State of Nation Address: Office on the Status of Disabled Persons briefing

Joint Monitoring Committee on Children, Youth and Persons with Disabilities

05 March 2008
Chairperson: Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Office on the Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP) briefed the Committee on the imperatives arising from the State of the Nation address. It was looking at programmes around economic transformation that would regroup economic empowerment of persons with disabilities, and interventions into the second economy through the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise Development Programme. Another major focus was to finalise the National Disability Policy Framework and also to look at the Draft Implementation Plan of the US Convention. The National Disability Machinery was being strengthened by calling for more participation by members of different institutions, Traditional Leaders, religious leaders, business, labour, and government. Education initiatives included the Mass Literacy Programme, in which it was hoped that disabled people could become trainers. It was noted that a website had been set up to try to assist government and the private sector to access CVs of disabled people. OSDP would be working with the Management Development Institute and other bodies to try to expand its reach. It was explained that the budget could not be presented as the Office of the Presidency had not allocated the funding, but an amount of R3.8 million had been requested to fulfil the programmes.

Members asked how far the Integrated National Disability Framework had gone, asked that the draft reports for the UN Convention must be submitted to the Committee, what role the Office expected the Committee to play, asked about the challenges facing education, particularly inclusivity of education, health and social security. They enquired about the social services grants, the difficulties in reaching disability targets in employment, the sectors in which the disabled were finding work, whether there were statistics on the impact of crime on the disabled, either as victims or perpetrators, and the need for trainers in the Mass Literacy Campaign. Further queries addressed cooperation with the Departments of Agriculture and Land Affairs, the need to also consider empowerment in the first economy, efforts for disabled entrepreneurs, and the costing of the Disability Policy Framework.  

The Committee adopted the Minutes of meetings held on 26 October, 09 November, 16 November, and 21 November 2007, with amendments. The Annual Report was adopted with additions. The Report on the Strategic Planning Workshop was adopted.

Meeting report

Adoption of Minutes
Ms F Mazibuko (ANC) maintained that the minutes did not have sufficient detail and more consistency was needed.

The Chairperson asked the Committee Secretary to take this up with the Committee Section. Committee minutes had always been done in that format in the past but she would like more detail and always had to go to the PMG website for that.

Minutes of meetings held on 26 October 2007, 2 November 2007, 09 November 2007 and 16 November were adopted with amendments.

Adoption of Annual Report January to November 2007
Ms Mazibuko was concerned that in the Chairperson’s Review she had only made brief mention of the difficulty in the Committee obtaining a quorum, whereas she believed this should be emphasised, as also that only the ANC Members attended on a regular basis. The Annual Report was adopted subject to the addition of Ms Mazibuko’s comments, and emphasising the Friday changes. 

Adoption of Report on Strategic Planning Workshop
The Report was adopted.

Child Justice Bill
The Chairperson referred to the document that had been circulated on the Child Justice Bill by Ms Christine Silkstone, and asked that it be studied prior to the Committee’s visit to Pollsmoor Prison.

State of the Nation Address (SONA): Briefing by Office of the Status of Disabled Persons (OSDP)
Mr Benny Palime, Director, OSDP, explained that the first part of his document related to the twenty four Apex Priorities of the SONA, and the second part to the strategic planning of the OSDP, pinpointing the activities of OSDP from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009. Their time frame was quite tight, and fitted in to the planning scenario of twenty five years, to 2025. 

The main focus was on the issue of economic transformation. OSDP was looking at programmes around economic transformation that would regroup economic empowerment of persons with disabilities, and the issue of interventions of the second economy through the Small Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) Development Programme. Social Security would cover issues on the anti poverty strategy; and issues around crime prevention and access to justice, and that process had already started.

One of OSDP’s major focuses was to finalise the National Disability Policy Framework within this year, and also to look at the Draft Implementation Plan of the US Convention.

In terms of coordination there had been a call to review the machinery of government to ensure that it had the capacity to respond to development imperatives. OSDP would convene and implement quarterly meetings of the Inter Provincial Forum and Inter-Departmental Coordinating Committee on Disability. These would discuss, amongst other matters, mainstreaming of Disability issues into government programmes and progress regarding implementation of policies.

