural areas to participate in economic hubs by addressing prohibitive issues like transportation and high data costs.
Over and above these interventions, during August 2021, government has re-introduced the special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress grant of 350 Rands. While this grant is not specifically targeted to youth, from the previous iteration we have noted that more than 60 percent of the recipients were youth and mainly male. The re-introduction of this grant will make a significant difference in reducing poverty and hunger.
Honourable Chairperson
Moving forward and working with our social partners, it will be important to find practical measures of incentivising further discouraged young work-seekers and also scaling up our incentives to employers in both the public and private sectors to employ young people to gain a foothold with requisite experience. Among concrete measures is to ensure that there is high absorption capacity of young people and women, and set-asides in sectors such as agriculture and agro-processing, mining, tourism, oceans economy and service industries.
At the recently held Fourth Human Resource Development Council Summit, we agreed on the urgent need to address the issue of young people that drop out at various points of their schooling, prior to attaining their matric qualification as they add more to numbers of young people that are not in employment, education or training.
We further agreed that our response should be comprehensive enough to ensure that we equip young people with skills that are relevant, and will close the prevalent gap of skills required and those available in the labour market. We are optimistic that through our coordination of the Human Resource Development Council, we will be able to find workable long-term solutions to skills gap and youth unemployment through convergences in the deployment of resources to achieve better outcomes.
The importance of pragmatic public-private partnerships cannot be emphasised enough to empower and capacitate young people to whom economic emancipation remains a deferred dream.
Thank you very much.
On rectifying the water crisis in Free State municipalities
Honourable Chairperson
The three municipalities referred to, like a number of others in the country, do have service delivery challenges. Some of these challenges relate to the capacity of such municipalities to provide reliable and efficient water and sanitation. This is a matter of grave concern to us.
It is for this reason that as government we have realised the need for a better coordinated and comprehensive approach to all interventions at municipalities through the District Development Model, which for the purposes of this question will result in communities having access to water and sanitation.
For example, in the case of Masilonyana Local Municipality we have noted that despite considerable strides which are being made to overcome water provision challenges, concerns on the availability, quality and management of water in the in this municipality persists and requires attention.
The same situation of inadequate access to clean water is applicable to Mangaung and Maluti-a-Phofung municipalities, where challenges of water provision is a result of inadequate maintenance of infrastructure and lack of inter-linkages of various water schemes in the municipalities respectively.
In this regard, on 26 May 2021 Cabinet resolved to establish the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Water and Sanitation to provide leadership and technical assistance towards addressing and resolving challenges in the provision of water and sanitation services.
This Inter-Ministerial Committee is established under the leadership of the Deputy President, as an institutional coordinating platform that brings together key players within government including Infrastructure South Africa.
The intention is the development and implementation of a multi-sectoral plan to source funding for water and sanitation infrastructure projects. This will lead to municipalities effectively delivering water services, billing for these services, collecting the revenue due and elevating asset management.
In addition to this intervention, the President recently announced the separation of the Ministry of Water and Sanitation from Human Settlements, to build on improving our targeted strategies of ensuring that we secure our country’s water supply services and ensure delivery to all our communities.
Honourable Chairperson
We take comfort in progress made in the ongoing resolution of water challenges in Maluti-a-Phofung following our oversight visits to the municipality on 30 March, 21 May and 19 June 2021. The issue of lack of access to water in the municipality is a typical case of inadequate planning and implementation of integrated water infrastructure. For instance, we discovered that Maluti-a-Phofung has adequate supply of water for the 100 000 households in the area.
Currently, approximately 80 percent of Phuthaditjhaba’s 64 localities are dependent on the Fika Patso scheme for potable water. This dam becomes vulnerable during periods of lower than usual rainfall, and the population which depends on the Fika Patso scheme struggles to get water due to this systemic problem of lack of integration of the bulk water supply infrastructure.
In the true spirit of integrated planning by the whole of government through the District Development Model, we have developed a focused action plan as an outcome of our collaborative efforts to support Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality.
This plan is focused on fast-tracking the implementation of projects related to linking of the four schemes that had challenges. We will continue to use this coordinated approach to address similar challenges in other municipalities facing similar challenges. We will also elevate our efforts of restoring governance in municipalities across the country to prevent the disruption of services.
We are confident that through the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Water and Sanitation and a dedicated Ministry for Water and Sanitation, we will overcome prevailing challenges of water provision in many municipalities.
We continue to call for active citizenry that cares for facilities in their localities and do not vandalise water infrastructure, thus ensuring sustainability of all these interventions.
Thank you very much.
On Covid-19 impact on fight against HIV/Aids
Honourable Chairperson
The Covid-19 pandemic has indeed had an impact on the country’s response to HIV, especially on our ability to achieve the 90-90-90 targets by December 2020. The targets aimed to ensure that 90 percent of all people living with HIV know their status, 90 percent of all people diagnosed receive sustained anti-retroviral therapy, and 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy have viral suppression.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on health systems has not affected South Africa only but has also been evident throughout the world. Drawing on studies undertaken in various countries, the 2021 UNAIDS Global AIDS Update also reported that people living with HIV appear to be at a higher risk of Covid-19 illness and death.
