TUESDAY, 23 MAY 2006


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          PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES

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The Council met at 10:06.

The Chairperson took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS – see col 000.

                         APPROPRIATION BILL

                           (Policy debate)

Debate on Vote No 15 – Education:

TONA YA LEFAPHA LA THUTO: Modulasetulo, ke bone nako e lo e mphileng. Ke bone go kwadilwe tlhakanya le ntsha, go ka Seesimase go kayang gore fa Modulasetulo a bona gore ke bua sengwe se se utlwagalang o tla oketsa nako, fela fa ke bua dilo di sele o tla tsaya nako ya me. Ke solofela gore ke tla bua selo se se utlwagalang.

Ke bone fa Modulasetulo a tsena, baemedi botlhe ba ema ka dinao. Ba ne ba akanya gore go tsena wena mme e ne e le ditlhogo tsa thuto tsa diporofense tsotlhe. [Setshego.] E rile fa ba bona gore ke ditlhogo tsa thuto ga se wena, ba bo ba nna fatshe ka bonako. Ga ba itse gore batho ba, ba tlotlega thata ka gonne e le bona ba tshwereng thuto. Ke a leboga Modulasetulo. (Translation of Setswana paragraphs follows.)

[The MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Chairperson, I am aware of the time allocated to me. I saw the words “addition and subtraction” written over there, which in English indicates that the Chairperson will extend my time if I make sense, but reduce it if I am out of line. I hope I am going to make some sense.

I realised that all the delegates stood up when the Chairperson entered. They thought it was you entering but it was the provincial heads of education. [Laughter.] When they realised it wasn’t you, they immediately took their seats. They don’t know that these people are highly respected because they are the ones handling education. Thank you, Chairperson.]

The education sector has made significant progress in the past year. The huge investment that our nation makes in education compels us to interrogate our progress constantly and to be impatient with inadequate achievement and waste of precious national resources.

The 2006-07 budget allocation to Education increases by 12,8% from the 2005- 06 allocation. Education spending, as a percentage of government’s spending, although relatively stable at around 20%, decreases from 20,1% in 2006-07 to 19,8% over the medium term. Education spending, as a percentage of GDP, remains relatively stable at around 5,5% over the same period.

Now, as members know, the bulk of Education expenditure – R79 billion in 2006-07, R87 billion in 2007-08, and R94,9 billion projected for 2008-09 – is transferred; these amounts are transferred to the provinces via the equitable share. It is provincial executive committees that determine the allocation to each department. We have noted over the past three years a continuing decline in allocation relative to overall budget growth.

Provincial education expenditure is projected in the figures we have, which slip from 45,7% of provincial expenditure in 2005-06 to 42,4% in 2008-09. This is a very worrying trend as it indicates a continuing downgrading of provincial education as a spending priority. This is puzzling given the role of education in empowering people and in driving economic growth. Education and social welfare spending need to be in sync in provincial treasuries to improve the quality of learning and the quality of our schools significantly.

In addition, of course, to this equitable share that provinces receive, part of the R14 billion budget of the national Department of Education is also transferred to the provinces in the form of three conditional grants. The first conditional grant is for the national school nutrition programme. The purpose of the programme is to provide school meals for children so as to enhance active learning capacities and to improve attendance patterns at targeted schools.

For 2006-07 we intend to provide meals to about five and a half million learners at 17 000 schools throughout the country. The grant increases this year to around R1,1 billion, and it is a 20,4% increase over last year. Part of this increased funding is going to be used for a baseline study of the primary school nutrition programme. We intend to use the results of the study to give us information against which the programme’s implementation and impact will be assessed in future. We want to know whether our interventions make a difference and therefore we consistently evaluate and measure their impact and implementation to assess this.

The second conditional grant is for the implementation of HIV/Aids awareness and educational programmes. The purpose of the grant is to co- ordinate and support the structured integration of life skills and HIV and Aids programmes across all learning areas in the school curriculum to ensure access to an integrated system of prevention, care and support for children infected and affected by HIV and Aids, and to deliver life skills, sexuality and HIV/Aids education programmes in primary and secondary schools.

The grant increases this year to R144 million, a 6% increase over last year. In this year, 600 master trainers will receive training on the integration of life skills and HIV/Aids programmes across all learning areas of the curriculum, and 25 000 educators will be trained to integrate the programmes across all learning areas of the curriculum.

We intend to improve the impact of our programmes of education on HIV and Aids. Young people must understand and practice prevention. They must have a full understanding of the pandemic so that when they make life choices about sexual activity they do so fully alert to the implications of their choices and behaviour. They will be taught about the ABC campaign and they will know that if they choose to engage in sexual activity they should protect themselves by using condoms. But, we will not distribute condoms in schools. We will provide the knowledge and children must make the choice fully alert to the choice they are making. The programme will of course benefit from recently published research, which indicates that a complete programme of around six weeks needs to be offered in schools in order for us to influence and change conduct.

The third conditional grant is for the FET college sector. The purpose of this grant is to recapitalise the 50 public FET colleges to improve their capacity to contribute to skills development training. The plans include reskilling staff to offer responsive programmes, upgrading physical infrastructure of FET colleges and providing relative equipment and enhanced skills development. A total of R470 million has been allocated for 2006-07; R595 million for 2007-08, and R975 million for 2008-09, which brings the total amount to a little over R2 billion.

I have been informed that by today not all colleges have received their allocations, and only four provinces have acted to ensure that we do not inhibit the ability of colleges to accelerate our recapitalisation and skills development plans. We are two months into the financial year. MECs, we are asking that you insist that all colleges receive their funding by Thursday, this week, 25 May 2006, so that we do not hamper our ability to implement this important plan.

It is clear then from these budget allocations that each province has resources that allow it to make a difference in education.

Now, hon members, you will recall that in 2004 an undertaking was given that we should work to build sufficient classrooms to end the phenomenon of children being schooled under trees, and that 179 such schools were identified in 2004. I’m glad to report that provinces have told me that as of 30 April 2006 there should be, and will be, no child being schooled under trees. [Applause.] I saw a report in a daily newspaper, just yesterday, which indicated a class that was being taught under a tree, but we did not know, because we could see classrooms behind the children, whether it was an outcome of overcrowding or whether it was because there was very nice weather in that province. [Laughter.] But, clearly, we must continue to be seized with this challenge.

This achievement is largely the result of a better working relationship between the provincial public works and provincial education departments. However, we are working on strengthening the relationship further; an interministerial task team made up of Education, Public Works and National Treasury has been established to elaborate on a multi-year budgeting and planning framework to align planning, funding, budgeting and delivery of projects.

Of course a range of factors impact on our ability to overcome this problem: unpredictable migration into or out of provinces and other unplanned events. We can neither predict population migration patterns, nor weather catastrophes that may lead to this phenomenon of school under trees re-emerging. However, our reporting processes have been improved so that we are able to detect problems early and respond timeously. We also now receive monthly reports from provinces on the number of incidents on provincial infrastructure targets and on progress in meeting the targets.

Of course the challenge of infrastructure delivery has not ended with this progress that we have recorded. We still have thousands of unsafe and mud schools that we must rebuild and refurbish. Our provinces have committed themselves to devoting intensified attention to infrastructure provision. We also plan to focus more closely on the maintenance of school buildings.

We have initiated a comprehensive national schools needs register survey of over 30 000 schools. A full report with recommendations is expected at the end of March 2007. We have visited 10 000 sites and I am expecting a mid- term report on 15 000 sites in July of this year.

The education sector is also considering an education-renewal Expanded Public Works Programme. This will see thousands of parents invited to participate in school site-based skills training in painting, in the repair of walls, in carpentry, in window replacement, in flooring, paving and other needs in our schools. It is our hope that we could use this national action for school reconstruction to build and strengthen links between parents and the schools attended by their children. The outcomes of the schools register of needs survey will be used as the base information for the roll-out of this infrastructure renewal plan.

As I have announced previously we have taken concrete steps to improve teacher remuneration. Two landmark agreements were signed in March this year. They begin an important re-orientation of teacher service conditions and it is our intention that as the agreements improve salaries, they will also support and encourage a substantial rise in teaching quality and learning performance. Hon members know that we are particularly worried about the poor outcomes of learning in the majority of our schools, and that we are taking decisive steps to address these.

The first intervention is QIDS UP, Quality Improvement and Development Strategy, a targeted affirmative action programme for the poorer schools. The heads of education are currently working out a detailed plan for this intervention. An additional amount in this financial year of around R6 billion has been made available nationally for this intervention. Further amounts are indicated for the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period. It is an important step by the education sector and we hope it would make a difference to learning in poor communities in our country.

The second of our steps is a focus on improving learner attainment at Grade 12 level. Earlier this year, I asked MECs to send me copies of their learning intervention strategies, as I intended to inform Parliament formally of our action plan to improve learning outcomes at the senior high school level. Unfortunately, not all provinces acted on my request and thus I have not been able to indicate to Parliament on how nationally, as provinces, we intend to ensure that we arrest the decline in pass levels that we saw in 2005.

My colleagues have informed me that they all have focused learner attainment strategies and that these are being implemented, but we have not been able to put them in a collective synthesised document before Parliament - and I hope we will do so soon.

On improving the education bureaucracy we face a further challenge. The ambition of excellence that all of us share require an accountable, responsive, and high-performing Public Service. Our provincial and district officials must execute their mandates properly. Firstly, at the administrative level, we are receiving more and more complaints from retired teachers about the nonpayment or late payment of pension benefits. No employee should have to wait for the payment of pension benefits.

I had the unpleasant task of writing to MEC Motshekga, who has assisted me greatly with such a case only last month. All that pensioner’s policies had lapsed, her medical aid had been cancelled, and enormous hardship was visited on her after she had given 30 years of her life to the education of our children and to public service in our country. I think this is unacceptable and we will act to change such practices.

I also receive reports of rude responses over the telephone. I hear of a total neglect of our duty to practise Batho Pele in the education sector. The time is drawing near when I will introduce our Premiers and the media to the most rude and unresponsive employees in educational departments throughout our country.

Secondly, we need to ensure we provide effective support for districts in order to promote education success. Thirdly, we need well-functioning, informed and responsive provincial departments of education. Our provinces cannot escape scrutiny. They play a leading and critical role in advancing quality and performance. They are getting adequate, sufficient and large amounts in resources for education support.

Their resource use has to make a difference. Our departments should have the pulse of every school at their fingertips; they must be able to anticipate failure and must be competent at promoting success. Lacklustre attention to ensuring adequate numbers of teachers, to devising efficient learner-teaching support delivery systems, to achieving quality and success for all, can no longer be tolerated and excused.

I think we might need to consider a special Public Service code for those in education; a code governing education public servants, a code governing education Ministers and a code governing education MECs. The reason for this is that inadequate action on our part ruins lives, so penalties in service need to be strict and severe. All of these challenges, of course, imply that we must be focused and carefully thoughtful about our actions to promote and achieve quality outcomes.

My time has almost ended, but my speech certainly has not. Firstly, we must ensure appropriate teacher development. We have to ensure that we support teachers through a properly crafted teacher development framework. We have almost finalised that framework and I hope that we will be able to implement it soon.

Secondly, we will improve the provision of resources for learning to schools. We recently launched a reading programme which has seen over 5 000 schools receive fiction books and over 700 high schools received such material. We intend to complement this initiative by supporting the promotion of literacy and numeracy. We will make information on expected standards available to all schools. Many schools do meet these standards already, but we want to ensure that all our schools meet minimum learning standards.

Thirdly, we will focus on measuring performance through tracking learning outcomes. Teachers in all schools will be encouraged to develop learning strategies for each learner so as to focus on learning success. Schools will be required to devise learning improvement strategies and to focus on supporting learners to succeed.

Fourthly, our language in learning policy must be given attention. The role of language in education has to be clearly communicated to parents and to educators. Parents will be informed of the important need to support our increased promotion of the use of mother tongue in the early phases of schooling. Research evidence clearly shows that a strong foundation for learning can be built through mother-tongue-based early education.

Fifthly, we intend to redouble our efforts to make parents our partners in education. The system cannot work without active parental participation at all levels of schooling. Sixthly, we plan to offer new and exciting opportunities to learners through the creation of focus schools of technology and in other disciplines. We welcome the progress of the Western Cape and other provinces in this area.

Seventhly, we intend to strengthen our evaluation and support structures at the national level, so that we also have an accurate picture of school performance, of school educational needs and the contribution of districts and provinces to the achievement of national norms and standards.

We would also, of course, attend to the issue of school supervision. We have to ensure that more students study maths and science, more students pass these subjects and more students proceed to FET colleges and universities in these critical fields. We believe our recapitalised FET colleges are going to provide us with a pool of talented young people for our newly capitalised FET sector.

I know we often focus our attention on quality outcomes in academic learning and forget to attend to key nonacademic quality issues. Few of our schools, for example, see themselves as linked to advancing the national project of transformation beyond the enduring legacy of apartheid education. This year we celebrate 10 years of the adoption of our Constitution. The principles of the Constitution and its core values still need to be made a full part of our education institutions at all levels.

We would like our schools to ensure that they are nonsexist in practical terms as well as in terms of their code of conduct. We would like our schools to attend to the issue of nonracism and making democracy a reality. I often get very concerned when I hear of schools that do not even have a South Africa flag in any room in the school, and some schools still have the old flag in the school and refuse to accept that there has been a democratic change in this country. This must be stopped and it is entirely unacceptable.

The issue of school safety is another that we must attend to. The truth is not all our schools are safe places. Our department is committed to promoting safety, but every stakeholder has to play a role. I believe that in the short to medium term it may be necessary to consider appointing safety officers in schools with the greatest number of incidents of violence. In order to get information on the most vulnerable schools we might have to ask our district officers to assist schools in developing an incident register, which will assist us in pinpointing the schools that are in greatest need of help. We shouldn’t allow the media to create the impression that all our schools are war zones; they are not, but there are some schools that are not safe for our teachers and for our children. We must identify these, target them appropriately and work with the security and safety services to ensure that, indeed, our children feel safe in our schools.

We will also work with school governing bodies to ensure that they play an effective role in supporting us in achieving the overall objective role of education. School governing bodies are not in schools to make schools exclusive zones, proprietary zones. They are there to ensure that the principles elaborated in our various pieces of education legislation are actually adhered to and practically observed.

We would like, therefore, and use the Act to ensure that any school governing body that is racist in character, that excludes children and doesn’t efficiently address the mandate of school governing bodies, is dealt with in terms of the law. But we do thank our parents who support us in ensuring that schools play an effective role as school governing bodies in supporting quality teaching and learning.

In conclusion, Chairperson, allow me to thank my colleagues the MECs for the hard work that they do in supporting education. I am sure we are very excited to see Reverend Tselapedi with us in the House today. He has been doing a great deal of hard work and often finds it difficult to get to the NCOP from the North West. So, we are very pleased to see him here. [Applause.] If I am not wrong, we also welcome MEC Motshega to the House for the first time as the education MEC and we are most excited to have her here. But, I would like to thank all hon members, all hon MECs for the role that they play in education. It is hard work and it is the most difficult of the assignments that any of us may have, and we have in this team, as well as our heads of education, an excellent Team Education, which will deliver on the mandate of achieving quality education for all the children of our country. Thank you. [Applause.]

Mr B J TOLO: Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon MECs and other special delegates present here today, hon members, 12 years into our well-deserved democracy and 10 years after the adoption of our Constitution, as we take stock of our all-round achievements, especially in the field of education, we have every reason to rejoice and celebrate.

We have every reason to rejoice and celebrate because the path travelled in improving the quality of our education is unparalleled. For that, we want to thank the Department of Education at the national level as well as the nine provincial departments.

We want to reiterate what we said before, that laws and policies are in place to put our education system on the right pedestal for us to, once and for all, eradicate the legacy of apartheid in education, which is still well and alive. We say, as we said before, that the task now is to improve quality, access and equity for if this is not done, history and future generations will judge us harshly.

We agree with the department regarding its priorities, as elaborated in the strategic plan for 2006-10. The acid test, however, is the implementation and realisation of all those priorities that you set for yourselves. The Department of Education is at the cutting edge of the realisation of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa.

It is our strong belief that education is the main vehicle through which the much-needed skills to grow the economy can be realised. Our education system must strive to produce more skilled people than merely producing educated people. This is in line with world trends. A person who has received a general education only is a jobseeker, whilst one who is skilled is himself or herself a job creator.

In the same breath, we want to welcome unreservedly the recapitalisation programme of the FET colleges. As a committee, in the past years we visited several FET colleges in the country. The feeling of being neglected by government in terms of resources was a common denominator in all of them. In this financial year, we are aware that there is money that has been set aside for the recapitalisation of these colleges.

