Minister of Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Budget speech & response by DA

Minister of Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Mr J Radebe gave his Budget Vote Speech on 19 April 2016.
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Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly
Acting President and Deputy President, The Honourable Ramaphosa
Ministers present; Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and other Deputy Ministers present
Honourable Members
National Planning Commissioners present
Invited Guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Fellow South Africans

In 1994 we embarked on a long and arduous journey towards healing the wounds of our painful past and transforming our state and society into a truly democratic one. In embarking on this journey, we knew that it would be hard, and that there would be hills and valleys; we knew that there would be obstacles in some sections of the journey, and we would need to clear the bushes to make the way.

Good travellers pack everything they think they will need along the way. We did exactly that in 1996 when we adopted the Constitution which sets out the values that we want in society as South Africans.

The Preamble to our Constitution commits us to:

“Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;

Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;

Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and

Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.”

These commitments set out our task as Members of Parliament, the Executive, the judiciary, as well as all sectors of society. On this occasion of a year in which we celebrate the milestone 20th Anniversary of our Constitution, we should accordingly reflect on whether or not we are equal to the challenge, and ask ourselves amongst other the following questions:

• Are we living out the values of our Constitution?
• Are we acting in ways that contribute towards healing the divisions of the past?
• Do the programmes that we adopt and implement truly improve the quality life of citizens?
• Are we succeeding in freeing the potential of each person?
• And how much progress have we made in building a united and democratic South Africa?

In this month, being Freedom Month, we celebrate 22 years of democracy, which means that we have made a transition into adulthood as a country. We have entered a stage in which we can no longer use lack of experience to explain our shortcomings. We have to raise our game because that is what our people expect of us.

Honourable Chairperson,

As we undertook the political transformation of our country to reflect the ideals of our Constitution that our people fought for, we adopted a number of policies and programmes. As you know, the work of the greater part of the first two decades of our freedom is captured in the 20 Year Review Report.

While the 20 Year Review Report demonstrated the progress we achieved in addressing the trio challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty, we have made less progress in changing the structure of our economy. This in turn impacts on the overall progress we could make in attending to the aforementioned trio challenges. Greater efforts are required to broaden inclusion and ownership in the economy.

In light of the persisting structural transformation challenges we faced, our government established the National Planning Commission and a new department responsible for monitoring and evaluation in 2009. We created these structures to clear the bushes along the journey, to ensure that our policies impact on the lives of our people, and to accelerate the alleviation of the trio challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

In pursuit of our constitutional commitments, we adopted the National Development Plan (NDP) in 2012 as our long-term vision and plan. The Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) 2014-2019 has translated the NDP into a five-year plan which spells out the outcomes we seek to achieve in the current five-year electoral period.

It is therefore appropriate in this year in which we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of our democratic Constitution, that we re-iterate our commitment to overcoming our challenges, as a State and as society, including the challenge of the scourge of racism.

As you know, the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation and the NPC were brought under the political leadership of one Minister in 2014. The task of the new Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is to provide unequivocal answers to questions we posed above; it is expected to guide how, as a nation, we proceed to address our socio-economic challenges, and enable government and society to take appropriate action.

Some of the key highlights of progress that our monitoring has indicated we are achieving are as follows:

On Poverty Reduction

Head-count poverty has been dramatically reduced through the social policies of government. For example, between 2001 and 2011, the poverty head-count in Msinga in KZN moved from 60% to 37% and in Westonaria in Gauteng the poverty gap which measures intensity dropped from 47% to 45%.

On Education and Skills

Post-school enrolment has increased steadily although it remains skewed towards universities. Over 969 000 students were enrolled in public higher education institutions in 2014, which reflects good progress towards the target of enrolling 1 million students by 2019. The racial composition of students has changed, with more Black students being enrolled. The Nationals Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) budget has increased from R441 million in 1999 to R9.2 billion in 2015, although funding remains inadequate compared to demand. 

On Health

Life expectancy has increased from 57.1 years in 2009 to 62.9 years in 2014. The under-5 Mortality Rate has decreased from 56 deaths per 1000 live births in 2009, to 39 per 1000 live births in 2014. The Maternal Mortality Ratio has decreased by more than 50%, from 302 per 100 000 live births in 2009 to 141 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2014.

On Access to Basic Services

Significant progress has been made in extending access to basic services for our people. Access to water increased from 61% in 2001 to 90% in 2014. Households receiving free basic water services increased from just over 7 million in 2007 to nearly 12 million in 2013.

In 2014, 86% of households had access to electricity and over 2 million households benefited from the indigent policy which provides free electricity to our people who cannot afford it.

Nearly 173 000 subsidy houses, rental flats and hostel upgrades have been completed since 2014. The target is that 745 000 households should be living in adequate housing, through the subsidy and affordable or gap housing programmes by 2019.

Also, since 2014 close to 77 000 title deeds were issued to homeowners, and 41 000 title deeds of 145 000 subsidy houses that were built were handed over to new home owners. More needs to be done to eradicate the backlog of 900 000 title deeds by 2019.

On Fighting Fraud and Corruption

Over 200 corruption priority cases involving 1 065 persons were investigated and 116 persons were convicted since 2009. Since 2012 the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit has convicted about 3 340 individuals for serious corruption and serious financial and economic crimes. A total of 234 government officials were convicted for corruption-related offences from 2014/15 financial year to date. We are making steady progress in the fight against organised crime.