There was a call to review the National Gender Machinery, National Disability Machinery and others. OSDP was following that process. The National Disability Machinery was being strengthened by calling for more participation from members of different institutions - Traditional Leaders, religious leaders, business, labour, and government.

Mr Palime noted that OSDP was working in a cross sectoral manner, and was also looking at the three spheres of government, national, local and provincial, working with South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG) in that regard.

In respect of the Strategic Plan, Mr Palime commented that the Office of the Presidency had just completed a process of operational plans and was going into the strategic planning sessions of the branches. The activities listed were the outcome of a strategic planning session. This included the implementation plan of the US Convention, and the National Disability Policy Framework, but OSDP had also ensured that the programmes and strategic plan of the Presidency was factored in.

Monitoring and evaluation would work within the government wide monitoring and evaluation system; they would develop disability indicators but also factor them into the currently existing indicators of the developmental index of government.

OSDP would be looking to coordinate through development of the National Disability Machinery and also had the current existing inter departmental committee on Disability and the Inter Provincial Forum. OSDP would like to merge the two but were not sure it would work.

With regard to capacity building programme OSDP was going to work with South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) to empower government officials, since OSDP could not cover twenty seven departments and provinces, and had also to consider funding. Firstly it would like to undertake training on OSDP’s policy framework, implementation of policy, and implementation of the UN Convention. SALGA, DPLG and SAMDI had been quite useful in terms of their training programmes.

There was a White Paper and it was necessary to work within the scope of the Integrated National Disability Strategy. Once the framework was approved by Cabinet in July, it would be implemented as an official policy of government. Mr Palime stressed that the National Disability Policy Framework did not necessarily replace the National Disability Strategy but rather qualified it and also assisted government to implement the Convention. The first report was to be submitted to the United Nations in 2010, so the reason for that forward planning was to meet that deadline. Although the activities were scheduled to happen in 2008/09, the following two time frames up to 2025 must also be considered and budgeted for; the framework anticipated that there would be short, medium and long term goals and implementation plans.

OSDP had not included the budget because the Presidency had not yet allocated the funding; it was still waiting for the final allocation in the next week or so. The original suggestion, through the Presidency, was that an estimate would be made of OSDP’s expenditure for this year, measured against national expenditure targets, but he anticipated that R3.8 million would be needed for 2008/09 to implement all the activities as tabled today.

This plan would be reviewed mid term in September, and after that the review plan, focusing on the last part of the financial year, would be sent to the Committee. 

Mr Palime noted further that this framework was being taken to the Cluster, and was hoping to have it adopted by Cabinet Lekgotla in 2008. If not, then it would go through normal Cabinet channels and be implemented once adopted as official policy.

Mr Palime concluded that the activities listed could be changed according to the priorities. These were based on the relevant Apex Priorities in the State of the Nation address.

Discussion
Members asked a number of questions, which were responded to in general by Mr Palime,

The Chairperson asked if Mr Palime had also included the Integrated National Disability Framework in his considerations, and asked how far this review had gone. She noted that the Committee would like to see the draft.

Mr Palime clarified that currently OSDP was moving this through the clusters. The draft would be made available. The Government and Administration cluster would be consulted the following day, and the Economic Cluster in the next week. OSDP had done a critique of the policy framework and had also taken into consideration the fact that it must pass through the Committee before going to Cabinet. In working with the Clusters there was also work with the Directors General, and OSDP was currently compiling a letter of commitment for all to sign, as part of the process in regard to the framework.

The Chairperson referred to the deadline for the report to be submitted for the UN Convention 2010. It was not known who would be serving on the Committee by then but she noted that the report must of course go through this Committee This comment had been received from other institutions as well.

Mr D Gamede (ANC) noted that the Apex Priorities had been grouped to suit this unit. He asked what OSDP would expect from this Committee and whether it was correct to suggest that the Committee should be part of the machinery, since it would also have to do oversight.