Amongst other things, that they are supposed to be doing is the installation of new equipment, rehabilitation of the campuses and many other things. But, as a committee, we already have a programme in place to call the provinces to discuss their concrete programmes for the recapitalisation. In our oversight function, we will pay particular attention to and be interested in this financial year.

Today there is no child who can loiter on the streets and not go to school under the pretence that the parents are poor, as government has introduced different measures, including exemptions from payment of school fees and no- fees school policies. This goes a long way in relieving parents of the burden of school fees. The no-fees school policy, which was introduced in many provinces as from April this year, has led to a situation where more than 3 million children in quintile one and quintile two are not paying school fees.

There is a revolution in our education system. But, despite the provisions of the law, our experience tells us that some schools do not implement the law in terms of the exemption policy. There is little if any monitoring, if any, to see to it that our good laws we passed in this Parliament are actually implemented. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, has been running for some years now. This scheme has enabled students from poor families and from far- flung rural areas who never dreamt, even in their wildest dreams, of having access to higher education. What makes us even happier is that the scheme is now even able to pay the registration fees of deserving students. We applaud the Minister for the intervention in this regard. We call upon those that must pay back loans from the scheme do to so without delay as this will help even more students.

A worrying factor is that we read in the national newspapers over the past weekend that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme writes off about R8 million each year due to the death of students who still owe the scheme.

We also read with interest the concern that the Minister of Education raised on the institutions’ tuition fees, where these are raised to unreasonable levels. We agree with the Minister that while this tendency puts a strain on NSFAS, it also limits access to these institutions, thus frustrating government’s aim to expand access so that education can be within every South African’s reach, regardless of his or her social standing.

In the last financial year, we raised concerns about adult basic education, Abet. We said that education departments in the provinces are treating Abet as the stepchild of the department. This year we are happy to see it being promoted and we are happy to see that accessibility to Abet is one of the department’s priorities. We hope that provinces will also prioritise this and other programmes such as early childhood development.

Quality education for all seems to be the catch phrase for the Department of Education this year. Quality education implies improving the quality of our teachers so that they provide quality teaching. This will also involve assessing the actual teaching in the classroom situation. Experience has taught us that you cannot just be satisfied by seeing a teacher going into a classroom. Sometimes there is a big difference between what a teacher records in his or her record book and what is actually taking place in the classroom.

We need to reintroduce class visits by inspectors of a new type - inspectors who have nothing in common with the apartheid inspectors, who used to leave a car some metres away from the school and tiptoe to peep through the window whilst you were busy teaching. We now want inspectors with positive attitudes, whose main aim is to help the teacher rather than to find fault and punish. We are convinced that this will also help to enhance the quality of education in our schools.

This year the department introduced the implementation of the provisions of the new National Curriculum Statement in Grade 10. Now, while moving around the country, what we have found as a committee is that the teachers are not trained at the same level in our provinces. In many cases the teachers are not confident of what they are doing. What worries us is that if the teacher is not confident, how will he then inspire confidence in his learners. For us, this is a worrying factor, the Saturday programmes that we watch on the TV that are aimed at helping the teachers who are not confident notwithstanding.

The Sunday Times of this past Sunday carried an article entitled “Drugs, unsafe sex, teen life in South Africa.” If this article is to be believed, then the situation is very bad among our school-going teenagers. I just hope, as the Minister indicated, that this is not true.

According to that article, research done in KwaZulu-Natal revealed that a high number of school-going teenagers, particularly 17-year-olds were having unprotected sex, taking drugs, drinking alcohol and that about 12,2% of them carried weapons to schools. It is believed that the results that were found in KwaZulu-Natal may be the same in other parts of our country.

As a country, we need to act very urgently to address this situation before it becomes worse. We cannot sit on the sidelines when our children are ruining their own lives. We believe that, apart from sports, we need to reintroduce what we call “physical exercise” in schools, which the article also alluded to. This will help us to teach our children in their totality. An educationist, Duminy, in his book entitled Education Methods stated that the whole child goes to school.

The safety of our children in our schools is a priority. Of course, this morning we listened with interest to radio SAfm during a debate on this very matter. We want to applaud the department for acquitting itself very well in that particular debate.

The Department of Education has been allocated R14 billion in this financial year and this will increase to R16 billion in the MTEF, but more than 75% of this allocation goes to higher education in the form of transfers. The real money in education is in the provinces. In this financial year, the provinces are sharing R91 billion amongst themselves. In the last financial year the provinces were allocated R72,3 billion. They could not spend all that money. All of them combined spent 99,6% of their budget - not bad.

However, amongst the provinces, Gauteng spent 96,3% and Mpumalanga spent 97%. The question is: if these provinces could not spend all their allocated amounts during the previous year, will they be in a position to spend the increased amount this year? Limpopo spent 102% whilst KwaZulu- Natal spent 101% in the previous financial year. At a glance, we might say these provinces spent well and we are sure that they will spend the increased amount this financial year. However, the question is, to what extent has this spending bettered the lives of the people out there? This is the area that needs interrogation. Regarding capital spending, all provinces spent about 83% on average - all of them.

Mpumalanga and the Free State were the lowest-spending provinces, having spent 54,3% and 74,7% respectively. This is unacceptable, given the fact that there are schools there without water, without electricity or sanitation.

All provinces put together have failed to spend R2 billion of the conditional grants from various departments. If we can pause for a moment and think of what R2 billion can do to better the lives of the people out there, we will be shocked. It therefore means that the money is there. The government has money to better the lives of our people but there is a subjective factor that is actually responsible for this non-spending of our funds.

Lastly, we want to talk about the teachers’ dress code in schools. It pains us a lot when we go out there to schools to do oversight to find that some of our teachers dress in tracksuits and tackies, in jeans and T-shirts. It is even worse now that we even find area managers going to schools also dressed in an unbecoming manner, as we saw in Knysna and George when we did oversight there.

I have not seen anything in the education department policy and laws that prescribe a dress code for teachers but there is an accepted norm in society that says teachers must be presentable as they are role models in society. The silence from the Department of Education is deafening regarding this matter. We call upon the Minister and MECs, parents and all who are interested in the education of our children to break the silence concerning this matter.

Overall, we are convinced that the Department of Education is on the right track towards expanding equity, access and quality of education. They have our support as the committee. I thank you. [Applause.]

Ms N M MADLALA-MAGUBANE: Thank you, Chairperson. Angibingelele uNgqongqoshe wezeMfundo, oNgqongqoshe bezifunda abakhona phakathi kwendawo, amalungu kanye nezimenywa ezikhethekile. [I greet the Minister of Education, provincial Ministers present here, members and distinguished guests.]

I’m delighted to pronounce that the Department of Education has committed itself by prioritising the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, Asgisa, by ensuring that everyone in this country receives quality, general education. They are therefore following the Freedom Charter, which says that the “doors of learning shall be opened”, ensuring access to high school, to high-cognitive-demand curricula in schools and colleges, and ensuring participation in relevant higher education programmes.

One of the most strategic plans for 2006 to 2010 is the quality of the promotion and development of teachers. To me, that strategic plan is crucial. Why? Because the country will obtain qualified and competent teachers in all learning areas at all levels. We will be able to retain our qualified teachers who have special skills. In that way, access to quality education in our country will increase, especially for learners with special needs. The other important issue is the introduction of the inclusive education model, and this will entail incorporation in full- service schools.

I would therefore like to commend the Department of Education for strengthening the systems’ ability to provide professional support to teachers based on credible and up-to-date information. When it comes to language policy, it is exciting to hear that the language policy for schools needs to be reviewed, and that it will help facilitate entry into schools by all learners while strengthening the role of indigenous languages in the education system.

Minister, during our recent “Taking Parliament to the People” visit to the Northern Cape, we were very disappointed to discover that some learners were struggling to learn the Afrikaans language, because not all the teachers at these schools could teach them in Setswana. Such learners were travelling long distances to schools, and that shows that there is a need for schools that offer indigenous languages as part of the mandatory curriculum in the intermediate phase. That is one of the Department of Education’s priorities, I must say.

Coming to the Dinaledi schools, these schools were formed in 2001 specifically to improve participation and performance in mathematics, science and technology, particularly among the previously disadvantaged schools, and serves primarily rural areas. The number of these schools has increased from 102 to 400. The department is aiming at increasing the number of learners passing higher-grade maths and science from 24 000 to 50 000 by 2008. To me, that would be a good idea, especially looking into increasing the number of girl learners. It is important for the department urgently to identify qualified teachers for such a move, so that they can get the necessary support.

Minister, I must mention sport. We, as the select committee are concerned about sport in schools, particularly sport in schools in the previously disadvantaged and rural areas. In the previous year, the select committee was briefed that there was a signed memorandum of understanding between the Department of Sport and Recreation and the Department of Education. We appreciate this.

When you look at the grass-roots level, you don’t see anything happening, but in the so-called white areas things are happening. Learners in the previously disadvantaged areas are still idle, not participating in any sporting code. That in itself encourages crime and drug abuse in our communities.

Regarding scholar transport, it was clear when the select committee was interacting with the department that scholar transport was a provincial government competence. Much as the select committee is aware of that, we still feel that the Department of Education should find some mechanism or means of co-ordinating scholar transport.

If I may cite a few examples in this regard, in KwaZulu-Natal learners are crossing rivers using self-made boats to go to school, which is a very dangerous thing to do. In the Eastern Cape, learners are walking long, unsafe distances, which are unsafe especially for a girl learner. Unsafe vehicles are also used in that province. When it comes to the Northern Cape, with reference to our recent visit, learners are walking long distances; there is no scholar transport at all.

In Gauteng, the province I belong to, recently learners stayed away from school for two weeks because of some corrupt practices amongst the bus companies. The bus companies see wealth in transporting learners. We are aware that provinces are trying to curb such challenges.

I am happy that the Minister did mention safety in schools, and the department is looking into that. In the Northern Cape during our recent visit, we discovered that some schools were not fenced at all, and that to us is unsafe for teachers and learners. That means there is no security in those schools for both the learners and teachers. We therefore hope that the department will look into such challenges. I thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Mr M MATOMELA (Eastern Cape): Chairperson, we would love to respond as the Eastern Cape Province to the Minister’s speech as follows. I am just going to highlight a few points because we do not have enough time.

We would love to comment on the quality improvement and development strategy. For us, the key benchmark that we have set ourselves is that in this academic year we move 391 schools that attained a pass rate of 50% in 2005 to a pass rate above 50%; from this year onwards. This intervention is in accordance with the learner attainment strategy for all underperforming schools, as spelled out by the hon Minister.

A turnaround plan has been developed as an additional focus on about 45 failing secondary schools that attained results below 20%. We have developed profiles for these schools, which include qualifications, experience, training and assessment, history of the principals of such schools, as well as compiling a list of the responsible EDOs, or circuit managers.

In support of these initiatives, the department has elicited support from volunteers, from nongovernmental organisations and other people, as mentors and motivational speakers. This will also be implemented in conjunction with the Moral Regeneration Programme that seeks to restore the fundamental culture of teaching and learning in our schools.

The Minister mentioned district development and, as a province, we have committed to roll out a service delivery model that is geared towards establishing fully serviced district offices. The focus has shifted to ensuring that district offices are adequately resourced and capacitated. Furthermore, R60 million has been set aside for filling of corporate services posts in the district in particular.

A groundbreaking development has also been the absorption of about 2 000 temporary educators into permanent posts, thus giving meaning to the department’s endeavour to ensure that there is a teacher in front of each class.

Of course, we have also advertised and appointed more than 2 000 posts for principals, deputy principals and heads of department who have been in an acting position in our schools for a long time.

In line with the initiative of the Ministry regarding the Dinaledi schools, we have 55 dedicated maths, science and technology schools. They are twinned with neighbouring schools in order to share resources and cross- pollinate. A shortage does exist of maths and science subject advisors to support these teachers. Beyond that, there is an acute shortage of maths and science teachers, particularly in the rural areas.

That is why we are welcoming and supporting the initiative at the national level to have incentives for rural educators. In further complementing the above, the province has allocated funds for the roll-out of 94 maths and science learnership programmes, which are spread in all local higher education institutions.

The department also sponsors a postgraduate certificate in education. We also realise that we had a shortage of subject advisers in other areas as well, and when we considered the demand in our schools, early this year we had to create about 400 posts, which will be filled during this financial year.

We have also, as the department, responded to our policy, which is in line with the pro-poor policy of our government. We are also of the opinion that this programme, which we call Local Economic Development and Education Provisioning, is going to be part and parcel of the niche in the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, Asgisa, to bridge the gap between the first and the second economies.

Social issues like poverty and unemployment significantly impact on our learners. It is, for instance, not possible to effectively teach a hungry or malnourished child, for her or him to do well at school, or reach her or his full potential.

We are therefore pleased that the department has embarked on this initiative, to make a more significant contribution towards poverty alleviation and employment creation in the province by targeting community co-operatives as service providers in procuring goods and services.

This initiative is also based on co-operative governance and community public-private partnership, and it will realise the vision of schools becoming centres of community life. That is part of our vision as a department.

On the issue of scholar transport, indeed we do not have enough funding, but we have spread the little funding that we have throughout the province. We started with a few districts but we have now covered all our districts. In addition to that, the Department of Transport is assisting us by providing bicycles to the rural areas.

On the issue of infrastructure, despite the provincial top slicing of R350 million from the department’s budget this financial year, the available budget allocation made possible the following infrastructure investment to date: 25 new schools, 45 additional classrooms, water tanks, toilets at 120 schools and electricity at 55 schools through the Expanded Public Works programme, and 87 schools received three additional classrooms each, with sanitation.

Furthermore, maintenance work was done at more than 100 schools and 15 mud schools were replaced. The department received an amount of R642,6 million in the new financial year, and R61 million for school furniture, which is up R54,8 million from that of the previous financial year. This means that a minimum of R2,3 billion will be in the budget for infrastructure in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework cycle.

An amount of R15 billion is needed to eradicate the infrastructure backlogs in the province and the maintenance of existing infrastructure. With reference to the associated issue of rationalisation of primary and secondary schools, we are taking serious cognisance in terms of identifying sites for new schools so that we do not put schools in close proximity when, in fact, we can put quality schools in centres that can accommodate many learners from surrounding communities.

When we report on the recapitalisation of further education and training colleges, the pivotal role of these institutions needs to be emphasised in skills development, without which the country will not achieve the 6% economic growth target proposed by Asgisa to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014 or 2015 in terms of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

The national Education Department will provide an amount of R250 million. I am sure, hon Minister, we have been provided with that money, because that is information that I was given by my officials, that the money has been forwarded to Further Education and Training colleges.

We as a province are taking the recapitalisation of FET colleges seriously. It is envisaged that the current enrolment of 34 854 at FET colleges has to be scaled up to 1000 000, or 65,14% by 2014. That means an additional 6 515 enrolments annually for the next 10 years.

However, the negative attitude of the members of our society towards technical vocational education and training poses a serious barrier to this target.

The province will be awarding bursaries to learners who first want to pursue their studies at FET colleges as another way of changing the mind- set in this regard. The executive council has taken a decision to make an allocation from the Premier’s Fund for the FET colleges, because they were not catered for in terms of the policy. Therefore we have changed our policy to cater for FET colleges.

Our FET colleges will also play a key role in the skills development of members of community co-operatives and enterprises to be targeted for procuring goods and services, in order to stimulate local economic development and growth in the economically depressed areas of our province.

We are also looking into co-operation between the Adult Basic Education and Training, Abet, and FET programmes to ensure that our people are equipped with skills relevant to the growing economy.

On teacher development, we, as a province, are fully behind the Minister’s call for a comprehensive revamp of the teacher development framework. In response to that we have established an Education Leadership Institute that is fundamentally geared at enhancing the capabilities of our educators who make up school management teams. That is just one part of it. We also want to focus on the content of what teachers are supposed to be delivering on a daily basis in our schools.

These institutions will, in conjunction with institutions of higher learning, also offer general refresher in-service training programmes. [Time expired.] [Applause.] Mr O M THETJENG: Chairperson, hon Minister, hon MECs present, hon colleagues, the Education Vote always takes the centre stage each year because of its nature to build and make communities and nations succeed in their endeavour to provide for their needs.

There are a number of issues that I need to highlight to the Minister and the MECs, and I hope that these issues will be taken into consideration so that we correct them where they need be.

On 6 November 2005, we debated the Education Laws Amendment Bill in this particular House. In this Bill, there was a concept of no-fee schools that was introduced, that intended to assist the poorest schools, most of which are found in the rural areas. My province is predominantly rural and I think that has actually helped my province.

The department was to classify each school into a quintile ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning the poorest and 5 the richest. Some of the aspects and the criteria to be used was to check if the school, in its vicinity or at the school, had running water – in other words whether they had flush toilets and other things; whether there were some tarred road in its vicinity; whether there was electricity supply in the school, etc. I am just mentioned these few there are there as part of the criteria.