I have outlined some of the areas of progress however, it is clear we still have much ground to cover in all these areas and in many others.

For example, this year started with the eruption of racism in our public discourse. Last year, young people at tertiary institutions intensified a campaign to bring to public attention the difficulties they continue to face in opening the doors of learning, of which the Freedom Charter spoke. They highlighted exclusion on the basis of language and income, and the indignity this casts upon them.

The growth rate of the South African economy continues to be disappointing with different agencies revising the growth forecast downwards. Working with social partners, Government is pressing ahead with the implementation of the Nine Point Plan which is expected to start showing results in the next two years.

The decline in the growth of our economy will reduce resources available to government to implement its development programmes; and we have experienced the most severe droughts in over 100 years; food prices have sky-rocketed; many of our people, especially the youth, are unemployed and those that are employed are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their daily needs. All these factors are causing our people widespread hardship, which makes the journey seem longer.

In some communities protests continue about lack of service delivery, or the poor quality of services provided. This is happening across all provinces, which tells us that this is not an issue to score cheap political points over; it points to deficiencies in our systems that we need to address collectively.

All these challenges are a reminder of how hard our journey is, while also demanding of us, in all sectors, to redouble our efforts, acting in unity of purpose and determination, and inspired by the shared vision of the NDP.  

Honourable members,

As you are aware, the President announced that the next municipal elections will be held on the 3rd of August 2016. This will be an important milestone in the journey towards “a democratic and open society based on the will of the people”. More importantly, this will give us an opportunity to strengthen our mechanisms and programmes to improve the quality of life of our people, and the services we deliver.

Allow me to give a brief overview of the different programmes of the department within this context.

Planning

The main focus of our national planning programme is to institutionalise planning as envisaged in the MTSF 2014-2019. Institutionalising planning entails (a) establishing robust systems, policy and legislative frameworks and processes for planning in government as a whole; (b) developing requisite institutional capacity for planning; (c) developing evidence-based plans that draw on monitoring and evaluation and other data sources; (d) ensuring that planning sets the priorities that inform the allocation of resources and (e) influencing the planning philosophy of the country, in all spheres. We have made progress in implementing the different elements of institutionalising planning. However, more needs to be done.

To entrench our planning architecture, President Zuma appointed the second National Planning Commission in September 2015. The mandate of the Commission is (a) to promote and advance the implementation of the NDP across different sectors of society; (b) undertake detailed planning in a selected number of sectors; (c) conduct regular engagements with various sectors of society on all matters pertaining to the long-term development of the country; (d) facilitate stakeholder engagements aimed at forging a social compact towards more effective implementation of the NDP; (e) take a cross-cutting view, undertake research into long-term trends, analyse implementation of short- to medium-term plans; and (f) contribute to the development of international partnerships and networks on national planning.

The Commission has organised its work into three priority areas. They are: (a) proposing new and strengthening existing measures aimed at enhancing the quality of life of South Africans; (b) investigating and proposing ways to ensure the country has an expanded, inclusive, efficient and fairer economy; and (c) undertaking research and engaging institutions responsible for developing the capacity of state, enhancing leadership and engaging the citizenry to actively participate in the implementation of the NDP.

The Commission will play a think tank role and advise government on a number of development challenges. Through intensified stakeholder engagement, the Commission will mobilise members of society to play an active role in the implementation of the NDP.

On Friday, the 22nd of April in Johannesburg, the NPC will address a media conference to elaborate on its plan of action.

Research

Research is an important part of our work. In this regard, amongst others, we have completed a research project in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand and 10 young researchers focusing on urban innovation. The research results will be published in an edited volume in the course of 2016/17. Another study investigating the feasibility and modalities for a national minimum wage policy was also concluded. The National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) remains a flagship project, and the results of the fourth survey will be released in the second half of this year. The NIDS enables us to get a better understanding of the changing income dynamics in our society. It answers the questions related to who is getting ahead and who is falling behind, thus enabling better targeted policy. The study is continuing and the fifth survey of the study will get underway in the course of this financial year.

We have commenced the formulation of an integrated water plan as mandated by Cabinet, working with the Minister of Water and Sanitation. We aim to finalise the plan in the course of 2016/17.

National Spatial Development Framework

The fragmentation of the planning function is a matter that has bedevilled our government for some time. I am pleased to announce that in discussions with Ministers of Rural Development and Land Reform and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs we have agreed that the planning functions be relocated. This agreement includes that DPME will take over the responsibility for driving and producing the National Spatial Development Framework, a plan which will indicate what aspects of our NDP will happen where and when across our whole country.

We need to work with speed because on August 3 we will elect our fourth democratic local governments. These 257 municipalities will continue to take forward the National Development Plan through their IDPs which will outline their plans for each municipality for the 2016 to 2021 period. 

As Chairperson of the National Planning Commission, I have requested that we finalise the National Spatial Development Framework over the next year which will ensure that South Africans have a clear understanding of how our national programmes will transform the national landscape. We will ensure that municipalities are able to integrate our national plans into their municipal spatial development frameworks (SDF) and that provinces also clearly understand what we will be doing and where it will be done. Parliament will play an important role in assisting the National Planning Commission in this important work to ensure that we understand the current spatial dynamics and to inform our planning for the future across the country.

Ensuring Alignment of Plans and Budgets with NDP

Our systems to assess the alignment of the plans of government to the NDP are maturing. We have assessed the annual performance plans of 39 national departments as well as nine provincial plans. This is an ongoing programme that will continue in 2016/17.