Mr Gamede also asked how Mr Palime saw that OSDP would persuade acceleration of economic growth and development through these sectors.

Mr Gamede enquired about the entity and plans of jobs.co.za and how this was to be measured. 

Mr A Madella (ANC) asked Mr Palime to elaborate further on the challenges facing education, particularly inclusivity of education. He also noted that there had been no mention of challenges relating to access to finance, specifically for students who were disabled. He thought the operational plan could address that to a greater extent. He noted that although health was another focus area, nothing was mentioned, with the exception of the challenges of HIV/AIDS. He had expected to hear what OSDP was doing about access to quality health care for disabled people in general, and even more so for disabled children.

Mr Madella asked, in regard to social security, if Mr Palime saw OSDP playing any meaningful role in assessing the current strategies against what the President spoke about as a National War on Poverty. Most of the grants were key tools for fighting poverty. He asked whether OSDP had a role to play in determining levels of grants and their suitability for a family, or whether there was a need for a more rapid adjustment, perhaps higher than had been allocated over the past few years. He also suggested that there might be a case to argue for a more liberal grant specifically for the disabled.

Ms E Ngaleka (ANC) referred to the inclusion of people with disabilities, and disability mainstreaming, in all economic growth and develop programmes, and asked Mr Palime to clarify land and agrarian reform.
She noted that most of the different departments had not met their targets in terms of employing people with disabilities, and enquired what were the obstacles that prevented them doing so.

Mr Palime noted that Government departments were still struggling to meet the employment target. It was suggested at the National Disability Commission meeting that the target be reviewed to 8%, and this would come into effect after 2009, with a specific time frame. He added that the obstacles were varied. Some people were of the view that certain jobs could not be performed by those with disabilities, and a number of disabled people were switchboard operators, typists and clerks. There was just a lack of willingness from the HR Managers. OSDP had to ensure that the public service was user friendly to people with disabilities. There was no policy in the departments for transport for people to get to work, let alone buying special equipment for employees. OSDP asked the Departments to come up with their own policies on such matters as transport and access so that OSDP could critique those policies and guide departments. HR Managers were reluctant to employ certain categories of people with disabilities, such as people who needed interpreters. The problem was here that the interpreter would have to sign a contract, but at the end of this contract there might be, for instance, a deaf person with no one to interpret for them. That was the reason why the Job Access Programme in the Public Service had been drawn up. That still had to go through Cabinet. The Department of Public Service and Administration were doing that programme.

Ms J Chalmers (ANC) asked whether there were any statistics on assessing whether people with disabilities tended to be targeted by crime because they were more vulnerable and less able to defend themselves.
She asked what happened to disabled people in prison and what kind of facilities, back up or care there was for people who had committed crimes, or for disabled victims of crime.

Mr Palime said that OSDP had been working with the Department of Correctional Services on the issue of disabled people in prison to ensure that prisons were accessible, and that the method of handling people with disabilities in those centres should be done in a more Human Rights focused manner. OSDP would assist the Department to ensure that it was implemented correctly.

Mr Palime noted that OSDP did not have statistics on crime, that was something the OSDP had not thought about, but would do some research

The Chairperson noted the Mass Literacy Programme in which disabled people were also participating. She felt this should go further and that disabled people should be able to become trainers and more active participants who would benefit economically. 

Mr Palime said that Education sector work included several categories: an all-inclusive education, the Mass Literacy Campaign, the Early Child Development (ECD), the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). No focus had yet been given to disabled people becoming trainers themselves. At this stage the education programme targeted people with disabilities who needed special focus, such as Braille and sign language. OSDP would consider getting qualified trainers to do that work.

Mr Palime noted, with regard to the issue of economic growth and development, that OSDP was looking at the issue of interventions in the second economy. The issue of accelerated growth guided OSDP to identify people with disabilities and to look at self-employment and formal employment in the formal sector through  www.jobs.co.za and the National Access portal. OSDP was assisting government and any interested person to access CVs of persons with disabilities on the website. OSDP now had almost fifteen departments registered within the websites and had been able to get people to start work.