As we were going round in the provinces we were picking up that these criteria have some flaws, that many schools from poor communities have been placed in higher quintiles – that is between 4 to 5 - and yet many of the learners or parents cannot afford to pay fees due to unemployment. Running water, electricity and a tarred road that goes past a village, like in Limpopo where I am staying, should not be used as a benchmark to put schools in a specific quintile. You find that in the case of some schools there is a tarred road passing through a village and because of that tarred road that school is classified into quintile 4 or 5. We find this situation not in order. Therefore, the DA is calling for the funding of learners and not schools so that parents can decide to take their children to performing schools.

The quintiles are designed to fund schools despite their performance. You might, in a situation in a township like Seshego, find that there is a tarred road but the people who are staying in the township are very poor. The schools there are then put into quintile 5 and therefore they don’t qualify for a no-fee school arrangement that we have in terms of this particular new Bill. So, we have a situation there that we need to correct, Minister, because the criteria being used to determine quintiles, we feel, is not right because it actually put schools where they are not supposed to be.

Teacher training colleges were rationalised particularly in all the provinces - but I’ll speak for my province – I suspect throughout the country to the point that there is no existing college of education to train teachers. The hon Dr Motsoaledi, as MEC of Education, started a college in Limpopo but that college has since been discontinued. The main purpose of that college was to train teachers in science, mathematics and technology education. The whole college has been shifted to the university, but then that situation is not solving the problem that we do have.

The MEC of Education in Limpopo, Dr Motsoaledi, was on television recently, bemoaning the shortage of teachers in critical learning areas such as mathematics and science, and yet the training of teachers seems to have reached a dead end. Surprisingly, lecturers that came from the rationalised colleges have been transferred to provincial and/or regional offices and are capturing data. We are talking of people who have a Masters degree in mathematics and a Masters degree in science. Some have been absorbed into other departments such as local government. We can actually pin-point them and say here are the people with high qualifications who were supposed to remain in education, but they have been transferred to departments where they are not needed.

Scholar transport is a serious problem. In our oversight visit we discovered that there is a norm that has been established about 4 km. If you are 4 km or less away, you do not qualify to get scholar transport. But I think we need to change this situation because you have learners that are as young as 6 years and 7 years old who have to travel 4 km to a nearby school and we believe that this is not really fair for these age groups. Are there not learners travelling long distances in the various provinces? There are. In the recent past learners were using trucks and open bakkies to find their way to school to show that they need this service. The provincial government moved swiftly to ban the use of bakkies as they are not safe, without providing an alternative arrangement though. We appreciate the cancellation of bakkies because they are not good, but the provinces and the departments must provide alternative transport because these learners travel long distances and they find means to get transport to schools. There is a need to consider this 4 km norm, because we have Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3 that travel long distances, and they are very young.

In the Western Cape, in a place called Hermon, in the Drakenstein Municipality, learners as young as seven years old from Rondeheuwel Primary School were forced to cross a raging river to go to school because the provincial government could not provide scholar transport. Recently we have heard that the department will do something about it. We want them to act swiftly to make sure that these learners get scholar transport because there is money.

Only this morning I learnt from SAfm that the problem that affected Gauteng on scholar transport recently is about to hit Mpumalanga province too. I just hope that Mpumalanga will take care of the situation so that what happened to Gauteng doesn’t happen to them. If I only believed that the situation would actually be resolved. The situation is that learners were not transported. The Department of Education is failing to manage and administer simple aspects that will make it easier for learners to go to school. Is it a matter of a lack of capacity, sheer incompetence or disregard of Batho Pele principles displayed by the various departments on a daily basis?

Principals are employees of the department. We see principals who are not performing. I want to ask the Minister: Is the department considering giving these principals contracts so that their contracts are now based on performance? If they don’t perform they need to be replaced because they are earning salaries unfairly as there are other principals and teachers who are doing a good job. So, we cannot afford to have principals that continue not to perform while they continue to earn salaries. [Interjections.]

An HON MEMBER: Which ones?

Mr O M THETJENG: They are many. You have them on record. [Interjections.]

An HON MEMBER: Gee ons een naam, Meneer. [Give us one name, sir.]

Mr O M THETJENG: Die name is daar, Meneer. Al die LUK’s het die name. [The names are there, sir. All the MECs have the names.] The Minister has the names as well. It’s a pity if you don’t have them. Thank you, Chairperson.

Ms M A TSOPO (Free State): Hon Chairperson of the NCOP, hon Minister of Education, hon members of the NCOP, colleagues in education, ladies and gentlemen, I stand to support the Budget Vote of the Department of Education on behalf of learners, educators, the education sector and the constituency in general in the Free State.

In celebrating the 30th anniversary of National Youth Day and 10 years of the Constitution, our theme for this financial year in the Free State is “Consolidating 30 Years of Youth’s Struggle Towards Education for All.” The Free State’s allocation for 2006-07 is R5, 272 241 billion.

As the Free State’s department of education, we are proud of what we have achieved in the 2005-06 financial year. I will mention just the highlights and not all that we have achieved. The department hosted the first provincial education conference to strategise and consolidate implementable programmes.

There are 50 multimedia centres at 50 schools that were fully equipped. There are 6 375 computers that were provided to secondary schools and installation is currently taking place, and 500 of those computers came as a donation from the South African Receiver of Revenue Service. There are 60 schools that were provided with water; 32 with sanitation and 58 with electricity and these schools have a total of 3 117 rural learners.

I see people who are making a lot of noise around the provinces that we are not providing rural learners with transport to school – we are doing it. We are inviting members of this House to visit provinces and see exactly what is happening and not to tell us about rumours that they hear from their colleagues.

By 1 March 2006, 352 596 learners were fed through the national school nutrition programme. Of the total number, 134 043 learners in 209 schools were fed with the cooked meals menu, while 218 553 learners in 1 171 schools were fed with the bread menu. The national curriculum statement was implemented without any problems in Grade 7 and Grade 10.

One hundred incentives were awarded to performing schools, in the Free State 50 secondary schools received R150 000 each and 50 primary schools received R100 000 each for developmental purposes. Awards were given to 47 schools through the beautification and cleanliness project, a project that we launched in 2005 so that we could make the environment conducive for our learners in the province.

We also launched an extended the Dinaledi School Initiative from 6 to 30 schools. The province also developed a very progressive learner attainment strategy, which we are currently implementing in the province in order to improve the matric results of 2006.

We completed 6 schools and the schools that we completed are proper schools with halls, laboratories, media and computer centres. There are 588 schools that were renovated through additional funding that we got from Treasury in the 2005-2006 financial year, through the Expanded Public Works Programme using local contractors.

We have also provided uniforms to vulnerable children in the province, totalling 33 885 learners in number, through partnerships with our local private sector.

With regard to the financial year of 2006-07, I would also like to give some highlights. The skills levy will be utilised for full-time and part- time bursaries for educators and public servants, various reskilling courses, including the reskilling of principals, and assessor training for institution-based educators and learnerships will be undertaken this year.

In support of our educators, the department has earmarked R4 million for educators’ development. This is meant to address in-service training focused on improving reading, writing and numeracy as well as the improvement of mathematics, science and technology in the new curriculum.

A total of 1 000 bursaries will be allocated this financial year, as follows: 129 for under-qualified educators; 72 for unqualified educators; 340 for reskilling educators; 206 for the enhancement of educators; 157 for lower level public servants; and 96 for higher level public servants.

This year we shall give effect to education for all and have already declared no-fee schools in 1 163 schools in quintile 1 in the Free State at the cost of R158,7 million. We will be expanding this programme in January 2007 to quintile 2 in 203 schools.

The department will also focus on the implementation of the National Curriculum Statement with learner and teaching support material supplied to all our schools for both section 21 and non-section 21 schools.

Management and governance in schools will receive priority in 2006-2007. Seven million rand have been earmarked for the training of school governing bodies, RCLs and other governance structures in the province so that they do exactly what is supposed to be happening in schools. Because when it is conducive, the opposition is able to make a lot of noise. When it is not conducive they put the blame on the ANC. That is why we are making sure that we train our school governing bodies so that they do exactly what they are meant to do and not run schools in our province.

We have also rationalised schools because in our province where the learner numbers are declining we are closing schools but in consultation with the school governing bodies so that we do not build white elephants for which the ANC is going to be blamed in the long run.

With regard to safety in schools, a safer school project has been launched in conjunction with the department of public safety and liaison. The department has further entered into partnership with business against crime in this financial year. Fifty secondary schools have been targeted. We will spend R1,7 million, which came as a donation and more funds will be allocated by both departments to fight crime and bring safety into our schools. We are also making sure that we have a focus programme of fencing of schools in the province.

Regarding the infrastructure development in the 2006-07 financial year, I must indicate that we are also currently busy with the construction of more new schools, which will be completed in 2006-07. Two new schools will be built in this financial year, Kopanong Secondary in Bloemfontein and Mautse Primary School in Rosendal.

Concerning Further Education and Training, the Department of Education was allocated R30 million for recapitalisation of FET colleges. I must indicate, Minister, through the Chairperson, that we did have a thorough debate yesterday with the provincial treasury of the Free State.

There will be an increase in the allocation because they increased by only R3 million and we queried this yesterday, since R155 million will not be enough, especially when looking at the budget of last year, which was R152 million.

We are also giving particular attention to Adult Basic Education and Training. We also increased our budget by 47% for early childhood development in this financial year to make sure that we also reach out to our one-year-olds and prepare them for schooling and 2007.

Regarding the learner support programme, the Free State is continuing with the hostel project and we have now extended 7 hostels to 12 in the 2006-07 budget. We are also going to be able to feed all our primary schoolchildren this year, because Treasury was able to give us additional money to that which was given to the Minister.

I also want to correct what the national chairperson indicated. In the past financial year the Free State spent 92% of our capital budget. We have since conveyed the message to the national Department of Education and the National Treasury. Our budget is shared between us and the Department of Public Works for the provision of roads and transport and it was not correctly allocated when the expenditure was finalised at the end of March. So, we spent 92%.

In conclusion, the priorities that I have outlined will be the foundation for our work. With all the strategies and interventions, we are clearly on the right path to overcoming the mammoth and daunting tasks we are faced with.

We shall continue with our endeavours to improve the quality of education and the lives of our people, operate an efficient, effective provincial department that works towards the overall development of the citizens of the Free State in a dedicated and professional manner.

I therefore support the Budget Vote speech of hon Minister Pandor, and also would like to invite members to come and see how the schools operate on the ground; and what the whole country looks like, including the way the teachers are dressed. I thank you. [Applause.]

Nkk J N VILAKAZI: Sihlalo ohloniphekileyo, mhlonishwa Ngqongqoshe noMnyango wakho, malungu ahloniphekile akule Ndlu, imfundo iyisikhali esiyonqoba ngaso. Isabelomali yiso esiyokwenza kube lula ukubhekana nezinselelo eziningi ezikulo Mnyango.

Amalungu ahloniphekileyo asekhulumile. Okwami ngukugcizelela asebekushilo nokukha amanqampunqampu lapha nalaphaya. Mhlonishwa Ngqongqoshe, isabelomali esibekiwe sibhekene nalezi zidingo ezilandelayo. Esokuqala isidingo, esokuphepha ezikoleni, okungekho mpela mpela. Othisha nabantwana bayahlaselwa ezikoleni kulahleke imiphefumulo engenacala. Kudingeka abaqaphi ezikoleni.

Sebeshilo ozakwethu ukuthi ezikoleni kudingeka abaqaphi abaqeqeshiwe kulo msebenzi ukuze indawo ibe nesithunzi, kungagcakagcwa noma yikanjani kuyona. Umqaphi usebenza endaweni ebiyelwe ukuze agade ukungena nokuphuma kwabantu. Ongena nesikhali kufuneka asheshe abanjwe engakenzi umonakalo; odayisa izidakamizwa nokunye abanjwe. Indawo yemfundo ayibe ngephephile.

Okwesibili, ibanga elide lokuya nokubuya esikoleni aliqedwe. Kukhona abantwana abahamba ibanga elide ukuya ezikoleni, abanye banqamule imifula eba yingozi kubo uma igcwele, kulahleke imiphefumulo engenacala. Abanye banqamula emahlathini angafanele ukuhamba abantwana besikole. Inkinga le ekhungethe izifunda eziningi, hhayi iKwaZulu-Natali kuphela. Abantwana abafundi kahle kulesi simo.

Okwesithathu, amanzi ahlanzekile okuphuza ayisidingo esimangalisayo. Izindlu zangasese ezisesimweni esigculisayo azibe khona. Abanamanzi abasebenzise amanzi. Konke lokhu kudinga isabelomali esithe xaxa kunalesi esibekiwe. (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Mrs J N VILAKAZI: Hon Chairperson, hon Minister and your department, hon members present in this House, education is a weapon to achieve victory. The budget will make it easy to address the challenges that are facing this department.

Hon members have spoken. My words are to emphasise what they have said and to touch on something here and there. Hon Minister, the budget is for the following demands: Safety at schools, which is lacking. Teachers and children are attacked and innocent people die. Security guards are needed in schools.

My colleagues said that we needed trained security guards in this job so that schools would be respected. The guard is working in a fenced place. He is monitoring the movement of people who are going in and out. Anyone who comes with weapons should be arrested before doing any harm. Anyone who is selling drugs should be arrested. Places of education must be safe.

Secondly, the issue of long distances to and from schools must be addressed. Some children travel long distances to schools. Others cross rivers that are in flood, which is dangerous and innocent children die. Others walk through forests that are not supposed to be crossed by schoolchildren. These are problems that are faced in many provinces, not only KwaZulu-Natal. Children are not being educated well in these conditions.

Thirdly, clean, potable water is a basic need. Bathrooms that are in good condition are needed. Those who have water must use it. All these things require extra money.]

A sum of R14,1 billion for 11,9 million pupils in 26 840 public and independent schools is just a drop in the ocean. It definitely won’t be able to cater for the demands that I have just mentioned.

The aim of the department is to develop, maintain and support a South African education and training system for the 21st Free State century, as mentioned.

Okwesine, mhlonishwa Ngqongqoshe, kumaqondana nolimi lwesintu. UMnyango wezeMfundo awubhekisise ontamolukhuni abafundisayo abenza ulimi lwendabuko lube sengathi into engadingekile. Kukhona izaba abazibekayo, kuthiwe abazali bathe, nokunye nokunye. Uma ulandelisisa kahle kuyavela ukuthi yibo kanye abanyathela ulimi lwethu ukuze kugqame olwabo. Akwande imitapo yezincwadi esikoleni, igcwale umtapo wolwazi lolimi lwendabuko oludingekayo ezifundweni zonke.

Okwesihlanu, akuncishiswe othisha besikhashana kodwa abaqeqeshwe ukuze kunciphe isibalo sezingane esibhekana nothisha oyedwa ekilasini. Konke lokhu kudinga imali ethe xaxa. Okwesithupha, akwande izikole ezinezingadi. Sekuqalile khona kodwa makwande, khona kuyosizakala abantwana ekutholeni umsoco ongcono. Kulabo thisha abasashaya izingane, abakuyeke lokho. Ingadi iyindlela engcono kakhulu yokujezisa ingane eyonile, hhayi ukuxosha ingane ekilasini ilahlekelwe yisifundo. Hhayi futhi le ndlela okuthiwa yi-detention ngoba ingane ichitha isikhathi sayo esengeziwe esikoleni uma sekuvalwa. Indlela enjalo ijezisa umzali kanye nengane. Ukujezisa makube okwakhayo.

Sengikukhulumile lokho engikushilo. Mhlonishwa Ngqongqoshe noMyango wakho, ngicela ukusho ukuthi thina beqembu lami le-IFP siyasivuma lesi sabelo. [Ihlombe.] (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Fourthly, hon Minister, concerning indigenous languages, the Department of Education must monitor white teachers who are reducing indigenous languages to something that is not needed. They are giving all sorts of reasons. If you investigate, you will find that they are the ones who undermine our languages and push their language forward. Libraries in schools must be increased and filled with books in the indigenous language that is used in the province.

Fifthly, the number of temporary teachers must be reduced and they must be trained in order to reduce the number of children who are facing one teacher in the class. All these things require more money. Sixthly, gardens at schools must be expanded. They are doing something, but more should be done in that regard so that children would be able to get better nutrition.

To those teachers who are still using corporal punishment, they must stop doing that. The garden is a better way of punishing a child, not dismissing a child from the class, who then misses the subject. Detention is not good either, because the child spends extra time at school while the school is already out. This way means punishing the child and the parent. Punishment must be constructive.

I have spoken. Hon Minister and your department, I would like to say that the IFP supports this budget. [Applause.]]