Critical to the success of the NDP is its alignment with the actual budgets of various departments. We should put our money where our mouth is, lest our intentions become mere empty talk. The DPME is working with National Treasury to ensure that alignment happens, so that budgets reflect our actual commitment to the NDP Vision 2030.

For its part, the DPME’s budget must reflect our commitment to ensuring that proper mechanisms to monitor, evaluate and supervise the work of government are in place and are working and that we communicate the progress being made and challenges encountered. In essence this is what the budget of the DPME is all about.

We must at all times be able to tell whether or not we are on course towards achieving the NDP goals through the five year MTSF, and, where performance is unsatisfactory, to ensure that appropriate interventions are undertaken.

Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIAS)

The Socio-Economic Impact Assessment System (SEIAS) assists government to examine and mitigate against the unintended consequences of new and existing legislation and regulations. About 117 proposals were subjected to SEIAS, comprising of 65 Bills, 16 regulations, 25 policies and 11 plans and frameworks. In 2016/17, DPME will continue providing support to departments to apply the SEIAS methodology and to ensure that quality proposals are developed.

DPME also evaluates major government programmes, such as incentives for industry and business, to determine whether they are achieving their intended objectives. A total of 45 evaluations were completed, or are underway, covering roughly R75 billion of fiscal allocations. Nine new evaluations will be undertaken in 2016/17.

Data War-Room

In addition to DPME’s monitoring programmes, we are also creating an integrated data war-room that will provide up-to-date information on progress of various government programmes. DPME will continue to work with Statistics South Africa to identify and produce critical data to support effective and credible reporting.

30 days payment of legitimate invoices

DPME is tasked with the responsibility to ensure that departments and state agencies meet their PFMA obligation to pay suppliers within 30 days. This work is yielding positive results. During 2015/16, 44 service providers reported cases of non-payment of invoices. As a result of DPME’s intervention, more than R41 million was paid to some of the service providers. In 2016/17, the DPME will work with defaulting departments on an individual basis to determine the root causes of non-payment and assist in resolving them.

Operation Phakisa

Operation Phakisa has introduced a new dynamic, results-oriented methodology to how Government undertakes projects. The methodology entails Government engaging with all stakeholders in a sector, in a focused, simultaneous and intense manner, to craft a vision and mechanisms for resolving blockages to the sector’s potential. Substantial progress is being made through the methodology in regard to South Africa’s ocean economy, and the Health, Education and Mining sectors.

The Ocean Economy programme under Operation Phakisa focuses on (a) Marine Transport and Manufacturing, led by the Department of Transport; (b) Offshore Oil and Gas, led by the Department of Mineral Resources; (c) Aquaculture, led by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; (d) Marine Protection Services and Ocean Governance, led by the Department of Environmental Affairs; (e) Small Harbour Development, led by Department of Public Works; and (f) Coastal and Marine Tourism, led by the Department of Tourism.

Some of the achievements of Operation Phakisa are as follows:

• Investments amounting to about R17 billion in the Oceans Economy have been unlocked;
• Over 4 500 jobs have been created in the various projects of the Oceans Economy;
• Over R7 billion has been allocated by Transnet National Ports Authority to improve our ports;
• The health sector has been successful in creating 280 Ideal Clinics in 2015/16, within the group of 1 139 clinics identified for this financial year;
•  In order to be declared an Ideal Clinic there are standards to be met. The number of clinics scoring over 70% has increased from 139 to 445. The number of clinics scoring less than 40% has decreased from 213 to 90 within the period of one year.
• The Delivery Lab Reports for Operation Phakisa in Basic Education and Galvanising Growth in the Mining Sector have been finalised and we should see results in these areas soon.

Local Government Monitoring

The Local Government Management Improvement Model programme has enrolled 30 municipalities across 6 provinces. While some municipalities have fared well in the assessments, such as Matatiele (EC); Kopanong, (FS); Lephalale (LP); and Rustenburg (NW), underperformance was recorded in critical management areas across many, mainly in regard to service delivery, supply chain management, management of expenditure and community engagement.

Similarly, the assessment of management practices in national and provincial departments suggests that there is organisational learning, and that many departments find value in the self-assessment method of this DPME programme.

Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring and Support

DPME implements programmes to assess the experience of citizens with service delivery, such as the Presidential Hotline, Unannounced Visits, and Citizen-Based Monitoring.

The Presidential Hotline provides a channel for citizens to seek redress when service delivery fails. The Hotline logs an average of 2000 cases per month. The cumulative resolution rate for Hotline cases stands at 98%.

Our work demands that we are visible in service delivery sites, beyond interacting with departments to monitor their plans and programmes. In the past year, we assessed over 100 facilities and conducted improvement monitoring in 120 facilities.

These unannounced visits also help to highlight various institutional challenges, and enable DPME to advise the relevant departments on measures to be taken to remedy the situation.

In the previous financial year we completed a two year action learning process to develop a citizen-based monitoring method. We have published a toolkit for citizen-based monitoring and we will be supporting government departments to implement this method, which puts the citizen experience at the centre of service delivery.

Budget

Honourable members, additional funding of R218.6 million has been allocated to DPME over the MTEF, to compensate for cost-of-living increases and to provide additional capacity in the Department. This raises the Department’s budget for the 2016/17 financial year to R827.7 million, which includes a transfer payment to the National Youth Development Agency of R405.8 million. The Department is currently finalising a review of its strategy with a view to increase capacity to more effectively plan, monitor, evaluate and support the work of Government.