These studies also suggest that poor Covid-19 outcomes in people living with HIV appear to be as a result of advanced HIV disease and/or the presence of chronic comorbidities such as TB, diabetes, and hypertension. This also has the potential to alter the road map towards the end of AIDS.
South Africa was on course to achieve the ambitious target of 90-90-90 as per the strategy to ensure that we end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. However, the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in interruptions in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
By end of December 2020, the country had managed to achieve 75 percent in terms of the number of people enrolled on antiretroviral treatment against the target of 6.1 million. The Department of Health in response to Covid-19 related challenges became innovative by integrating services in testing and provision of anti-retroviral therapy.
As a multi-stakeholder body, SANAC remains committed to further strengthening our response towards ending the epidemics of HIV and TB, even as we respond to the novel Covid-19 pandemic. This includes implementing a catch-up plan that integrates services relating to HIV, TB and Covid-19 and extending the term of the National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB and STIs 2017-2022 to end in 2023.
For instance, HIV and TB services are being provided at sites designated for Covid-19 screening in order to ensure broader reach. Differentiated modes are being employed to dispense antiretroviral medicine, and these include multi-month dispensing; home-based dispensing; and the Central Chronic Medicine Dispensing and Distribution system.
This system couriers medicines to chronic patients so that they do not need to travel to public health facilities to collect their medicines. These differentiated modes enable people living with HIV to have an uninterrupted supply of medication.
As we forge ahead in our fight to end AIDS, let us individually and collectively stem the tide of new HIV infections.
South Africans can rest assured that even under constrained fiscal environment, we are ensuring that budget reprioritisation does not negatively impact the response to HIV.
We commend all the sectors of SANAC as well as our development partners for their continued collaboration with government in sustaining our national response to HIV and AIDS.
Thank you very much.
On the killings in Phoenix KwaZulu-Natal
Honourable Chairperson
As alluded to earlier, the recent unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng will go down in history as a major setback towards efforts of nation building and social cohesion. The ugly face of racism, lawlessness and vigilantism, brought to bear the permeating fault lines in our society that suggest a long road ahead in fulfilling the hopes and dreams we had at the fall of apartheid. The rampant acts of criminality that were beamed the world over, and the brutal killings of black Africans in the Phoenix and surrounding areas, left dark stain in our democracy.
The socio-economic conditions of poverty, unemployment and inequality that exist in our country are known by all of us and are the critical challenges of the moment. However, no amount of despair should have led to the violence and destruction of property that we experienced and witnessed.
The unfortunate events significantly reversed the progress we had made against racism. They challenged all of us to rethink the project of nation building and inclusive economic growth to be fully reflective of aspirations contained in our constitution. For as long as the majority is feeling excluded from economic opportunities and shared growth, the journey towards a cohesive society, will be steeper and harder to climb.
It is therefore incumbent upon all of us, working across political lines to lead and address decisively the root causes of these unrests and find shared sustainable solutions to ensure this dark period in our history is never repeated.
For its part, the Moral Regeneration Movement and the Social Cohesion Advocates have done considerable work in dispelling racial tensions, especially in KwaZulu-Natal. Various organisations and civil society have also been on the ground right from the beginning of the social unrest, visiting and engaging communities in affected areas like Phoenix, Chatsworth, Verulam, uMlazi and Greater Pietermaritzburg.
Honourable Chairperson
It is encouraging to note the work that has been led by the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal in showing solidarity with the affected families, and communities in the province who lost their loved ones during the unrests.
The KwaZulu-Natal provincial government in partnership with the South African Police Services has facilitated engagements with the affected communities, and community leaders through the establishment of District Rapid Response Task Teams. Further, the teams have developed interventions for all Districts which are monitored on a weekly basis at a provincial level.
To further strengthen the work of the Moral Regeneration Movement in the province, the Premier has established a Social Cohesion and Moral Regeneration Council to coordinate interventions, and provide meaningful support to affected families and communities within the Province.
We are advised that the work of this Council will include the establishment of Peace Committee Forums whose main objective will be to maintain peace and work towards reconciliation by involving community leaders from areas such as Bhambayi, Zwelisha, Amaoti, Inanda and Phoenix.
The Minister of Police together with the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Safety and Community Liaison, and the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner have, on a number of occasions, visited Phoenix and the surrounding areas to engage communities and identify culprits who were involved in perpetrating violence, which resulted in the death of 36 people.
We are pleased to report that to date over 35 suspects have been arrested, and the police are working with the community to improve safety and security which proves that as a nation we are a resilient people, who are open to deep societal introspection in order to find healing.
Honourable Members
As we committed in the preamble of our Constitution, we must decisively deal with the scourge of racism which is not in our collective interest because South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
That is why we are encouraged by the swift intervention of the Commission of Religious and Linguistic Rights, which is conducting hearings in the affected areas of KwaZulu-Natal. This contributes a great deal in facilitating a resolution to the friction and conflict between and within cultural, religious, and linguistic communities in our country thus promoting peace, tolerance and national unity.
All these initiatives can only succeed if we stay united as a people and find sustainable solutions to challenges of economic exclusion and inequality in our country.
Thank you very much.
Source: The Presidency Republic of South Africa