Dr F J VAN HEERDEN: Dankie, mevrou die Voorsitter. Ek sal gehoor gee aan die agb mnr Tolo se versoek dat ek mooi moet praat. Ek sal baie mooi praat!

Wat indrukwekkend was in vandag se debat sover, is dat die Voorsitter ingekom het en in sy taal gevra het vir ’n oomblik van stilte. Die Minister het in haar taal gepraat en baie van die ander kollegas het ook in hul eie taal gepraat en ek sal derhalwe ook my kort bydrae in die twee minute wat oorbly in Afrikaans lewer.

Naskoolse opleiding raak ál duurder en dikwels ook ’n luukse in hierdie verband, en daar’s ’n groot tekort aan vaardigheid in Suid-Afrika. Ekonome bereken reeds dat daar 300 000 vakatures is wat weens ’n tekort aan vaardighede nie gevul kán word nie. Met swart opheffing as ’n doelwit – en daarmee is niks fout nie; inteendeel die VF Plus steun dit – het die regering onderwys en opleiding dikwels ondeurdag getransformeer en die slagoffers hiervan was heel dikwels doeltreffendheid en ook moedertaalonderrig.

Suksesvolle lande soos Japan en China, en ook Amerika, is lande waar moedertaalonderrig en –opleiding gedoen word. ’n Verdere eienskap van suksesvolle lande is dat die stryd teen armoede en werkloosheid ook die stryd om gehalteonderwys en opleiding is. Die armblankevraagstuk gedurende die laat twintiger- en vroeë dertigerjare is juis in ’n groot mate met goeie onderwys en opleiding oorkom. Die getal Afrikaanse enkelmediumskole het verminder van ongeveer 3 400 in 1994 tot net sowat 800 tans. Dis ’n vermindering van 75%.

Die Minister het inderdaad in die vierde punt in haar toespraak gesê: “Parents will be informed of the important need to support our increased promotion of the use of mother tongue in the early phases of schooling.” Een van die sterk punte van Suid-Afrika is juis die kwessie van veeltaligheid.

Ek het oor die verskillende kanale geluister na die bydraes van kollegas wat in hul eie taal gepraat het, en dit is baie goed om te hoor dat die diens beskikbaar is. Met respek meen ek dat dit dienstig sal wees as daar eerder aansporings kan kom om meertaligheid en ook die multikulturele fasette van Suid-Afrika te bevorder as om dit te probeer afskaal en eenvoudig ’n klein Engeland aan die suidpunt van Afrika te skep.

Die universiteite is vandag onder geweldige druk om te verengels en die meeste van hulle swig onder hierdie druk, en die paar wat nog vasskop, stuur af op moeilikheid. Dubbelmedium-onderrig is ook nie die oplossing nie. Mnr De Klerk het dit oor die naweek, as ek reg is, in Nederland gesê. Dubbelmedium-onderrig … [Tyd verstreke.] (Translation of Afrikaans speech follows.)

[Dr F J VAN HEERDEN: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I shall comply with the hon Mr Tolo’s request that I should speak nicely. I shall speak very nicely.

What is impressive in today’s debate so far is that the Chairperson came in and asked in his own language for a moment of silence. The Minister spoke her language and many of the other colleagues also spoke in their own languages and I shall therefore also make my short contribution, in the two minutes remaining, in Afrikaans.

Tertiary training is becoming increasingly expensive and often also a luxury in this regard, and there is a tremendous lack of skills in South Africa. Economists have already calculated that there are 300 000 vacancies that cannot be filled owing to a lack of skills. With black upliftment as a goal – and there is nothing wrong with that; on the contrary, the FF Plus supports it – the government often transformed education and training at random and, as a result, efficiency and mother-tongue education often suffered. Successful countries such as Japan and China, and also America, are countries where mother-tongue education and training take place. A further characteristic of successful countries is that the struggle against poverty and unemployment is also the struggle for quality education and training. The poor white question during the late twenties and early thirties was overcome to a large extent by good education and training. The number of Afrikaans single-medium schools has decreased from approximately 3 400 in 1994 to only about 800 at present. That is a decrease of 75%.

The Minister in fact said in the fourth point in her speech: “Parents will be informed of the important need to support our increased promotion of the use of mother tongue in the early phases of schooling.” One of South Africa’s strong points is in fact the question of multilingualism.

I listened on the various channels to the contributions of colleagues who spoke in their own languages, and it is very good to hear that the service is available. With respect, I am of the opinion that it will be expedient if there can be incentives to promote multilinguism and also the multicultural facets of South Africa, rather than trying to scale this down and simply creating a small England at the southern tip of Africa.

At present the universities are under tremendous pressure to Anglicise and most of them yield to this pressure, and the few who still object are heading for trouble. Neither is dual-medium education the solution. Mr De Klerk said this over the weekend, if I am correct, in the Netherlands. Dual- medium education …[Time expired.]]

Mrs A N D QIKANI: Mhlalingaphambili obekekileyo, abaPhathiswa abakhoyo, namalungu onke ale Ndlu, mandiqale ngokulincoma iSebe lezeMfundo ngezicwangciso ezibonakalisa ukuzimisela okungathethekiyo. Olu Hlahlolwabiwo-mali luphambi kwethu ngokwenene zizigidi zezigidi zeerandi njengokuba sele kukhanyanyiwe. Kufuneka zisetyenziswe ngobunono ukwandisa amathuba kwiinkalo zonke zezemfundo. Ukuqeshwa kootitshala abanobuchule, ulwazi oluphangaleleyo, namava ezifundo zezibalo nezobugcisa kuya kusisebenzela sililizwe, kodwa oko kufuneka kukhatshwe nazizixhobo zokuncedisa kwezi zifundo.

Indlala egqubayo kubantwana abahlelelekileyo nengxaki yezikolo ezikude kakhulu ezilalini ayika sonjululwa. Nalo umcimbi kufuneka uthatyathwe njengondoqo ekuphuculeni umgangatho wezemfundo. Inkxaso-mali kubafundi bemfundo ephakamileyo ukuba ingongezwa kunalo mlinganiselo ikuwo ngoku kungangcono, ngoba baninzi abafundi abangathathi ntweni, abadinga amalizo alolu hlobo. Mandilincome ilinge lokuguqula amaqumrhu e-FET colleges zibe ngamaziko emfundo okuqeqesha abafundi kwinqanaba lokungenela umsebenzi. Eli nyathelo libonakalisa ukuba umkhondo ukhona kwezemfundo.

Iikholeji zabantu abadala mazingabi yingcinga esacetywayo, koko mazibekhona ukwenzela ukuba bakwazi nabo ukungena kumaziko aphezulu. Olu Hlalolwabiwo- mali luphambi kwethu oluzizigidi zezigidi zeerandi kucace mhlophe ukuba luyinxalenye enkulu kwinkcitho kazwelonke, into ebonakalisa ukubaluleka kwemfundo kwilizwe lethu, kunye nokuzimisela kukarhulumente ukuphucula umgangatho wezemfundo. Langa icandelo lemfundo linganyathelela phezulu ekwabeleni imivuzo eyamkelwa ngootitshala inyuke, ukuze nabo banike iziphumo ezincumisayo. Kwezinye iindawo bayazishiya izikolo baye kuba ngoonoteksi, nto leyo eyenza imfundo yabantwana iqhwalele.

Ndiyavuya kuba uMphathiswa wase Mpuma Koloni ukhona apha ngoba kusekho abantwana abafuna uncedo kakhulu, abahamba imigama emide phaya ezantsi eNgqeleni(Port St Johns), banqumla phakathi kwamahlathi, bawele nemilambo. UmPhathiswa uthethile ngokhuseleko lwabantwana. Ndivuya kakhulu xa ndimbona kuba isikolo sithi sisihle siqhekezwe zizigebenga kubiwe nezo khompyutha kuba kungekho lucingo lusibiyeleyo. Ukuqukumbela ingxoxo mandithi, huntshu! kumPhathiswa weZemfundo obekekileyo ngokubonisa ukuhoya ingxaki zabangathathi ntweni kuHlalolwabiwo-mali. Kwaye simnqwenelela impumelelo ukuze konke oko akucebayo nesebe lakhe kwenzeke. I-UDM iyaluxhasa ulwabiwo lwakhe. Enkosi. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa speech follows.)

[Mrs A N D QIKANI: Hon Chairperson, Ministers present and the members of the National Assembly, let me applaud the Department of Education for their plans with regards to commitment. The budget before us amounts to millions of rands, as has been stated. The money must be spent wisely by widening the scope in all areas of education. The employment of teachers with skills and profound knowledge in maths and science would be an advantage in this country. But that must be accompanied by teaching resources in these fields.

Besides the problem of poverty that learners are faced with, they travel long distances between the schools and the residential areas and this issue has not yet been resolved. This matter must be taken up as a priority in improving the standard of education. An increase in the subsidy of higher education would be appreciated, as there are too many students who are in need and who will benefit from this assistance. Let me applaud the department for the efforts of converting the FET colleges into technical skills training centres. This step shows that there is a way forward in education.

Adult colleges must not end in thoughts but be put in place to help adults to study further. This budget in front of us is part of the whole expenditure for the country; this shows how important education is, and the government’s willingness to raise the standard of education. I wish the Department of Education would speed up the process of revising salary increases for teachers as motivation. Teachers in other areas leave this career and become taxi owners and that is unfortunate for the education of our children. I am happy that the Minister of Education from the Eastern Cape is here because in that province there are learners who need help. In Port St Johns learners walk long distances to reach schools. They walk and cross a forest and rivers in order to get to school. The Minister has spoken about learners’ safety. I am happy to see him here because beautiful schools are broken into and computers are stolen because there is no proper fencing.

In concluding my speech I must applaud the hon Minister of Education for showing an interest in the problems of the disadvantaged in this budget. We wish her success in all her endeavours. The UDM supports this budget. Thank you. [Applause.]]

Ms A MOTSHEKGA (Gauteng): Chairperson, hon Minister, hon members of the NCOP, heads of departments and senior officials from the department, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, this year is a particularly important milestone in our struggle for democracy. It is the 10th anniversary of the Constitution, and the 30th anniversary of the 1976 uprisings.

I believe that this opportunity to address the NCOP is an ideal opportunity to review our progress made in realising the vision of our Constitution. It is also an opportunity to ensure that the successes in education go a long way to realising the struggles of the 1970s, and to make sure that the youth who died during those uprisings are celebrated for putting us on course to realise a true system that promotes a people’s education for people’s power.

The Constitution guarantees the right to education. This is a social right that not only guarantees access, but also demands that it is quality education. We do welcome, as a province, the Minister’s declaration of a commitment to tackle quality through intensive and directed initiatives and programmes over the next Medium-Term Expenditure Framework.

We have, over the past 12 years, travelled far in transforming the education system in our country to honour the rights of the Constitution. While there are numerous challenges facing education, we have achieved a level of stability in education that has not been seen in the 20 years before democracy, and that is across all communities and not just in the disadvantaged communities.

We have achieved an access rate in education that equals many developed countries and surpasses a number of developing countries. We have actually simply outdone ourselves. Our retention in schools in the past 10 years, unlike before we got into government, was that only one third of learners registered in Grade 1 were able to reach matric.

Under this government we have more than two thirds of learners who have registered in Grade 1, reaching matric, which, in a way, does put pressure on our school system, especially the infrastructure system.

We have put in place a social security package whereby we not only give grants and nutrition, but also provide a scholar transport service, which I will come back to, and provide preferential education funding that is both pro-poor and equitable. One must not omit the recently passed legislation introducing the free schooling in the most needy communities. Our communities are very excited about this and are looking forward to our implementing the policy.

In addition, we are progressively increasing access to Grade R; we have improved school infrastructure, including renovations to school buildings, facilitating electrification and provision of telephone lines to schools, and notable, introduced the roll-out of the Gauteng online in schools in Gauteng, with the aim of having a functional computer lab in all our schools.

We now deploy educators in an equitable way in a pro-poor manner. The increased investments in personnel, and specifically an increasing number of educators in the system, have ensured that we have manageable class sizes across all communities, which was not seen before 1994.

We have invested substantial funds over the past few years to institutionalise governance, and a school management system, and are marvelled at by most developing countries. Like the Free State province, we will be running an intensive training programme for our governing bodies. We have developed modules, and we will exchange with other provinces to make sure that we also learn from them.

Despite all these successes, one must always reflect and ask a question: “Has the quality of education improved over the last 12 years?” Sometimes the answer to this cannot be a full yes. Despite the improved resource levels and the need to continue and intensify the adequate resource of learning, a lot still remains to be done. While the flow rates are increasing in all phases across schools, the quality of education does not always equal the resources that have been invested in education.

The general performance of the system, in respect of matric examinations, learner achievements, testing and the review of internal class assessment outcomes, shows gains in the quality of learning but has not been sufficient to ensure a sustainable improvement in the quality of learning across the system.

In support of the national thrust of our Minister in education, as a province, we have put into place a number of provincial programmes to address the quality of teaching and learning, also in support of the national priorities. We are very excited about the Quality Improvement and Development Strategy programme announced by the Minister. We have also put plans in place to respond to the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa.

As a province, we have also drawn up plans to respond in terms of skills and education to our Gauteng Growth and Development Strategy, our Social Development Strategy and our emerging Gauteng Human Resource Development Strategy.

The following targets underpin our provincial programmes: to increase access to Early Childhood Development by investing in our youngest citizens; to consolidate and strengthen public education; to increase the general levels of learner attainment; to ensure that all learners complete the foundation phase; to ensure that all learners perform more than satisfactory in completing the general education and training and the further education bands.

Other targets are: to improve our curriculum delivery, and to promote and improve teacher performance and professionalism. Hence I agree with the Chair, hon member Tolo, when he says that the dress code is part of professionalism. We have to inculcate this in our educators, hoping that we are not talking about stockings that, as young teachers, we used to be forced to wear to school because it was seen as part of the dress code. But I agree with you that teachers in dreadlocks are just a put-off. We should be able to address the dress code of teachers.

We need to build the skills of our young people through strengthening our Further Education and Training and Abet sectors, to improve on the transition from school to workplace. Finally, and most importantly, we need to affirm our mother tongue instruction and promote African languages and cultures in our schools. In this regard, the June 16 generation deserves praise for highlighting the issues relating to language and culture, and the injustices of the apartheid education.

Furthermore, our fast-growing economy, especially our fast-urbanising landscape in Gauteng, demands us to be always on the lookout to make sure that our children are not marginalised by the fast rate of urbanisation, or by the fast economy.

On the question of safety, which has been raised repeatedly, I think we as a province agree that our schools should be places of safety where parents can feel it is quite safe to send their learners. This morning in Gauteng we just lost a case, where youngsters were playing a dangerous game, flipping each other in the air, and one of them had a fatal fall when he landed on his head.

We have had series of children killing each other in the schools, but during the investigation when we visited the family, we found one learner, who was a teenager, staying with another teenager, without parents at home, and the mother stays in the Transkei and the father works in Natal.

The issue of school safety is not only an educational responsibility, but a communal responsibility. Parents have the responsibility to protect their children emotionally, guide them and support them at all times. The very learner whose parents live in the Transkei had a knife hidden outside the schoolyard. And there was nothing that the school could have done to protect the child. It is a question of socialisation, and a question of parents taking responsibility for their children, socialising and protecting them adequately.

The other issue that I want to respond to, or just talk about in relation to school safety, is that I think members of the House, as community members, are equally responsible. We will welcome their participation, as the Department of Education, to join us in the fight against drugs, teenage pregnancy, and against all the various social ills. The point is, it takes a village to bring up a child, so it will take all of us to take full responsibility on issues relating to the safety of our children.

I also want to respond to the issue of scholar transport. We accept the value of scholar transport, but we also have to admit to the limitations of what the state can do and should do. We should not encourage our kids not to walk if they can walk for three kilometres, which has been a problem in some instances. We fully accept that the state has to make sure that it improves access.

I really want to respond to the issues that have been raised around scholar transport in Gauteng. I think members have the right to access information, and if you have information it will help you to respond adequately. If you don’t have information you are going to argue on the basis of rumours, which becomes unfortunate for hon members of this prestigious House. I would really like to encourage members to read and request information so that they can respond appropriately and adequately.

I want to stop at that and say that we, as Gauteng, really do welcome the Minister’s initiatives in her budget speech, and we throw our full weight behind her to make sure that we succeed as a state and as a nation. We fully agree that education is just one of the key important factors for our country and our developing nation. For me it is one key instrument that can really make sure that as a country we become a winning nation and a winning country. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

Mr K PANDAY (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, firstly I would like to thank you for having given me the opportunity to address this august House. As a special delegate I bring to you greetings from the ``kingdom’’.

South Africa is undergoing a catharsis. We are most certainly making tremendous strides in education in this country. Madam Minister, we must commend you, the national Department of Education, the various MECs and their respective provincial departments for being on top of the various tasks that are facing us. There are many problems, and some of them appear to give some of us sleepless nights.