It is worth mentioning that the Department has obtained clean audit opinions for the previous three financial years. The audit for the 2015/16 financial year is underway, and we are eager to continue the track record of clean audits and good governance.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Deputy Minister Manamela for his support in implementing the mandate of the department over the past year. We have benefited immensely from our ongoing interactions with the Portfolio Committee, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Chairperson, the Honourable Mabe and members of the Committee.

My gratitude also goes to members of the National Planning Commission for their expert advice on matters of national planning. During the past year, we appointed the Secretary of National Planning, Mr Tshediso Matona, who is also the acting Director-General of the department following the departure of Dr Sean Phillips. I thank him most sincerely for his service in managing and leading DPME, working together with the executives and officials of the department. Finally, I would like to thank my family, my wife Bridgette and the children for their support, on which I know I can always rely.

Conclusion

Let me end where I started. On this occasion of a year in which we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Constitution, it is pertinent that we remind ourselves that we are on a journey towards a better life for our people. It is true that we are currently experiencing challenges on a number of fronts. These are the bushes we need to clear in order to proceed with the journey. We dare not take our eyes off our destination to a society where the potential of all South Africans has, indeed, been freed. We take this opportunity to recommit ourselves to the founding values of our constitutional democracy. It is a commitment to the creation of the kind of society antithetical to what former President Mandela, called a skunk of the world. 

I thus ask this house to support the 2016/2017 budget of the DPME.

I thank you.

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SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY, HONOURABLE BUTI MANAMELA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DPME BUDGET VOTE SPEECH 2016/17, PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF AOUTH AFRICA

Speaker,
Members of Parliament
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen

This year we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of June 16, 1976.  The Soweto Uprising saw brave young men and women being butchered by the apartheid regime.  Dogs and guns against stones and song. Courage against brutality.  This is the courage, honourable members, which we must continue to show as we deal with our development challenges. We celebrate those brave young heroes and heroines from Soweto, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Cradock and the length and breadth of South Africa. 

Their sacrifices have led to this democratic society.  We must never forget this.

We note the Social Profile of Youth Report released by Stats SA on Monday.  We are encouraged by the decline in the number of young people living below the poverty line.  But there are too many youth social profile indicators that we are worried about including employment, effects of crime, the poor uptake of entrepreneurship and the effects of infectious diseases.  We will use this report to strengthen our youth development interventions as we implement the NYP 2020 whilst targeting the most vulnerable amongst our youth population.

The work of the Presidential Task Team on the Creative Industries continues.  The Task Team has extensively engaged with stakeholders across the creative industries.  Their valuable input has helped to shape the Intellectual Property draft legislation led by the DTI. 

Further work to reduce piracy and develop a social insurance scheme for artists are being prioritised. 

Last year Honourable Members, I stood here and talked at length about the new National Youth Policy 2020 (NYP2020). I mentioned the five key pillars of the NYP2020 as enabling economic participation and transformation; facilitating education, skills development and second chances; health care and combating substance abuse; facilitating nation building and social cohesion, and optimising the youth development machinery.

I am pleased to announce that the policy is being implemented and monitored at the highest level of government. In June 2015 the President established the Presidential Working Group on Youth comprising of deputy ministers to monitor and drive the implementation of the NYP 2020.

Work streams, comprising of business, civil society, and government departments were set up in each of the five priority areas.  These partners act as catalysts in ensuring that the NYP2020 is implemented and monitored.  Implementation is gaining momentum and indeed every sector of society is beginning to understand that youth development is everyone’s business.

On education, skills development and second chances: A sector plan for the introduction of second chance programmes for all learners that have not succeeded in Matric or Grade 12 is being implemented; a policy to ensure that there is articulation between schools,  community colleges, TVET colleges and universities is being finalised in 2016/17 financial year. Since the inception of the National Skills Accord in 2011, State owned enterprises have collectively trained young people in various scarce and critical skills.

On economic participation: Since the advent of the Youth Employment Accord, employment of young people in agriculture increased to 418 360; increase in employment of young people in construction is 158 000 and government has employed an additional 126 000. The Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF) by COGTA aims to create urban spaces that are inclusive, resilient and liveable. The City of Johannesburg’s Co-Jedi Learnership Programme will train 1000 young people in the ICT sector, while the Vulindlel’ eJozi programme will enable 200 000 young people to access work, education and training opportunities.  However, the high unemployment rate amongst young people remain a major source of concern and more work must be done. 

Health care and combating substance abuse: The building of substance abuse treatment centres is ongoing with fund availed to ensure that each province has a treatment centre. 7 centres are operational and with 2 centres in the Northern Cape and Free State to be complemented in next two years.

The Drug Master Plan itself is being reviewed to ensure consistency in policy approach to substance abuse and sufficient funding must be provided for research to ensure that the war on drugs is informed by evidence.

Nation building and social cohesion: In 2015 racism reared its ugly head all too frequently and refuses to be confined to the dustbin of history where it belongs. Amongst the many initiatives that are to be implemented to foster nation building and social cohesion is the National Youth Service programme. As the President announced, we will working towards 1 million young people participating in the National Youth Service Programme by 2020. As they share spaces and work with each other, this sizable number of youth will discover their common humanity.  They will use their energy to build our nation and provide valuable services to communities. 