Mr Palime noted that OSDP had already asked the Committee to empower the national machinery. OSDP viewed the National Disability Commission as a platform for communication and exchange of ideas, and a platform to assist Cabinet to make decisions around disabled people. His view was if the Committee participated in the machinery the monitoring would become closer to the OSDP. It was hoped that the Committee could play a leading role in the National Disability Machinery, which also included the OSDP, the  Human Rights Commission and civil society.

In regard to agriculture, Mr Palime noted that OSDP participated fully with the Department of Agriculture in terms of land and agrarian reform. In identified areas, such as Limpopo and the Free State, the focus would be mainly on agriculture. Programmes had already started in Limpopo with soil studies and assisting people with disabilities with agricultural starter packs and development of the farms.
 
Ms Ngaleka explained that she had asked Mr Palime to elaborate on land and agrarian reform, because during a presentation by the Office on Rights of the Child, the point was made that during redistribution and land reform the issues that affected children were not looked at. This Office had therefore set up a relationship with the Department of Land Affairs to ensure that when redistribution and land reform were dealt with the welfare of the child must also be considered, to try to avoid children being taken out of school or moved to an area where there was no school. She asked if a similar programme existed with OSDP.

Mr Gamede remarked that Mr Palime seemingly wanted to be the player and the referee at the same time. He had mentioned acceleration of economic growth and development, the second economy, self-employment and employment in the formal sector. He asked why OSDP was seeming to suggest that people with disabilities remain in the second economy, and why it was not targeting the first economy, where he wished to see people with disabilities playing a real part.

Mr Palime agreed that OSDP would like to see people with disabilities in the first economy. However, the reason for the focus on the second and third economies was that the majority of people with disabilities currently needed second economy interventions. OSDP would look at the anti poverty strategy with regard to social security, and to growing the economy. The second economy interventions would ensure that persons with disabilities became part of the mainstream economy. That would be the short-term target. The long term target would include the first economy.

Mr Madella referred to social security. He understood in the disability sector calls had been made for the establishment of a dedicated Fund, and assistance to disabled entrepreneurs to access funding to break out of the chains of the third and second economies. He asked if there were there any plans or ideas with regard to that particular concern.

Mr Palime responded that it was desirable to reach the situation where persons with disabilities did not necessarily depend on their grant. The disability grants were still not enough to provide a sustainable livelihood, simply because of the expenses disabled people must incur in transport costs and in meeting their other special needs. There was a need to find a way in which people who were able to work could do so.

The Chairperson understood where Mr Palime stood on the National Disability Machinery. The Committee had taken legal advice on this matter and would forward it to him. Because the Committee had an oversight role, as Mr Gamede said, it was very difficult to be player and referee at the same time.

The Chairperson commented, in regard to trainers for the Mass Literacy Programme, that two deaf people had become trainers for the Electricity Project. However, she would like to see people with all manner of disabilities being considered for trainers. She asked who would be providing the Braille training, noting that it should be a person who was extremely proficient in Braille.

The Chairperson asked whether the Disability Policy Framework had been costed. She noted that since OSDP would be working on implementation of the UN Convention, it would surely cost more than the R3.8 million figure that had been mentioned.

Mr Palime responded that OSDP looked at the roles the different government departments were playing. OSDP did not implement policy as that was left to departments, and it would be playing a coordinating role. The costing of R3.8 million was just for the current financial year and OSDP would look at increasing the amount for 2009/2010. Government departments would have to cost their sections and implement for both the policy framework and the UN Convention. OSDP had asked the Directors General to sign off their inputs and also to sign a letter of commitment that would commit them to implement the policy.

The Chairperson thanked the OSDP and noted that the Committee would follow up on the strategic planning during the year. OSDP should, after considering the legal opinion on the National Disability Machinery, report to the Committee on its work. The Committee’s researcher, Ms Kashiefa Abrahams, would be attending the National Disability Machinery meetings.

The meeting was adjourned.



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