HIV/Aids and its effects are frightening. With all that is being done towards curbing this disease, we are not in a position to eradicate the scourge from the face of this world. This is one of such challenges facing the various departments.

The matter of criminal elements; I wish to belabour this particular point. What has happened to the mutual respect of our teachers and our children? Today some teachers are ill-treating our children with impunity, and they appear to have forgotten that they are the custodians and guardians of our loved ones. These pupils are in their care; hence it is their duty to ensure that our children are safe.

On the other hand, some of the pupils are assaulting our teachers. Have these children gone mad? Teachers are gods and they must be respected as such. All of us who are here owe our academic growth to our teachers. All of us without fail remember our teachers with fond memories and many of us show them great respect.

When I meet one of my former teachers, although I am a member of the provincial parliament, I refer to them as sir or madam. Some tell me most certainly that I should not greet them as madam and sir because they feel uncomfortable, but that does not disturb me and I continue to do so. That is primarily because of our upbringing, that kind of respect that we have for our teacher. As Hindus, we hold a belief, and this shows our hierarchy of respect – Mata, Pita, Guru, Devata, and that is respect in this particular order: you respect your mother, then you respect your father, then you respect your teacher and then God. So, really, teacher is even above God.

So, Madam Minister, is there a way to prevent children from ill-treating, demeaning or assaulting our teachers? Yes, I know that we do address these issues, but only after the act. The challenges that we face, can we remove them permanently? I know it is a Herculean task. With all humility, I don’t have the wisdom to offer solutions. But as a suggestion, have a look at models that have worked elsewhere in the world and brainstorm them. Remember nothing is impossible. Some 100 years ago, if anyone had a heart attack, it led to death. Today we have heart transplants. At the beginning of this century we could make a contribution and be remembered for posterity to record what we have left behind for generations to come.

KwaZulu-Natal is doing an excellent piece of work in promoting education. We have addressed a number of problems and with the plans for the future we are sure to become the leader in the advancement of education.

The hon Mr Tolo, the chairperson of the Select Committee on Education, this morning acknowleded the good work done in our province and mentioned that we have spent 101% of our allocation.

Admittedly, there are problems such as the one mentioned by the hon Madlala- Magubane, where children have to cross dangerous rives. This becomes a challenge and in time our department should find permanent solutions. No one in life, no matter what field, can say that we have achieved a 100%. You solve the 100% and another one crops up.

However, one measures success by progress, never get despondent. The English saying that comes to mind is that the more you learn, the more you realise how little you know.

For the sake of our children, for the sake of our country, and for the sake of humanity, all of us will have to put our shoulders to the wheel and fight all the evils and ills in education. And we must ensure that education in all facets improves by leaps and bounds. Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Dr A M MOTSOALEDI (Limpopo): Chairperson, hon Minister and hon members of the House, I wish to join the other provinces to support the Minister wholeheartedly with the initiatives she has come up with in improving our education system.

Firstly, I would like to mention that the primary school nutrition programme is an extremely important programme in Limpopo because every single primary school that is not a former model C school, is under this programme. Since Limpopo is 99% rural, we are feeding 1,4 million schoolgoing learners out of a total of 1,9 million.

For this reason, we always appeal that if resources allow, this should be increased. We often have an anomalous situation, which Members of Parliament always complain about, that you have children who come from the same family but with the one being in primary school and the other in secondary school. We will be very happy if in due course this problem could be solved because it will help rural provinces like ours.

The second area that is very important for Limpopo is the issue of infrastructure. Seeing that the highest number of learners who learn under trees come from Limpopo, we are happy, as the Minister has announced, that we have completed this programme, especially with the help of mobile classrooms. Our biggest problem is something that I always mention, namely the issue of schools which communities built for themselves before our democratic elections in 1994.

Many members here do not know that in rural areas the government never built schools. It was something that had to be done by the communities together with their chiefs. Because they were using meagre resources, those schools are collapsing and in Limpopo, as I am speaking, some 237 of them had this to say: Minister, I am happy to announce that we have started the programme of rebuilding them.

This year we have started a three-phase programme and the first phase this year will cost us R272 million. We are giving them all the classrooms that they require.

The second phase will start next year when we give them an administration block, a computer laboratory and a science laboratory. The last phase will be in 2008, when we will give them a school hall, a library and sports facilities. So in three years’ time we shall have 237 brand new schools with all the facilities, including facilities for sports. We are trying to run away from the trap in which, I must confess, we were continuing with the apartheid mode of infrastructure provisioning where we thought the only thing you needed to do in a black rural school is to give them classrooms and classrooms only. From this year we are running away from that type of thing.

We have also started a programme of building 20 brand new schools because we have discovered that in some instances in Limpopo learners were not under trees because the government did not build schools, but we have discovered that there are schools where classrooms are provided for every year, but there will always be learners under trees because there is a settlement - an RDP settlement or a squatter settlement - that is growing very fast. However, the planning was not done very well between local government and us. This year we are bringing that to an end by building these 20 brand new schools in growth areas where we believe it will relieve the issue of children having to study under trees.

Lastly, as part of this programme we have been negotiating with farmers year in and year out. Last year you saw on TV how we fought with the farmer who went to the extent of burning down a school. We are not sure whether we will win this battle on section 14 agreements. We have therefore decided to build schools on government land and this year we are building schools on government land which will serve the surrounding farms in that area, so that we can actually abolish those farm schools and the learners can go to that one school which has all the facilities I have mentioned – a library, a computer centre and others. Because, we believe that farm learners also deserve the type of facilities, which will not only provide for any farm anywhere; we think building these central schools will help us a lot.

An HON MEMBER: Is the DA supporting you?

Dr A M MOTSOALEDI: No, of course they won’t, because they believe we are interfering with their farmers. They won’t.

The other issue is the issue of no-fee schools. I do not know, Minister, whether members here can imagine the profound changes that this programme is going to bring to rural provinces such as Limpopo. I am happy to announce that in Limpopo in this financial year we are declaring 2 300 schools in both quintile 1 and quintile 2 no-fee schools. That will be a total of close to 1 million children, 53% of the total schools in Limpopo. Only 300 schools in Limpopo out of a total of 4 200 will be in quintile 5. It shows the level of poverty within the province that only 300 schools out of 4 200 could be regarded as schools which are in quintile 5.

This programme will go a long way to helping because we are going to spend R273 466 000 on these 2 300 schools and some of these things would seem very unimportant – like just providing a fence to a school.

We have taken a decision in Limpopo that each one of the 2 300 schools must definitely have a fence if they do not have it already. We will be conveying this message to principals because we were informed that it would make a huge difference even in improving the matric results. Because, in some schools results do not improve because learners just go wild since they can move in any direction or appear from all directions in the morning when they are late and the teachers are unable to protect them. So, we are going to make use of the issue of no-fee schools to make sure that we provide fencing for each and every school in Limpopo so that none of the 2 300 will go without one.

On the Dinaledi schools, I do not know whether we would be boasting a lot, but Limpopo prides itself on the fact that we are one province which produces the highest number of learners in matric higher grade mathematics and science, and we want to maintain that standard. So, apart from that we have increased our Dinaledi schools from 23 to 50 this year and apart from the R150 000 given by the national Ministry, as a province we are adding R80 000 to each and every one of those schools to enhance the teaching of mathematics, science and technology.

This year in Limpopo we are declaring the year of hiring to try and bring an end to the shortages that have existed for a long time in Limpopo in terms of our staffing. So, we are busy and about to complete the programme of absorbing 8 651 temporary teachers this year, some of whom have been temporary teachers for a period of 10 years and we are happy to announce that they are being absorbed in a permanent capacity. Quite a number of them are maths and science teachers whom we need very much in the system and, unfortunately, because of this temporary status Limpopo had lost them to Gauteng and Mpumalanga.

Hon Motshekga, most of the teachers who teach maths and science in Gauteng are from Limpopo and the day we call them to come back home Gauteng might be in big trouble. [Laughter.]

We are also completing the process of filling 5 000 posts of principals, deputies and heads of department who were in an acting capacity. We are also in a process of absorbing 500 former lecturers to be subject advisers. The member of the DA has missed a point.

What he has said here is outdated: the lecturers are no longer going to other departments, they are now going to be our curriculum specialists and we are busy with that process.

About the issue of excellence, Minister - and I have read the Minister’s budget speech - you mentioned thousands of teachers who are very dedicated, but thousands again who are still found wanting. I am happy to announce that we in Limpopo are very proud to find some teachers really exert themselves, like Mr Moyo of Moses Monisi High School in the Botlhabelo district around Bushbuckridge.

He is the principal of the school that got the prize as the most improved school in the whole of South Africa. They moved their exemptions up from 17 to 90. When we called together, two weeks ago, the principals of all the schools that got less than 50%, I asked him to address them and it was a marvel to listen to him.

He told them that he wakes up at 4 o’clock every morning, travels 45 km on a gravel road, starts morning studies at 6:30 before the school starts, conducts and teaches lessons. As a principal, he also conducts lessons and he makes sure that staff meetings take place only after hours. He says sometimes they knock off at midnight. While some principals cheered, some grumbled very openly in the meeting and we had to reprimand them, as they said: No, this man wants to turn us into slaves. [Laughter.]

So, we have different types of principals and if we are moving into a programme in which principals are rewarded according to their performance, people like Mr Moyo would be rewarded accordingly, because we need that type of principal in the country. What shocked us is that when the school was visited … [Time expired.] [Applause.]

Mr N D HENDRICKSE: Hon Chair, hon Minister and hon members, there are indeed serious challenges facing the education sector. The first is that outcomes-based education is not achieving the desired results due to poor training on the implementation of the system and the inability of teachers in some schools who lack the necessary skills to teach basic methodology. Recent studies have shown that the reading capabilities of Grade 8s are far below par, and in fact the director-general in his report also admitted that.

In rural areas and in the townships where pupils do not have access to the Internet for project purposes, they have a problem in coping. Teachers are overburdened with administrative work, leaving less time for actual teaching. I wonder whether we should not bring in administrative staff to help them cope because some of them are leaving the teaching fraternity just because they cannot cope with the administrative work.

Whilst we understand the need to review the powers of school governing bodies we have a problem with the interference of the state. You know that the previous regime gave us a hard time when we appointed teachers and they interfered. So I will just say: let us tread softly there with whatever policy we come up with as far as the school governing bodies are concerned.

Transfers to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme must be supported but access criteria must be more stringent, given ability to pay and an academic record should be submitted and progress monitored after the first year.

The focus on increasing remuneration and support for scarce skills’ teachers in mathematics and science is supported wholeheartedly. It would be appropriate for the Minister to liaise with universities to lower intakes for humanities and arts for example, and focus on areas where graduates are more likely to be employed. Very seriously, we need to think of reintroducing social workers to schools. We did have them in the late 1980s and they did a good job. There are such a lot of problems in schools right now so I think we need to think of that very carefully.

The budget is developmental in approach, regarding addressing the needs of the sector and, therefore, the UIF supports it wholeheartedly. Thank you, sir. [Applause.]

Rev O J TSELAPEDI (North West): Chairperson, it seems as though it is wrong to be an MEC and to come here and then not speak.

I believe that in the North West we agree and support the budget of the hon Minister, Naledi Pandor. We believe that it is relevant and that it will meet some of the greatest challenges that we are facing at this point in time. Regardless of what the media has said – too little too late - in terms of the money to try to help and enhance the salaries of teachers, we believe that it will go a long way in meeting the needs of reasonable people. We are aware that we have a very long road ahead of us, particularly in getting good teachers to the rural areas. We are suffering in one region, the Bophirima region, as it is very difficult to get teachers there.

I hope that the experience of the Health department will not happen to us too in terms of trying to woo health practitioners to the rural areas and the budget not being utilised, because the people are still refusing to go there in spite of the money that has been made available. We hope that we will be able to deal with this in a more effective way.

I would not like to go into all the issues that have been raised. We are like all the other provinces; we are doing what they are doing. We are not a federal state; we are part of the South African scenario. We deal with all those issues every month at the CEM – Council of Education Ministers - level.

I would just like to conclude with the emphasis that we have in the North West. In the North West we have realised one thing, that there is a problem in terms of what is happening in our schools. My esteemed colleagues have already pointed out that in the past government did not build schools in the rural areas and they are falling down because most of them are mud schools.

In the Taung area, which is prone to storms and rain, we are having problems with these old schools, which are in their forties and fifties, and they are really collapsing. This is straining our budget. But many a time we are caught napping by the media who, when they have no stories or there is a thirst for new stories, just go to one of the schools and come up with a new thing to hit us. And every time we are caught like we are napping; caught napping here. [Laughter.]

There is a chain of command in the field of education starting with the teacher in class, who to me in particular is the chief foot soldier in education. From there you have the principals, the ISCs, and the ICSs. You have the upper managers to the regional leaders, the district leaders. Yet many a time we get information from the media rather than from the particular people.

There is a problem somewhere in the pipeline in that the foot soldiers are not doing their jobs. We in the North West have decided to crack the whip, following the Free State route of saying that some of our principals are part of the problem because of their longevity in those areas. We need to deal with these issues.

We need to fill posts particularly around ISCs, the institutional support co-ordinators, in terms of the former inspectors that are taking care of clusters of schools. We need to fill the posts, and we have been concentrating on filling those particular posts so that schools will be visited regularly, and so that we will have adequate and up-to-date information from those schools. Also, we must demand and insist that the foot soldiers do the obvious things.

Many a time when even the children have no furniture, you find that the upper manager does not know. Then, when you want the reasons, the ISC will say that the principal did not order furniture in spite of both of them having four pairs of eyes; yet they didn’t see the lack of furniture. [Laughter.]

We as the North West are saying that the foot soldier is very important. If we can get things right with the foot soldier, the ISCs and the ICSs, we will have dealt with the problem quite successfully. We are very impressed with the career pathing that is coming our way this time, in that we can promote them without taking them out of class. Chairperson, let me stop there. [Applause.]

Mr G A LUCAS (Northern Cape): Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon MECs and special delegates, hon Chairperson of the Select Committee on Education and Recreation, hon members of the NCOP, ladies and gentlemen, my foot soldier has laid the ground. We will continue to proceed where my foot soldier ended. I want to mention that education in the Northern Cape continues to receive the greatest of the provincial equitable share, thus ensuring that quality education and access to it reaches the majority of our people.

Inclusive of the conditional grant, education in the province will receive up to 36% of the total allocations. This places a huge and immense responsibility on the education sector and its leadership to deliver quality education to all our people. I can also say that we have noted with keen interest that, over the past four years, learners entering our school system have increased. We are thus creating opportunities for our children to enter our school system and we will continue to nurture the young people.

It is encouraging to realise that many of our children are responding positively to the call to seize opportunities presented to them by our democracy and, accordingly, the right to basic education is being firmly entrenched in many of our communities. As a further entrenchment of this basic right to education, I also want to mention that nearly 70 000 children in our province will be beneficiaries of the no-fee school policy. This translates into 162 schools in our province that have voluntarily indicated their willingness not to levy any school fees any longer. This is truly a remarkable movement forward in advancing our cause of providing education, especially to the marginalised.

It is a truly humbling experience to realise that the ideals fought for by the youth generation of 1976 are beginning to bear fruit in a massive way, and thus clearly demonstrating that theirs was not a struggle in vain. Through our performance and practical actions, we are determined to ensure that those calls of the young people of 1976, who refused to accept the subservient education that was designed to make them permanent drawers of water and hewers of wood, are answered in the most vocal of responses.

Indeed, it is not possible to eradicate a legacy of centuries of apartheid education within the short space of 12 years. However, it is heartening to note that, steadily but surely, we are winning the battle to create a more equal and quality education system. In 12 short years we have managed to integrate a fragmented and unequal education system into a single department with a new and exciting curriculum that offers equal opportunities and quality education to all South Africans. Our curriculum has been modernised to become more relevant and responsive to the needs of our economy, and is also creating a more humane and caring society.

The resultant increase in our learner enrolment should also be attributed to our successful school nutrition programme as a means of fighting poverty. It has enabled us to improve access and enhance the performance of many of our learners. I wish to inform this august House that primary schoolchildren are provided with cooked nutritional meals five days a week, whilst some of our high schools are provided with meals three times a week. In this nutrition programme we have more than 1 500 parents cooking for our children, and that is part of the Expanded Public Works Programme in our province.

As part of the success story, we have entered into a partnership with Absa, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Social Development. Through this partnership 80 schools have developed viable vegetable gardens. In some of these schools, during school holidays learners take food parcels home in order to be able to be fed during those school holidays. That shows an integrated approach towards service delivery and not operating as silos, as other people want us to do.