This National Youth Service Programme will build trust and start a tsunami of young people who see themselves as South Africans ready to serve rather than be served. The draft National Youth Service Framework will be submitted to Cabinet for approval in the next weeks.  Thereafter we expect to begin a process of nation-wide consultation on the draft framework. 

On optimising youth development machinery: The NYDA is vigorously implementing its turn-around strategy.  The capacity of the DPME is being bolstered to adequately monitor and give direction to youth development across government. 

Honourable members, it is common cause that there has been remarkable positive developments at the NYDA.  The outgoing board can be proud of:

•​The first clean audit of the Agency reflecting full compliance with laws and regulations. 

•​Better governance and the reduction of irregular expenditure.

• ​Successful corporate restructuring that reduced the salary bill from R189 million in 2015 / 2016 to a projected R145 million in 2016 / 2017.

•​The growth of the Education and Skills Development budget from R31 million in 2012 / 2013 to R80 million in 2016 / 2017.

•​The successful implementation of the Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund providing scholarship funds to deserving students.

• ​An increase in grant financing to young entrepreneurs from R12 million in 2013 / 2014 to a projected R35 million in 2016/ 2017.

The new board, which Parliament must recommend to the President, will build on the successful foundation laid by the outgoing board.

In 2016/17, the NYDA will spend R72 million in programmes to facilitate economic participation for young people. 

R87 million has been set aside for programmes in education, skills development, health and well-being representing a 44% budget increase. The greatest increase in the NYDA budget is for the National Youth Service programme with budget increase from R22 million to R53 million. With this budget, the NYDA must develop new and impactful NYS programme models that can be taken to scale.  The National Youth Service Programme will be implemented by government at all levels, civil society and the private sector.  The NYDA will provide technical assistance and training to government and civil society to design, develop and implement National Youth Service programmes. 

This is to ensure that the vision of a million young people in service programmes by 2020 is realised.

An improved and credible NYDA has resulted in growing expectations from young people.  Not meeting these expectations is the main risk for the agency.  The NYDA will continue to lobby various sectors of society to leverage investments for youth development. 

The NYDA’s solid base of good governance, effective operations and impactful programmes present a compelling case for increased funding from the National Treasury. 

We will persuade more stakeholders to join us in driving our youth development vision as highlighted in our NYP 2020; a “South Africa envisioned in which young people and their organisations not only enjoy and contribute to their full social, political and economic potential, but also recognise and develop their responsibilities to build a better life for all.”

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Responses

New Department, same old results

 

Erik Marais (DA) Shadow Deputy Minister in the Presidency

 

House Chairperson,

First some quick background: In May 2014, the President made a proclamation on the reconfiguration and reorganisation of Department of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME).

The reforms included the merging of the National Planning Commission Secretariat with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to form a new Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.

The National Youth Development Agency, as a programme was transferred from Vote 1 of the Presidency to Vote 8 of the Department.

The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation plays a direct guiding role in government’s long-term and annual performance planning, which brings us to the National Development Plan 2030. By 2030:

1. Government wants to eliminate income poverty by reducing the proportion of household with a monthly income below R 419-00 per person from 39 percent to zero.
2. The Government want to reduce inequality.

Just to mention six enabling milestones of the NDP:

1. Increase employment from 13 million in 2010 to 24 million 2030
2. Raise per capita income from R 50 000 in 2010 to R 120 000 by 2030
3. Increase the quality of education
4. Provide affordable access to quality health care while promoting health and wellbeing
5. Establish effective, safe and affordable public transport
6. Ensure that all South Africans have access to clean running water in their homes

So the DPME must monitor the implementation of the strategic and operational plans as well as delivery agreements to achieve the abovementioned. It must also monitor the performance of the individual national and provincial departments and municipalities. Budgets allocated to programmes one to four have to address the monitoring and implementation.

Voorsitter, om transformasie vinniger te laat geskied le die oplossing in die ekonomiese groei, wat werk skep. Die Demokratiese Alliansie se fokus is op ekonomiese groei om werksgeleenthede vir alle mense in Suid Afrika te skep.

Gedeelde welvaart en ekonomiese insluiting deur groei en indiensneming is belangrik vir vooruitgang in Suid Afrika.

Die Suid Afrikaanse gemeenskap en die ekonomie is veel meer inklusief as voor 1994 77% van die 4.2 miljoen volwassenes met tersiere kwalifikasies het werk teenoor die 22 miljoen volwassenes wat nie hoërskool voltooi het nie.

Die staat behoort n bemagtigende omgewing te skep om  groei in die privaat sektor te ontsluit as die enigste manier om nasionale ontwikkelingsdoelwitte te bereik.

Die waarde van hierdie department lê daarin om assessering en monitering van die Nasionale Ontwikkelingsplan te laat geskied en dit te onderskraag tot implementering en uitvoering.

Two thirds of the National Budget is allocated to Health and Education.

The DPME has to be strategic and focus on priority plans and programmes being implemented across government that will make the greatest contribution to the NDP goals of reducing poverty, unemployment and inequality. It must also enhance the implementation of the NDP vision 2030.

The increase in the DPME’s budget allocation in 2015/16 from R 827 million from R 754 million is a significant increase.

The number of permanent posts in the Department is set to increase from 240 in 2015/16 to 490 in 2018/19. This could only be justified if the Department achieve it outcomes in line with the National Development Plan.

The Budget allocation of R 103 million in 2016/17 for the Planning programme is essential. Everything in life starts with Planning.