We are also mindful that quantitative increase without quality improvement might result in poor service delivery. Accordingly, as a provincial department, we have presented to the Minister a programme on learner achievements. So, we are amongst those four provinces that did indeed respond to the Minister’s call, which essentially asserted that all learners are equal and accordingly can all achieve equally. This strategy is premised on three pillars, namely school, learner and educator development.

Thus far, 425 of our schools have developed improvement plans and all four our districts have improvement plans in place. What is also exciting about this programme is that – since Northern Cape was the first province to have been involved - we have the computerised learner-tracking system in place and the names of 80% of our learners from Grade R to Grade 11 have already been captured on the system.

This programme has targets for each individual school and learning area, thus making sure that the targets that we set from Grade R to Grade 11 are realistic, measurable and achievable. Accordingly, we will be able to monitor the performance of our educators and learners. We will be able to set targets for each school from Grade R to Grade 11. It is quite an exciting process that is being implemented.

Part of this strategy also calls upon our officials not to act like the previous Bantustan inspectors who came to schools and pushed educators and principals around without giving them the necessary developmental support that our schools and principals require. This strategy says that our officials must become developmental in their nature and approach. They must not be confrontational or come and peep through the windows while not assisting our educators to deliver quality service in our schools.

We are also glad that our 14 Dinaledi schools that have been identified will be receiving additional support. We have received commitment from the private sector also to assist in making sure that our Dinaledi schools become centres of excellence.

We are glad that, as a province, we are making steady progress in implementing many of the things that we are supposed to. As part of these particular things that we are doing, just recently the Premier announced that, as far as all the small infrastructure projects in the province are concerned, those functions must be delegated to the schools so that the school governing bodies, SGBs, themselves can construct and build classrooms, administration blocks, science laboratories and other facilities, and in this way respond to the Minister’s call for the reconstruction of our schools, and for the taking of ownership of our schools by communities and parents.

Through this initiative, we have delegated R14 million to our SGBs in order to build smaller projects that are manageable. In that way, we are also building local economies because we realise that some of the projects cannot be completed on time, primarily because one contractor has too many projects at hand. Through this initiative, we are giving all our people in all the communities an opportunity to construct schools of high quality. In that way, we will be able to change the lives of our people. [Applause.]

Hon Magubane, I must also say that the area you visited is a rural area, which requires a special kind of intervention. That kind of special intervention can’t be the challenge of education alone. Accordingly, as a province, we are in the process of developing a rural strategy. Kgalagadi is a rural nodal point that will respond comprehensively to the needs of the people.

Yes, indeed, it is a reality that some of those children travel long kilometres when they go to school. Some of them are in the further education and training sector and do not have birth certificates. Some of those areas do not have access roads. So, even if we provide learner transport, they might not be able to access those particular facilities. But, through our intervention, we will be able to turn the situation around in an integrated way, in order to be able to provide quality education to our people.

The Minister asked: “Are we ready to excel?” I wish to say, yes, I am ready and that all of us are ready to excel. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

Mr C M DUGMORE (Western Cape): Thank you, Chairperson. National Minister, MECs, officials, when the President opened the National Assembly, he talked about us as a country being in the Age of Hope. I think, through the leadership of our Minister and the education team and what we have heard in our Minister’s speech and again here today, we are proud to say that the education family from our province shares in this Age of Hope and we agree with our Premier in the province who has argued that we are also on the threshold of prosperity. Minister, your insistence on quality – and I would like to join MEC Lucas in saying that …

… ja, ek is ook gereed om uit te blink. Ek is gereed, saam met die Noord- Kaap en die ander provinsies. [… yes, I am also ready to excel. I am ready, together with the Northern Cape and the other provinces.]

Minister and members, I think it is important that we should be accurate and specific when we participate in these discussions.

Kufuneka ukuba siwakhankanye amagama abantu. Ayifuneki into yokuba abantu baphakame bathethe nje. [We have to identify people. We do not just allow people to stand up and talk.]

As daar ’n skoolhoof is wat ’n probleem is, moet daardie persoon se naam genoem word. [If there is a principal who is a problem, that person’s name should be divulged.]

Let’s not talk in generalisations because this is a place where we can take up issues and try to deal with them. Ndiyanixelela, man. [Kwahlekwa.] [I am telling you, man. [Laughter.]]

Minister, I am proud to say that in our province we have a budget of R6,988 billion and that in 2005-06 this constituted 30,4% of the provincial budget. This year, 2006-07, it constitutes 38% of the entire provincial government budget. I would also like to say that since 2004 there has been a growth of 22,8% in our Western Cape education budget and that of 11% since last year’s appropriation. I would like to indicate that we are very pleased that there is movement in regard to the finalisation of the Abet norms and standards. We believe that this will significantly assist in stabilising the sector.

There are 99 centres and 1 855 candidates registered with Abet in our province. We have increased the number of centres participating by 11% and we’ve increased the numbers by 9,9%.

Ek wil ook net sê daar is nie ’n enkele amptenaar van die gesondheidsdepartement in die Wes-Kaap … [I would also like to say that there is not a single official of the Department of Health in the Western Cape … ]

… who cannot read and write, because our Abet team and other departments have been working on that. I would like to further indicate that we have determined six key priorities in the province and these are as follows: firstly, numeracy and literacy; secondly, FET both in our schools and colleges; thirdly, school safety; fourthly, infrastructure; fifthly, the re- design of our department; and, sixthly, the building of social capital in education.

We believe that the absolutely central challenge is literacy and numeracy and I think that possibly the most complex and difficult task we face is to ensure that all of our learners achieve the outcomes required by the national curriculum, especially in our poorest schools. We have to start at the beginning with reading, writing and calculating in the foundation and intermediate phases from Grades R to 6. Our study of Grade 3 learners in 2004 indicated that 39,5% of our learners passed the literacy test compared to 35% in 2002. An average of 37,3% passed the numeracy test compared to 36% in 2002. Our studies have shown that we do not believe that there’s a quick fix to this problem. We have to deal very systemically with a wide range of issues to turn this situation around.

Minister, last year in your budget speech you indicated that this education system that we’ve inherited is as tough as a crocodile’s skin. And yet, when we see curriculum stabilisation we see teacher development coming to the fore. We see progress. It is some members in this House who want to create a perception of chaos and crisis whereas everyday we see the gains that are being made. We are setting a target of achieving 50% in literacy and numeracy and we are also getting each school to set individual targets to which they will be held accountable. I believe that we should increase those targets to more than 50%. A task team led by one of our officials has been appointed to upscale our numeracy and literacy intervention and focusing on teacher training, development of materials, special interventions and diagnostic testing will continue while the basic strategies are in place. We believe that we have to achieve, as you have indicated, much greater co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation.

A total of 510 teaching assistants have been appointed to support foundation phase teachers at poor schools, which, Minister, is one of the interventions you were pushing for. They are helping our teachers to improve literacy and numeracy, listening to learners reading, working with groups and individuals to improve word skills, developing number concept skills, and assisting teachers with classroom organisation, and this involves 163 schools.

There is an exciting innovation that we want to consider when we hopefully continue the scheme next year and that is to expand the contractual obligations of these teaching assistants so that, amongst other things, they adopt 30 families of learners they are teaching, go to the families, check if the mother or father, aunt or uncle can read and organise an Abet course. We call that the family literacy strategy.

We are very happy with the support for FET colleges but they would need to be adequately funded or a national students’ financial aid type of scheme would need to be established if we wanted them to take more numbers. I’m not necessarily suggesting that school fees should not be paid to colleges.

Minister, I would also like to make an appeal to you and to this House. I believe that central to any school’s success is the quality of leadership. Therefore, the appointment of principals is absolutely critical. As things stand now governing bodies nominate three names. I would like to propose that the procedure continues as normal but that the head of department and the MEC should then forward the proposed name to you as the national Minister to take a final decision on the appointment because of the importance of principals in the 30 000 schools that we have in the province. This will mean that not anyone simply applies to become a principal. It will also mean that the governing body doesn’t accept bribes and that you would make the appointments. We know how serious and harsh you can be. This, I think, would elevate the importance of this matter and I’m raising it for debate.

I also want to welcome the announcement of our school nutrition programme. On 1 June we will be visiting the Northern Cape. Our province is sending a delegation to the Northern Cape to learn how they have done with safety offices. There are 100 schools with the Bambanani safety in schools programme and one of the five volunteers is a parent who was nominated by the SGB. I want to then say to hon member Thetjeng … Uphi uThetjeng? Ukhona? O, nankuya. [Kwahlekwa.] [Where is Mr Thetjeng? Is he here? Oh! There he is. [Laughter.]]

I would like to tell you that we are going to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission because the SABC went to that school and asked the children to cross the river. It is true. The children live next to the river and they can walk to school. But children are children. They have two and a half kilometres to walk to school. They were told to cross the river when it was ankle deep. But now … kambe ngenxa yokuba ine gqitha iBolandi kule veki iphelileyo. [the Boland received a heavy rainfall last week.]

They took photos. We have affidavits. Minister, we have affidavits that certain members of the community got children to walk across that river. We are looking at the matter of children who have to cross the N2 in Riversdale and we have already made some exceptions for less than five kilometres. It is a lie to suggest that children have to cross the river.

Die name gaan uitkom en die mense wat verantwoordelik is daarvoor gaan gekap word. [Tussenwerpsels.] [The names will come out and those responsible for that will be hammered. [Interjections.]]

I also would like to appeal to member Tolo … [Time expired.][Applause.]

Mr M A SULLIMAN: Chairperson, hon Minister, MECs present here today, comrades and colleagues, the Budget Vote before us here today is very important. It reminds us of what happened 30 years ago with the Soweto uprising. I think we need to keep that in our minds whilst dealing with this particular Budget Vote here.

This Budget Vote, in actual fact, is right in place at the right time. The policies have been put in place by the ANC and the Minister, as the captain of this particular ship, is doing a wonderful job. I think we must praise her for that. Thank you, Minister, for doing the right job. Well done!

After having listened to many of the hon members in this House, I want to start with the hon member Mr Thetjeng, who spoke about the quintiles and scholar transport. But I must say you are very selective in your approach and you failed to say that there are schools that provide transport for our learners. You deliberately kept quiet.

If there is a problem with the quintile system, then let’s revisit it, let us not use this platform as a complaint session. My understanding of a Budget Vote is that it is a policy Budget Vote debate. Here we’re dealing with policy matters and not to raise complaints. And you want to portray a picture as if the education system is on the verge of collapse. It is not true.

I want to point out a few things about what is happening in some of our institutions, especially here in the Western Cape. The principal in Bonteheuwel, who is a DA councillor, is absent from school attending council meetings most of the time. The question that I’m asking myself is … [Interjections.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T S Setona): Sorry, hon member, can I draw the attention of members to the fact that heckling up to a certain level is acceptable, but it should not be disruptive. You may continue, hon member.

Mr M A SULLIMAN: Thank you, Chairperson. The principal of the Bonteheuwel High School is a DA councillor who is absent from school, attending council meetings most of the time. The question that I’m asking is why the DA is so quiet about it? And, Helen Zille was a former MEC of Education. She is quite aware of these things, but the DA decides to be very quiet about this.

The DA again is quiet when some former model C schools refuse to play sports in the townships. They are quiet about it. They don’t say anything about it but they refuse to play sports in the townships. You look at the school governing bodies where the DA is in charge. They refuse point blank to appoint black teachers in those schools. The DA is quiet about these things. Why are they quiet about these things? They do not say anything.

Coming to the school governing bodies, some of our schools in our townships don’t have all the facilities. We all know that because of the legacy that we have inherited. If those poor schools want to hire the halls of those former model C schools, they charge a very poor school up to R1 000. Are they serious? Do they really want to build a nation? But the DA is quiet about this. They are not serious. They are very quiet about this thing. That is the reason I’m doing this deliberately; because these things are happening.

In De Aar, where I come from, at a high school there, a black teacher was appointed, and they made 100% sure that they got rid of her. She was forced to move form that school. [Interjections.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T Setona): Order! What is the point there, hon Thetjeng? Hon Lamoela, I think you are not the spokesperson. It’s Mr Thetjeng who is on the platform and I must listen to him. Mr O M THETJENG: Yes, Chairperson, I would really request to put a question to the hon member as to whether this is a complaint forum or the discussion of a Budget Vote.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T Setona): Hon member, you are out of order. I must first establish whether the member is willing to take a question or not. Are you willing to take a question, hon member?

Mr M A SULLIMAN: Chairperson, yes, I am willing to take a question. I will respond to the question. I have already indicated to this august House that this is a policy debate. I think the hon member was fast asleep when I said that. [Laughter.]

These are some of the things that happen in our schools. And with our select committee, we are going to make it a point that we visit all these former model C schools throughout South Africa and we are going to explain the policies of this government to them.

It is like when we visited the school in Kgalagadi. That school took us to court. The principal of that particular school was not even aware of certain things, but he is supposed to be the manager of the school. These are the kinds of things that are happening. And if you look at it from a political point of view, you’ll find that it does not come from members of the majority party. It comes from people who belong to the so-called official opposition. They call themselves opposition, yet they are not an opposition, they are the largest minority party, as far as I’m concerned – the largest minority party. They don’t deserve to be called the official opposition.

Allow me to say that now is the time for the school governing bodies to go for elections. And I want to make use of this opportunity to congratulate those SGB members who did very well in their respective schools, because not all of them will return to these positions. And we want to say to the incoming new members that a foundation has been laid and that they should please build on that foundation and carry on with the good work. I’m doing this deliberately because they’re doing this job voluntarily. They are not being paid for serving in school governing bodies. Phambili ngamavolontiya! Phambili! [Forward with volunteerism!] That is what we are going to do in the new South Africa.

The nutrition programme in our schools is a wonderful idea. We know our people, the poorest of the poor. They do not even have food at home at times. But now here’s a golden opportunity. Food is being provided at our schools. The learners can go to school and learn. And if we look at some things, street children are not that many anymore because they are going to school. There’s food there for them and at the same time there’s an opportunity for them to go to school and to get educated. Minister, we thank you very much, that was a clever move!

Minister, let me deal with no-fee schools. The concept of so-called no-fee schools should be welcomed. As I have already said earlier on, people are poor and they can’t afford school fees. However, we do have some teething problems in this regard. But I’m sure that all these challenges can be sorted out at provincial level. There are towns, for instance, where the primary school is on the one side of the road and the high school is on the opposite side. The one is a no-fee school and the other one is not. And they are serving the same community. We are not complaining about this. These are challenges and we will deal with them at provincial level. This is how we need to deal with things, and not be destructive but constructive.

Let me come back to the DA again. [Laughter.] I think it’s nice to be in the opposition. But there’s a difference: are you constructive or destructive? The DA knows where they are. Take the FF Plus, for example, they are not part of the ANC …

… maar hulle lewer opbouende kritiek, nie afbrekende kritiek nie. En dit is gesond. Dit is hoe ons hierdie land en sy nasie wil bou. Ons kan nie nou vandag in 2006 hier staan asof ons nog voor 1994 is nie. Baie van ons in hierdie Huis, veral die DA-lede, het nog nie wakker geskrik nie. Hulle slaap nog in die ou Suid-Afrika.

Ter afsluiting, die boodskap van hoop is baie duidelik. En ek dink die LUKs en die Minister gaan met ons saamstem as ons gaan sê dat … (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)

[… but they give constructive criticism, not destructive criticism! And that is healthy! That is how we wish to build this country and its nation. We cannot today, in 2006, stand here as if we are still in the time before

1. Many of us in this House, especially the DA members, have not yet woken up. They are still asleep in the old South Africa.

In conclusion, the message of hope is very clear. And I think the MPs and the Minister will agree with us when we say that … ]

“Today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today.” We support this Budget Vote. Thank you very much, Chairperson. [Applause.]

The MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Chairperson, I thank the hon members for their contribution to the debate. I apologise to MEC Motshekga; I understand that it was not her maiden speech. She has been here before. I also would like to, once more, acknowledge the role that the hon Tolo and the members of the select committee play in assisting and supporting us in achieving our objectives with respect to education. I think we need to also thank the hon Ralane and the finance committee for, sometimes, keeping us on our toes – sometimes too much on our toes. When he does that, we do tiptoe to him for help and rescue. [Laughter.]

Chairperson, we used to have a song in the ANC: Angiyamona. Anginanzondo. Ngikhokele-ANC. I have no envy for anyone, I have no sins that I commit, but all I do is love the ANC and I work within it. I think hon members who fail to understand this old, mature and wonderful organisation are members who would come to this House and raise issues that really do not serve to enhance what should happen in the education sector. The ANC as the oldest and most forward-thinking organisation of all progressive movements of the world, always have responses to these matters. Indeed, we don’t stand challenged but ready to respond and react.