This programme is to develop South Africa’s long term vision and national strategic plan and contribute towards better outcomes in government through better planning, better long term plans and greater policy coherence.

The spending focus on this programme will be on Research and Policy Services supporting the work of the National Planning Commission and guiding strategic and annual performance and reporting process.

Chairperson, Programme 5 of the Budget Programme is the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) and the National Youth Development Programme budget allocation is R 413 million. The question remains, does the NYDA achieve its goals to initiate, design coordinate, evaluate and monitor all programmes that aim to integrate the youth into the economy and society in general? To be honest, I am not convinced.

High youth unemployment in South Africa is a fact, creating jobs for the young people is essential. However, creating jobs is not a core responsibility of the NYDA despite the mandate stipulated in its governing Act, and the DA once again calls for the dismantling of this cadre employment agency.

I Thank You

The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Expansion

 

Sejamothopo Motau (DA) Shadow Minister for the Presidency

 

 

Honourable Chairperson,

On 13 November 2014 the DA warned from this platform that the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) had embarked on a rapid and reckless expansion exercise. We indicated that the Minister in the Presidency, Hon Jeff Radebe, had requested National Treasury to increase the department’s annual budget by more than R600 million to more than R1 billion over the medium term to end 2017/18.

The DA warned that this smacked of empire building and would only serve to deepen the ANC’s crony network for cadre deployment.

As matters stand today, the departmental spend is projected to increase from R749.2 million in 2015/16 to R994.3 million by 2018/19. This is just a few Rand short of the magical R1 Billion Budget we suggested the Minister was gunning for.

The budget allocated to the department for the 2015/16 financial year was R754.2 million and it has been significantly increased to R827.7 million in the 2016/17 financial year.

There is a sharp budget increase in Programme 4: National Planning which has jumped from R82.1 million to R103.2 million in 2016/17.

The number of permanent posts in the Department is set to increase from 372 in 2015/16 to 490 in the medium term.

Consequently, the budget for compensation of employees is expected to grow from R192.3 million in 2015/16 to R319 million by 2018/19, at an average annual rate of 18.4 percent, and accounting for 30.9 percent of the Department’s budget over the medium term.

This is truly amazing, at a time when the Minister of Finance has appealed for serious cost cutting across all national departments!

The DA remains unconvinced about the need for a DPME. Line function managers in the various government departments should routinely monitor and evaluate the performance of their departments.

In the DA’s vision of 15 National Ministries, Planning Monitoring and Evaluation and the National Planning Commission would be one unit and become an office reporting to the Executive. The Presidency would also become an office reporting to the Executive.

We would do this because we hold the view that the growth in corruption and patronage within government and it is primarily responsible for both the massive size of the public sector and the related bloated Cabinet.

South Africa has become a victim of “big government,” with 35 cabinet ministers and 37 deputy ministers. Add to this the President and Deputy President and the picture becomes even more depressing. The cost is astronomical.

As indicated above, there has been significant growth in the budget for National Planning. Now that the new National Planning Commission has been appointed, we trust it will not take forever “setting up shop,” as Director General Tshediso Matona told the portfolio committee recently.

The DPME and the Planning Commission must put shoulder to the wheel to ensure deliberate implementation of the plan for maximum economic growth. There is no more time to waste.

This country is in dire economic straits. More than eight million jobless South Africans demand this of all of us in this Parliament.

Regrettably, the lack of compliance and consequent poor performance in many government and provincial departments continues.

During a recent presentation of the latest Management Performance Assessment Tool – MPAT 2014, DG Matona lamented the lack of leadership and management skills in many provincial and government departments. He blamed lack of consequence management.

We agree.

The DG also bemoaned the fact that the DPME could not “intervene directly” to ensure corrective action of the MPAT findings. We agree that, to show value for the money spent on the department, the DPME cannot just be a problem finder but should be an institution that can intervene in departments to ensure that corrective action is taken.

MPAT 2014 has again confirmed that while Human Resource Management (HRM) is central to effective service delivery, it consistently records poor performance. Finalisation of disciplinary cases remains a serious challenge as well as payment of suppliers within 30 days.

The weakest performing government departments per MPAT 2014 were Correctional Services, Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Military Veterans, Traditional Affairs and Women Children and People with Disabilities.

However, not all is lost.

On a positive note, the DA governed Western Cape has performed best of all the provinces and government departments, according to the MPAT 2014 results.

The MPAT data suggest that committed and effective management contributes to improved service delivery.

In this regard, the Western Cape leads the pack with a brilliant score of 3.8 out of a possible 4. That is 95%, in the key performance area of strategic management. National Departments scored 3.0. Gauteng was the second best province with 3.1.

On governance and accountability, the Western Cape is ahead with an excellent score of 3.6 while government departments scored 2.6. The Northern Cape was the next best province with 3.4.

For human resource management the Western Cape registered a good 3.0 while the score for government departments, Free State and Northern Cape was 2.4.

In financial management the Western Cape scored a sterling 3.5 with the Free State second at 3.1. The national departments scored 3.0

The DA commends the Western Cape Government for its dedication to high quality performance and the improvement of service delivery to ALL the residents of the province.

Indeed, where the DA governs, performance and service delivery just get better and better. That’s the DA difference: right people with the right skills, using the right tools and systems, to enhance service delivery.

Clearly, the Western Cape is doing something right.