Let me assure the hon Thetjeng, we certainly are attending to any anomalies that might exist due to current formulations in legislation with respect to the declaration of quintiles. We will attend to matters we have identified to formulations in the school funding norms, which do not correlate sufficiently with formulations in the amended Act. It is a matter that we are alert to and we will ensure, as hon members have indicated, that indeed those who are poor do benefit from our no-fee schools policy.

I would like to come to something that has been raised by the hon members concerning the levels of debt among students who are recipients of the NSFAS grants in higher education institutions. Hon members, I wish you to just remember that grantees begin to repay their loans when they have employment and are earning at a particular level. If they are not employed and are not earning at that level that has been determined by the board, clearly they are not repaying. They continue to owe the money. All the students who are studying and are loanees do not pay at this time but they continue to owe us money. Let us not take the totality of what is owed, which includes all loanees, and say that that is the outstanding amount that is owed to NSFAS. It is a misreading of the true picture that exists. It absolutely comes back to the point that my hon colleagues have raised and that is the way that the media sometimes reports on education.

I have heard of this practice of going to communities, taking groups of children and making them cross a river or do something. The hon member was very vociferous in her response to MEC Dugmore, as though she has read the affidavits. I am not sure if she has had access to them. My understanding was that none of us has seen the content of the affidavits and therefore we cannot seem to assert that the hon MEC is misleading the House. We will all be able to check as to whether there are indeed affidavits and whether there is truth in the matter that the MEC has put before us. To heckle when we are given a report seems to me to be a peculiar way of reacting, almost as if one is saying that the media is truthful and the MEC is not. I find that quite problematic. It is absolutely vital that all of us go out and make sure that when we speak, we know exactly what it is we are talking about. We should avoid this tendency to be populists rather than factualists, rather than intellectual debaters and contributors to education, which we all should become.

Hon members have raised a numbers of issues that certainly we are attending to. Each area referred to by members is an area that we are attempting to respond to. I particularly welcome the comments of the hon member of the FF Plus concerning multilingualism. I hope by that that we don’t mean one language but that we are referring to all languages recognised as official languages in our country. Many people, when they talk about multilingualism, are referring to one language only. I believe we cannot accept the Anglicisation of South Africa. It is not a picture that is a contribution to the objectives and the principles elaborated in section 6 of the Constitution. It is vitally important that we promote multilingualism through education, but that means the utilisation of all 11 languages in our country.

There are languages that have been neglected entirely, so multilingualism and a commitment to it would mean, if I am in a school where the language of learning and teaching is Afrikaans, I do not only have English as the other language, but that I also have IsiXhosa or Setswana or Sesotho or IsiZulu or Tshivenda or Xitsonga, so that then I become multilingual both in orientation and in practice. Often when we are talking about multilingualism, many of us seem to mean English and Afrikaans only. That is not the case. I would like to remind the public out there and especially our governing bodies that there is no compulsion that we should study just one language in the country. We would like you to encourage our children to learn several languages, to be able to talk to each other in a range of languages wherever they meet.

Our duty as the Department of Education, as has been shown by Limpopo in its practice, is to ensure that there are teachers competent to teach the other neglected languages in our country. We should say to schools: be multilingual but we must support that teacher of Setswana, MEC Lucas, or that teacher of IsiXhosa, MEC Matomela, or that teacher, MEC Motshekga – I don’t know which language you will choose in Gauteng. We must ensure that we have teachers that can offer these languages. In fact Gauteng would be most exciting because Gauteng would become the province where all the previously neglected languages would be studied. You could lead the way in the promotion of multilingualism.

I thank the hon MECs who have, as members have seen today, acted on scholar transport. I would have been more excited if the hon members had spoken here in criticism of the crooks that have tried to abuse our policy of providing school transport for children. But nobody from the opposition or governing party has mentioned the cheats that there are and who attempt to steal money from the departments. They also did not mention the officials who collude with these crooks in cheating our children in this way. They must be fired. We cannot tolerate abuse of public finances nor tolerate abuse of our children.

I am very excited that many of our schools and provinces in addressing infrastructure will ensure that we address the issue of school fencing. It can no longer be acceptable that where a black child goes to school there is no water, no toilet, no fence, no administration block, no computer, inadequate teachers, no classrooms, etc. That kind of scenario cannot be tolerated. So we have to target the evidence of poverty and underdevelopment that exists in many of our schools in the country. We must acknowledge and thank the national government for having accepted that we should have a quality improvement and development strategy and for putting money behind accepting that particular strategy, which the Department of Education proposed to them. We are very excited that at last we will be able to directly confront the legacy of underdevelopment in education because of apartheid and fight with it and win the day on behalf of our children.

With respect to Dinaledi schools, certainly, we believe we must address the issue of maths teachers. All of us must ensure that we have maths teachers in every school in the country. More and more of our children should, as a natural phenomenon, study the subject of mathematics. I cannot agree more with my colleagues when we say: we need to see diversity in our staffing complements. I find it very peculiar that we acknowledge and acclaim that many of our schools have transformed to become more reflective of the society in terms of the make-up of scholars. None of us are prepared to assert that the make-up of teachers needs to change as well in all the schools in the country. I am not just talking about ex-model C schools, all of them. We want diversity to be reflected in the entire education system. All of us know that role modelling is an important part of building a new adult. For a young person to be in school for many years and not see a reflection of her in the school is not building a positive character. Absolute diversity in the teaching corps needs to be addressed.

Hon members have been very supportive. We are addressing the national curriculum statement training. We are excited that in a few years we are going to have, throughout all grades in the country, the national curriculum being implemented. We are bedding down introduction of a national curriculum in South Africa and ensuring that at last, we have a curriculum beyond the apartheid design.

Finally, let me say, Chairperson, I believe the FET college sector is going to introduce what we have called the skills revolution in South Africa. We need to support them appropriately. We should stop having them as the Cinderella of education in our country. We need to ensure that the FET colleges really deliver on this Asgisa in South Africa. Give us the skills that can respond to the gaps that we have in skills in the country.

On the matter of councillors, I am quite amazed that hon Sulliman said that there was a school principal who attended meetings and was not at school for much of the day. I have to indicate to hon Sulliman that all political parties are guilty in this regard. Many political parties have teachers as councillors, have principals as mayors, HODs as mayors. It is a very worrying phenomenon. How do we improve quality when those who should be teaching are not in school? This is something that certainly this Council needs to debate and guide us on, so that we in fact make appropriate decisions as to how we handle the participation of educators in structures of governance in the country. While we worry, we worry about all political parties and their utilisation of teachers. We know some parties abuse it more than others. We must guard against that.

I see my time is up. I should say that it is indeed the intention of this team of political heads in education to ensure that teachers know that we see them as the frontline in delivering quality education to our country and that we have, through our efforts to improve their conditions, indicated that we pose a great deal of trust in their ability to ensure that we succeed in changing the character of education in South Africa. To our teachers out there, to the learners out there, to the parents, to South Africa in its totality, we are saying: are you ready to join us in excelling in education? We are ready and we have put all the mechanisms out there.

Support us and let us make education and its experience different for the children of our country. I thank hon members and the MECs for taking time out to be with us today. I thank the hon members for the support that you have given to us in this debate. Thank you. [Applause.]

Debate concluded.

Business suspended at 13:00 and resumed at 14:07.

                          Afternoon Sitting

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: Order! Hon members, you would remember that we had a session this morning. That’s why I’m not calling for a moment of silence for prayers or meditation. This is a continuation of the sitting. I see people look surprised, so I’m just reminding them that this is a continuation of the sitting.

Our session this afternoon deals with questions. The Deputy President will answer questions, and the Ministers will also take their questions. Before I go to the questions, I was advised that three girl-children – or four, but I don’t see the other one – are at work in the Office of the Deputy President. That is why we have seated them there in the official bay. Don’t be surprised. They are working today. [Laughter.] [Applause.] I want to recognise them. They can stand up. Let’s see them. You are in the National Council of Provinces. One day one of you might be the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces.

An HON MEMBER: [Inaudible.] … take follow-up questions?

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: And they will take follow-up questions, but not today. Okay, you can sit down. Thank you very much.

An Official from the Deputy President’s office has also requested to take some photos. I’ve given permission for him to take photos up in the gallery. But no flash, please, because that normally distracts the sitting. So you can continue taking the photos.

QUESTIONS FOR ORAL REPLY

                        THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT


           Effect of appointment of professionals to Jipsa

1. Mr C J van Rooyen asked the Deputy President:

   (a) What direct impact will the 90 professionals to be appointed as part of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), as referred to in the President’s state of the nation address on 3 February 2006, have on the economic growth of the country, especially in addressing the lack of skills and (b) how will municipalities benefit from the Jipsa? C26E

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, hon Chairperson. Hon members, the answer to the question is as follows. The appointment of professionals focuses on addressing the skills problem through Project Consolidate, which has a common purpose with the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition.

The aim is to focus on addressing the skills problem facing municipalities. Project Consolidate has identified serious capacity constraints in many of our municipalities, arising from shortages of properly qualified managers, professionals and technical personnel. The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa has also mandated the Department of Provincial and Local Government, in consultation with the Department of Trade and Industry, to improve the capacity of local government to support local economic development.

Many municipalities have very poor citizens who depend on grants. Municipalities need to engage in the creation of jobs and sustainable economic development, which impact on growth and sharing within municipalities.

Municipalities need skills to achieve this so that they can support small and medium enterprises, as well as attract investors. Economic development in any municipality will flourish when a municipality is well run, hence the importance of these skills.

The project is managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa. It will deploy 90 expert staff, and the first tranche of those deployed started on 2 May 2006. The skills that we have targeted in this regard are financial and economic skills, and skills in technical and engineering-related fields.

With regard to the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition, discussions with various departments, including the Department of Labour and, of course, labour itself, the private sector and state-owned enterprises, are in place. We have been able to work with them to identify and begin to attract priority and required skills for the acceleration of growth. This will improve the outputs of the further education and training colleges and other tertiary institutions in order to prepare young people to work more rapidly and to ensure that the national skills development strategy works more effectively to support more economic activity.

Some of the Jipsa initiatives within the municipalities include the fact that in Jipsa we have identified city engineering and town planning as priority and scarce skills. We have identified planning skills and skills required for local economic development as priority and scarce skills. Jipsa also focuses on intermediate artisanal and technical skills, which are also crucial for rolling out and maintaining municipal infrastructure and ensuring service delivery.

We have another initiative we are launching soon that is a partnership between Old Mutual and Samdi. Through this programme we will train 100 municipal project managers. We are launching this initiative on 1 June next week. Thank you, Chair.

Mnu M A MZIZI: Sihlalo ohloniphekileyo, ngiyabonga ePhinini likaMongameli ngempendulo ecace kahle yokuthi kubhekwephi ngalokhu kusizwa komnotho ukuthi uthuthuke. Nakhu-ke okuncane okungethusayo futhi okuvuka empendulweni yakho Phini likaMongameli: Maqondana nalolu lwazi oluzodingeka, ubunyoninco kanye nakho konke kokuthi sikwazi ukuthuthukiswa, ngakube empeleni inqubomgomo kahulumeni imi kuphi ngoba phela uvalo lwethu lusekuthini njengoba uCosatu eseke washo ukuthi iGear ayizange iphumelele, ngakube i-Asgisa ayikho yini nayo engozini yokuthi izoba inyumba na? Ngiyabonga.

IPHINI LIKAMONGAMELI: Baba uMzizi, yize noma esidlangalaleni sibonakala sengathi sinenkulumo-mpikiswano noCosatu ngalolu daba lwe-Asgisa, ekusebenzeni siyasebenzelana. Ake ngithathe nje i-Jipsa le ehambelana namakhono kakhulu, usihlalo wekomidi lezobuchwepheshe kwiJipsa uMnu Gwede Mantashe, onguNobhala Jikelele we-National Union of Mineworkers. Phela ipolitiki iyasivumela ukuthi kwezinye izindawo sivivinyane kodwa kwezinye izindawo sisebenze ngokubambisana. Ngakho-ke anginalo ixhala kakhulu.

Uma ngabe ukhala ngokuthi mhlawumbe iJipsa ngeke izale lutho, phela isibazalile manje ochwepheshe abangama-90 esibathumela komasipala ukuthi bayosebenza. Ngakho-ke siyayibona leyo nto yenzeka. Kanti futhi kungekudala nje kakhulu sizobona kwakhiwa isizindangqangi ezindaweni ngezindawo lezi esizikhethile, njengeziteshi zakwa-Eskom zamandla kagesi. Uzozibona zizosukuma futhi bazobe bekhona abasebenzi besebenza. Ngakho-ke wena baba ungathatheli kakhulu phezulu yonke into, ungaphakami amaphaphu. Siyabonga. [Ihlombe.]

Mnu S SHICEKA: Sihlalo, ngizobuza ngilandele izindawo ezintathu. Owokuqala umbuzo uthi ngabe lukhona yini uhlelo lokuthuthukisa umhlahlandlela kwezomnotho kohulumeni basekhaya, omasipala, omasipala bezifunda nakomasipala bamadolobha amakhulu ngoba uma ngabe sikhuluma ngokuthi kufuneka kube khona ukuthuthukiswa kwezindawo, kufuneka lokho kube nesizinda esihambisana nomhlahlandlela futhi esiqondene nomnotho nje kuphela, ngaphandle kwezinhlelo zokuthuthukisa ngendlela ehlanganisayo? Ingabe kukhona yini ukugqugquzela omasipala kuzwelonke ukuthi bakwenze lokho ukuze kuhlangane ezingeni lezifunda nakuzwelonke?

Okwesibili wudaba lokuthi ngabe kukhona yini ukugqugquzeleka komasipala ukuthi babheke ukuthi imiphakathi yakheke kanjani ohlangothini lwamakhono akhona kubo bonke omasipala kuzwelonke ukuze umasipala ngamunye azi ukuthi nhloboni yamakhono akhona kwizakhamuzi zawo? Lokhu kusho ukuthi kubhekwe kusukela ezingeni lesigceme kuya phezulu.

Umbuzo wokugcina umaqondana nezizinda zemfundo ephakeme. Ngabe kukhona yini ukuvumelana nazo ukuthi abantu ezibaqeqeshayo baphelelaphi? Lukhona uhlelo lokubalandela ukuze kwaziwe ukuthi bayasebenza yini, bahlezi nje dekle abenzi lutho noma kukhona yini okuthile abakwenzayo kokuthuthukisa izwe lakithi? Ngiyabonga, Sihlalo. (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Mr M A MZIZI: Hon Chairperson, I thank the Deputy President for her clear answer as to where are we going with helping this economy to develop, but what frightens me from your response, Deputy President, is this: With regard to knowledge that will be necessary, expertise and everything else that would enable us to develop, where does government’s policy stand, because our fear is that, as Cosatu has already said, Gear did not succeed? Is Asgisa not in danger of being unsuccessful as well? Thank you.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Mr Mzizi, although out there we are seen as debating with Cosatu about this issue of Asgisa, we work together. Let me take Jipsa as example - which has a lot to do with skills - whose chairperson of the committee on technology is Mr Gwede Mantashe, the Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers. Politics allows us to test one another in some cases and in others we work together, so I don’t have that much of a problem.

If perhaps you are complaining about Jipsa not achieving anything, it has already given birth to 90 technicians, whom we have sent to work at municipalities. Therefore, we also see that happening. In the near future we will see infrastructure being built in areas that we have identified, such as Eskom power stations. You will see them being erected and there will be workers working, so do not rush things. Thank you. [Applause.]

Mr S SHICEKA: Chair, I’m going to ask three questions. The first one is: Is there a programme for developing economic frameworks in local government, municipalities, district municipalities and big metropolitan municipalities, because if we talk about the fact that there must be development, there must be a centre which goes hand in hand with the guideline and this should be relevant to the economy despite programmes that are meant to develop in an integrated manner. Is there some kind of encouragement of municipalities nationally to do that so that this also works at regional and national levels?

The second question is: Are municipalities encouraged to see to it that communities have skills that are already available in all municipalities nationally so that each municipality understands what kinds of skills are available in the ranks of its citizens? It means that this is expected from wards upwards.

The last question concerns itself with higher education institutions. Is there an agreement with them as to what happens to people that they train? Is there a programme in place to check whether they are working and doing something to develop our country or they are not doing anything? Thank you, Chairperson.]

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Chair, and thanks, hon member, for the questions. The first question is to do with whether we have a programme for the economic development of municipalities to ensure that the growth we are talking about can also happen in the local areas.

The local economic development plans are supposed to play that role, but I’m sure the comrade and I would be the first to know that that is one area in which we are still very weak. Therefore, in terms of our work in Asgisa, that is the area to focus on. You mustn’t try to do many things at local level. If we can crack that area, that would be a major achievement.