Honourable Chair, we have made this plea before but it is worth repeating because of its importance. The DA holds that the single hybrid portfolio committee for the DPME and DPSA cannot do effective oversight over the two departments. The recent addition of Statistics South Africa to the oversight workload of the committee has aggravated the situation.

This was starkly highlighted last week when the articulated committee had to rush the adoption of the budget reports of the DPME and Stats SA because there is a serious problem in the portfolio committee’s secretariat.

We know that Minister Radebe believes that we sound like a stuck record on this issue. Unfortunately, we will continue to raise this vexed, urgent matter until the relevant committee in this Parliament, the Speaker, the Chair of Chairs Cedric Frolick or the Deputy President who is responsible for Government Business listens and fixes the problem.

Indeed, as I have pleaded before, if the two departments are important enough to each have a Minister, a Deputy Minister and loads of programmes, then each of the departments must be important enough to have a dedicated portfolio committee.

We believe the oversight work of members of the committee to hold the Executive and their departments truly accountable is impacted negatively by this inefficient and clearly unfair arrangement.

 

Department has to focus on being in line with NDP, job creation

 

Erik Marais (DA) Shadow Deputy Minister in the Presidency

 

House Chairperson: First a quick background

In May 2014, the President made a proclamation on the reconfiguration and reorganisation of Department of Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation.

The Reforms included the merging of the National Planning Commission Secretariat with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to form a new Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.

The National Youth Development Agency, as a programme was transferred from Vote 1 of the Presidency to Vote 8 of the Department.

The Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation plays a direct guiding role in the Governments long term planning and annual performance planning.

That brings us to the National Development Plan 2030

By 2030

A:        The Government want to eliminate income poverty by reducing the proportion of household with a monthly income below R 419-00 per person from 39 percent to zero.

B:        The Government want to reduce inequality.

Just to mention 6 enabling milestones of the NDP

1.     Increase employment from 13million in 2010 to 24 million 2030

1. Raise per capita income from R 50 000 in 2010 to R 120 000 by 2030

3.     Increase the quality of education

4.     Provide affordable access to quality health care while promoting health and well-being

5.     Establish effective, safe and affordable public transport

6.     Ensure that all South Africans have access to clean running water in their homes

So the DPME must monitor the implementation of the Strategic and operational plans as well as delivery agreements to achieve the abovementioned.

It must also monitor the performance of the individual national and provincial departments and municipalities.

Budgets allocated to programmes one to four have to address the monitoring and implementation

Voorsitter

Om transformasie vinniger te laat geskied le die oplossing in die ekonomiese groei, wat werk skep.

Die Demokratiese Alliansie se fokus is op ekonomiese groei om werksgeleenthede vir alle mense in Suid Afrika te skep.

Gedeelde welvaart en ekonomiese insluiting deur groei en indiensneming is belangrik vir vooruitgang in Suid Afrika

Die Suid Afrikaanse gemeenskap en die ekonomie is veel meer inklusief as voor 1994

77% van die 4,2 miljoen volwassenes met tersiere kwalifikasies het werk teenoor die 22 miljoen volwassenes wat nie hoërskool voltooi het nie.

Die staat behoort n bemagtigende omgewing te skep om  groei in die privaat sektor te ontsluit as die enigste manier om nasionale ontwikkelingsdoelwitte te bereik.

Die waarde van hierdie department lê daarin om assessering en monitering van die Nasionale Ontwikkelingsplan te laat geskied en dit te onderskraag tot implementering en uitvoering.

Chaiperson

The DPME must monitor the R4 trillion worth of programmes of the Government

Two thirds of the National Budget is allocated to Health and Education.

The DPME has to be strategic and focus on priority plans and programmes being implemented across government,that will make the greatest contribution to the NDP goals of reducing poverty, unemployment and inequality. It must enhance the implementation of the NDP vision 2030

The increase in the Budget of DPME allocated in 2015/16 financial year of

R 754,2 million, with R74, million to R 827,7 million is significantly

The number of permanent posts in the department is set to increase from 240 in 2015/16 to 490 in 2018/19

This could only be justified if the Department achieve it outcomes in line with the National Development Plan

The Budget allocation of R 103,2 million in 2016/17 for the programme – Planning, is essential.

Everything in life start with Planning

This programme is to develop South Africa’s long term vision and national strategic plan and contribute towards better outcomes in government through better planning, better long term plans and greater policy coherence.

The spending focus on this programme will be on Research and policy  services supporting the work of the National Planning Commission and guiding strategic and annual performance and reporting process.

Chairperson

Programme 5 of the Budget Programme is the National Youth Development (NYDA)

The National Youth Development Programme budget allocation is R 413,4 million.

The Question remain: Does the NYDA achieve its goals to initiate design coordinate, evaluate and monitor all programmes that aim to integrate the Youth into the economy and society in general.

To be honest, I am not convinced.

The spending on compensation of employee’s, payment of capital assets, goods and services is just too high.

High Youth unemployment in South Africa is a fact, creating jobs for the young people i++s essential.

Creating jobs is not a core responsibility of the NYDA as mandated in the Act

Chairperson, the question remains should this budget allocation rather be allocated to another department for example Trade and Industry or Economic Development to drive job creation?

I Thank You

To attain value for money, department must take corrective action

 

Sejamothopo Motau (DA) Shadow Minister for the Presidency

 

 

Honourable Chairperson,

On 13 November 2014 the DA warned from this platform that the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) had embarked on a rapid expansion exercise. We indicated that the Minister in the Presidency, Hon Jeff Radebe, had requested National Treasury to increase the department’s annual budget by more than R600 million to more than R1 billion over the medium term to end 2017/18.

The DA warned that this smacked of empire building and would only serve to deepen the ANC’s crony network for cadre deployment.

As matters stand today, the departmental spend is projected to increase from R749.2 million in 2015/16 to R994.3 million by 2018/19. This is just a few Rand short of the magical R1 Billion Budget we suggested the Minister was gunning for.

The budget allocated to the department for the 2015/16 financial year was R754.2 million and it has been significantly increased to R827.7 million in the 2016/17 financial year.

There is a sharp budget increase in Programme 4: National Planning which has jumped from R82.1 million to R103.2 million in 2016/17.

The number of permanent posts in the department is set to increase from 372 in 2015/16 to 490 in the medium term.

Consequently, the budget for compensation of employees is expected to grow from R192.3 million in 2015/16 to R319 million by 2018/19, at an average annual rate of 18.4 per cent, and accounting for 30.9 percent of the department’s budget over the medium term.

This is truly amazing, at a time when the Minister of Finance has appealed for serious cost cutting across all national departments!

The DA remains unconvinced about the need for a DPME. Line function managers in the various government departments should routinely monitor and evaluate the performance of their departments.

In the DA’s vision of 15 National Ministries, Planning Monitoring and Evaluation and the National Planning Commission would be one unit and become an office reporting to the executive. The Presidency would also become an office reporting to the executive.

We would do this because we hold the view that a symptom of power and unchallenged majority rule – a tyranny – is the growth in corruption and patronage within government and it is this that the DA believes is primarily responsible for both the massive size of the public sector and the related bloated Cabinet.

South Africa has become a victim of “big government,” with 35 cabinet ministers and 37 deputy ministers. Add to this the President and deputy president and the picture becomes even more depressing. The cost is astronomical.

As indicated above, there has been significant growth in the budget for National Planning. Now that the new National Planning Commission has been appointed, we trust it will not take forever “setting up shop,” as Director General Tshediso Matona told the portfolio committee recently.

The DPME and the Planning Commission must put shoulder to the wheel to ensure deliberate implementation of the plan for maximum economic growth. There is no more time to waste.

This country is in dire economic straits. More than 8 million jobless South Africans demand this of all of us in this parliament.

Regrettably, the lack of compliance and consequent poor performance in many government and provincial departments continues.

During a recent presentation of the latest Management Performance Assessment Tool – MPAT 2014, DG Matona lamented the lack of leadership and management skills in many provincial and government departments. He blamed lack of consequence management.

We agree.

The DG also bemoaned the fact that the DPME could not “intervene directly” to ensure corrective action of the MPAT findings. We agree that, to show value for the money spent on the department, the DPME cannot just be a problem finder but should be an institution that can intervene in departments to ensure that corrective action is taken.

MPAT 2014 has again confirmed that while human resource management (HRM) is central to effective service delivery, it consistently records poor performance. Finalisation of disciplinary cases remains a serious challenge as well as payment of suppliers within 30 days.

The weakest performing government departments per MPAT 2014 were Correctional Services, Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Military Veterans, Traditional Affairs and Women Children and People with Disabilities.

However, not all is lost.

On a positive note, the DA governed Western Cape has performed best of all the provinces and government departments, according to the MPAT 2014 results.

The MPAT data suggest that committed and effective management contributes to improved service delivery.

In this regard, the Western Cape leads the pack with a brilliant score of 3.8 out of a possible 4. That is 95%, in the key performance area of strategic management. National Departments scored 3.0. Gauteng was the second best province with 3.1.

On governance and accountability, the Western Cape is ahead with an excellent score of 3.6 while government departments scored 2.6. The Northern Cape was the next best province with 3.4.

For human resource management the Western Cape registered a good 3.0 while the score for government departments, Free State and Northern Cape was 2.4.

In financial management the Western Cape scored a sterling 3.5 with the Free State second at 3.1. The national departments scored 3.0

The DA commends the Western Cape Government for its dedication to high quality performance and the improvement of service delivery to ALL the residents of the province.

Indeed, where the DA governs, performance and service delivery just get better and better. That’s the DA difference: right people with the right skills, using the right tools and systems, to enhance service delivery.

Clearly, the Western Cape is doing something right.

Honourable Chair, we have made this plea before but it is worth repeating because of its importance. The DA holds that the single hybrid portfolio committee for the DPME and DPSA cannot do effective oversight over the two departments. The recent addition of Statistics South Africa to the oversight workload of the committee has aggravated the situation.

This was starkly highlighted last week when the articulated committee had to rush the adoption of the budget reports of the DPME and Stats SA because there is a serious problem in the portfolio committee’s secretariat.

We know that Minister Radebe believes that we sound like a stuck record on this issue. Unfortunately, we will continue to raise this vexed, urgent matter until the relevant committee in this parliament, the Speaker, the Chair of Chairs Cedric Frolick or the Deputy President who is responsible for Government Business listens and fixes the problem.

Indeed, as I have pleaded before, if the two departments are important enough to each have a minister, a deputy minister and loads of programmes, then each of the departments must be important enough to have a dedicated portfolio committee.

We believe the oversight work of members of the committee to hold the executive and their departments truly accountable is impacted negatively by this inefficient and clearly unfair arrangement.