That is why, in the identification of scarce and priority skills, we have identified skills that have to do with local economic development as crucial skills. However, I would suspect that we will not be able to attract enough people to work as economists and with other related skills at local level. That is why we have taken these 100 people from municipalities to train as project managers, so that, even though they may not be economic experts, with support and the proper skills in project management, we will still be able to use them. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that would also give us the kind of edge that we want.

In fact, as I indicated, that is a joint programme between Old Mutual and us. I wanted it to have this private-sector edge to it, because these are the people that we want to position strategically for local economic development.

Again, as I normally do when I come to this House, I need you, members, in your constituencies to be partners – to assist – because your leadership capabilities would also go a long way in facilitating effectiveness. I think what we could do is share with you where the people we are training are coming from, so that if they are in your constituencies you can also give them support. In answer to the second question on developing community profiles so that in each municipality we can see what kind of skills exist in those municipalities: I don’t think that is happening, hon member. But I also suspect that this would be a tall order for most municipalities. This is not an idea we will throw away. Let me interrogate it and see if this is something that we can work with.

This may be an interesting project also for constituency offices – for us actually to reach out. I think we can generate resources to assist you in your constituencies. You can take young people and students to do fieldwork. So maybe this could be an interesting assignment for the NCOP, with which we as the Presidency will gladly collaborate. So let’s talk about it.

On the issue of the response of higher education institutions on what happens to the graduates that come out of those universities: yes, hon member, we are trying to establish that. In the work we have been doing about the plight of unemployed graduates, one of the things that has come out clearly is that there are certain universities whose graduates are most likely to be unemployed. There are certain universities that therefore have a bigger challenge about the kind of graduates they produce.

We’ve commissioned a thorough study to track this phenomenon so that when we work on placing and assisting those graduates that are already out there and unemployed, we engage, at the same time, with the institutions that are training the graduates, so that we can see why we continue to have so many unemployed graduates from particular universities and also in general.

In fact, there may just be an opportunity for that study also to be presented to the members of the NCOP. We commissioned UCT to do that study, and they’ve just completed it. They will be presenting the study to the President. So I don’t want to say too much and take away the punch of the presentation when it is given, but this is something that the members may really find interesting as a piece of information. This is because when you deal with and call institutions of higher learning to speak to you here, you will know some of the sharp questions that you need to raise with them. Thank you.

Dr F J VAN HEERDEN: Thank you, Chairperson. Madam Deputy President, you indicated that you have started already appointing, on 2 May this year, some of the 90 people. Is the number 90 cast in stone, or will you go beyond that until such time as other people are also properly trained, or is this just the number of people identified at this stage? Thank you, Chairperson.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thanks, Chair. No, hon member, the number 90 is not cast in stone. It’s just the number of people that we have been able to screen thoroughly. We have actually engaged them and told them that they have been appointed. In fact, I think that to date the number is even 150.

There is also a need for us, before we deploy the people, to make sure that the receiving institutions are ready to receive and to utilise these people effectively. So, we certainly will be guided by demand and supply. Ninety is not a magic figure.

Role of private sector in Asgisa, shared economic growth and benefits

1. Mr V V Z Windvoël asked the Deputy President:

   With reference to the Government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (Asgisa), (a) what measures will be put in place to ensure shared economic growth by small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and black economic empowerment (BEE) companies, (b) what is the role of the private sector and the three spheres of government in Asgisa’s implementation, (c) how will Asgisa benefit (i) women, (ii) the youth, (iii) people with disabilities and (iv) the rural communities and (d) what is its interface with the Expanded Public Works Programme? C27E

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chair, the answer to this question is that there are several interventions that are designed to support small business. One of them is the acceleration of the Apex and Mafisa micro loan programmes.

Another is a new product developed by Khula for entrepreneurs that are looking for loans of between R10 000 and R250 000. So the one intervention is in the issue of access to finance because, as you know, that’s a big challenge for small business. Another is through support for co-operatives, especially in rural areas, through an initiative we call “Jobs for growth”.

Yet another one is the rolling out of centres in different localities. This initiative is driven by the Small Enterprise Development Agency, Sieda. It is in these centres that people are able to get information about business plans, business opportunities, product development mechanisms, and so on.

The National African Chamber of Commerce, Nafcoc, also has an initiative that is aimed at creating 100 000 SMMEs every year. We are supporting Nafcoc in this initiative and we hope that if it is successful, it will add a lot of impetus to the small business environment.

Also regarding small business, it is important for hon members to note that Cabinet has already adopted a plan to remove unnecessary regulatory obstacles that make the work of SMMEs either cumbersome or expensive. These include the tax burden - and you would have noticed that during the Budget Vote debate the Minister of Finance announced some of those measures - and poorly designed or implemented labour regulations.

Again, hon members would note that sometimes our own regulations, the way they are structured and the way we implement them, are just so difficult that they actually make the work of small business harder. So there’s a process in DTI to simplify the registration that includes, among other things, using a lot of the electronic facilities to engage small business, which is done on time, efficiently and cheaply so that people don’t spend a lot of time posting and receiving forms, or standing in queues.

Of course, that presupposes that they have access to computers and things. So that’s yet another challenge. We need to keep up with regard to the challenge of access.

We’ve also paid particular attention to the unfavourable municipal, legal environment - the many bylaws that you find in our municipalities that make it difficult for small business to do trade - starting with some of the challenges of those who are trading in the streets. We have to strike a balance between allowing them to remain informal, but at the same time make sure that we do not have a proliferation of entities in every corner selling amagwinya [fat cakes] or ikhanda lengulube [pig’s head] and so on, which in itself can create problems. So that is a very tricky balance that we have to strike.

We have therefore pushed in the direction of the simplification of resources, improving access to finance and improving the support system for product development.

The initiative on co-operatives is going quite well. We are now in a phase where we are training the trainers. At least 70 of them are in training as we speak. We have collaborated with an institution in India, which has a track record of training micro entrepreneurs to become productive.

Again, I need to say to the comrade who was talking about Cosatu that amongst the 70 are comrades from Cosatu and the SACP. You know, Cosatu really believes in co-operatives. So they’ve sent people to participate in our training, and they are very good. And very soon I’ll be travelling with them to India for exposure and for us to look at how the skills that we are imparting to them have been applied in that environment, as well as how successful they have worked. In that way we are then able to reach out to this particular crucial constituency of SMMEs.

Asgisa is also a national initiative; it’s not just about government. We are co-operating with all spheres of government, business and civil society. In fact, one of the cornerstones of Asgisa is to make sure that the social partners are active and that they commit both energy and resources in this regard.

For instance, Jipsa, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition, is hosted by the national business initiative. This business organisation has provided offices and part of the personnel, and we have joint working fora that include government, business and labour, as well as professionals and educational experts. All of us are working together.

We are doing work on business processing, outsourcing and tourism as a sector. Again, business institutions are playing a very big role in making sure that those two strategies are moving forward.

As I indicated earlier, Mr Gwede Mantashe is also participating. He is the chairperson of the technical task team, and I must say that he does a fantastic job; he keeps everybody on his or her toes in that committee. Business and labour were also consulted at the time we were developing Asgisa, and so was civil society.

At provincial level we have provincial initiatives that are flagships of the provinces, which are also part of Asgisa. For instance, in the Eastern Cape you have the Umzimvubu catchment area, and with that initiative we are trying to build a dam in order for us to move forward with developing a robust forestry industry, which then will have other downstream benefits such as power and paper. This will go a long way towards creating employment in that area, which is very depressed, as many of you would know.

We have, for instance in Mpumalanga, the Moloto Corridor, which is addressing the improvement of the roads there and, to have it aligned, articulates much better with rail. I think we all know that that remains a very challenging road. We have accidents there, but there’s also a lot of congestion because the traffic, people moving up and down, has increased phenomenally.

The Northern Cape has its own initiative, a diamond and general mineral beneficiation, which is part of Asgisa. Salga also sits on the task team that is responsible for Jipsa, and so do national Ministers and Premiers. So it is integrated in that manner; you have intergovernmental participation and different members of society from outside of government participating.

The second economy interventions also seek to draw women, and the youth in particular, as well as people with disabilities and people in rural communities out of poverty. Asgisa programmes support the integration of the second economy and ultimately seeks to eliminate it from the broader economy, so that you do not have people who are destined for poverty and people who are destined to getting richer and richer.

One of the ways in which we are doing that is accelerating infrastructure investment and development. For instance, if you talk about roads, that is one aspect that will hamper the movement of goods and services in the rural areas. As you will see in the Extended Public Works Programme’s budget for this year, there’s a lot of emphasis on providing funds for roads.

Of course, we are also targeting women. I’ve mentioned the co-ops. We also have the National Youth Service, another initiative that is targeting young people. The National Youth Service will be relaunched this year as part of our 30th youth anniversary celebrations. We are targeting 100 000 young people, as the President indicated, as a core of what we will be bringing to the National Youth Service.

However, our intention is to have the National Youth Service, within the next two to three years, as one of our biggest programmes in government, through which we take young people who drop out of society, and engage them actively in responsible activities where they will acquire skills; they will be involved in providing community service and will also undergo self- development.

So on the Expanded Public Works Programme, which is a key second economy intervention, the mandate has been expanded to include roads. This will entail funds over the coming Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, targeting about 60 000 more people maintaining roads and about 100 000 additional people in jobs, averaging six months in road-building and training.

A thousand more small black contractors will be developed. New access roads will have a significant impact on the conditions and opportunities in some poor and rural areas.

Plans for a new approach to the maintenance of public infrastructure are also part of Asgisa, and they will be linked to the Extended Public Works Programme. The Extended Public Works Programme is ahead of its target. At the end of 2005 it had 223 000 unemployed people, who had been brought into the service of public works, with income coming out of 3 400 projects around the country.

In future expanded public works will include home-based care and early childhood development, and that should benefit a lot of women and young people. Thank you.

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE COUNCIL: Chairperson, thanks to the hon Deputy President for - I’m not sure whether or not I’m out of order, I see a hand there – such a very informative and detailed response. My only request, if possible, is whether the hon Deputy President can share with us a copy of her response. It would be quite useful to take it to the constituencies.

I was trying, with my shorthand skills, to follow all the details and I couldn’t cope in the end. That is my request to the Deputy President. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: That is not a question; it’s a request for a copy of the reply.

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE COUNCIL: Yes, if it is possible for her to share a copy with us.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: With pleasure, Chair. [Laughter.]

Nksk N D NTWANAMBI: Mhlalingaphambili, njengombuzo wokulandelisa kale mpendulo kaSekela-Mongameli, bendifuna ukuqonda kuye ukuba ngaba le mibono mihle kangaka iza kuhla na iye koomasipala basemakhaya, nanjengoko kufuneka ibe ngabo abaza kuqhuba le nqwelo, ukwenzela ukuba bobathathu oorhulumente sibeve bengqisha ngesingqi esinye. Enkosi. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)

[Ms N D NTWANAMBI: Chairperson, this is a follow-up question to the reply by the Deputy President. I want to know if these good ideas will filter through to the local municipalities, as they are a driving force for better co-operation among the three tiers of government. Thank you.]

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chair, the answer is yes, we will be working with municipalities. In fact, it’s almost impossible to do some of this work without the municipalities. If you think about home-based care and recruiting people for extended public works, you need the municipalities and councillors.

I think you and I know how, in Gugulethu, when there are opportunities like these, the house of every councillor has people knocking at the door because people know that the councillors are the ones who will register the names and make sure that there’s a process that is followed. So, definitely, there will be that collaboration with them.

Of course, you also need the municipalities as collaborators. You use their venues and in some cases you bring in their expertise to provide training and manage some of the programmes.

But in the case, for instance, of the National Youth Service, municipalities have undertaken the best of the pilot national youth services that we have had. The municipality that comes to mind is the Moses Kotane Municipality in the North West. They have brought in young people to work in their housing programmes and they have done fantastic work. We are calling on other municipalities to become partners in the implementation of the National Youth Service and provide opportunities for young people actually to come and do even refuse collection. Our young people are so sophisticated that maybe they won’t like that one too much. But still, there’s an art in collecting refuse. So we can position that as a particular task. So, definitely, there will be collaboration. Thanks, Chair.

Mr M A SULLIMAN: Chairperson, my question relates to Asgisa. Asgisa is our South African programme. However, we also form part of the SADC family. I would like to know from the Deputy President whether this particular programme of ours will have positive spin-offs for SADC countries as well. Thank you, Chair.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chairperson, the approach we have taken in relation to SADC and how we will collaborate with the neighbouring countries is to say that we are going to grow the sectors that we have identified as growth factors, for instance, within the context of a larger Southern African market, because then we all benefit.

For instance, tourism is a key sector. We are pushing for the uni-visa, which will allow people to go into any country in Southern Africa; they can come to South Africa, go to Lesotho or Mozambique, but will need one visa to visit all these countries. So you simplify the logistics of movement for the tourists. In that way you create possibilities.

Coming to infrastructure, some of our infrastructure, as you know, is cross- border; it is not just infrastructure that will benefit South Africa, but it will ease trade in the whole region. So it is more at that level we are able to take on board common needs.

In the area of skills, we’d also like to share some of our initiatives around training with our SADC partners and in fact have them participate. Just to give you an example, there is one institution that I have been speaking with, which wants to invest in the expansion of provision of technical skills for young people. We have made it a precondition that the composition of the students that we will take into that training facility must not just be South African, it must also include students from other African states. So we try and do it that way. Thanks.

Mr O M THETJENG: Chairperson, I just want to ask the Deputy President a question, which has to do with the implementation of Asgisa. Deputy President, you made mention of the fact that there is a need to look at some of the factors that might actually impede the implementation of some labour regulations. The question is: Is there now a consideration of the need to review the labour laws or is the intention to look at them in relation to the SMMEs? In your response you mentioned that there are some laws that are difficult to implement. Thank you, Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: There is still a problem with our sound system. I don’t know whether I’m the only one experiencing it. I think that needs attention. People do speak into the microphone but one can’t hear them properly.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chairperson, I said earlier in my reply that we’ve undertaken a review of some of our regulations that impact negatively on small business. So, yes, we have identified those regulations that hamper small business development and we’ve tried to simplify them. Some of them are tax-related, and we’ve simplified them. And this is an ongoing task.

In the Presidency itself we are going to establish a unit that will specialise continuously. Sometimes you remove regulations and introduce others, and maybe in the new regulation bring back some of the problems you were trying to solve. So that unit will continuously monitor that you don’t give with one hand, and take away with the other.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: Hon members, you are aware that there are four follow-up questions per question. I see hands shooting up. I’ve already allowed four follow-up questions. Anyway, the Chief Whip of the Council didn’t ask a follow-up question. I’ll allow one person to ask a follow-up question, and that is Mrs Mchunu. That is the last follow-up question.

Ms A N T MCHUNU: Hon Chairperson, I would like to know from the hon Deputy President how the youth service core will be identified and how the pool of 100 000 will be built up from the various communities. Thank you.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chairperson, the pool of 10 000 has already been identified, mainly in the nodes in the poorest municipalities. These will be people, in the main, who come from indigent families. So you already have a database of those people because some of them receive free basic services. So it’s easy to identify those kinds of families. That’s the information most municipalities have used.

I don’t think that we have fully established a method that will be the only method in the long term, because you don’t want to identify only those young people that come from the poorest families. A young person can come from a family that can be described as the “poorest” but as a young person may be very poor and disadvantaged because he or she dropped out of school, and so on. If you don’t bring him or her in you then risk perpetuating hardship for that young person.

So we’re not on top of the detail as yet. We’ll just deal with this first lot in order to test that the programmes that we are introducing work. The criteria, etc, we are going to fine-tune. The criteria will be advertised in newspapers and government information resources, and I think there will be opportunities for members to actually engage in the process. Probably at some point the National Youth Commission and Umsobomvu will even come and brief you here, as they are the ones driving this process, under Minister Essop Pahad.

          Civil society participation in roll-out of Asgisa

1. Mr N D Hendrickse asked the Deputy President:

   (a) What is being done to encourage more civil society participation in the rolling out of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (Asgisa) and (b) how will this programme stimulate the small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) sector? C40E

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Chairperson, the answer to this question is that many elements of civil society were consulted in the formulation of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa. That also includes business and labour, women’s groups and representatives of youth formations.

This helped to shape Asgisa, not as a government initiative, but rather as a national initiative. Many of these groups are also involved in the implementation of Asgisa projects, even though I think we can improve on how we continuously engage these constituencies.

Of course, that means that we have to have effective communication, which will be important to consolidate and develop further relationships between the state and civil society. Civil society has a particular interest in matters relating to the second economy, and in all our interactions that is what has come out very clearly.

Nongovernmental organisations are already playing a key role in co- operatives, supporting youth and small, medium and micro enterprise development.

When we engage in local economic development activities, which is the next phase of our activity, I am sure we will depend a lot on collaboration with civil society. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: There are no follow-up questions.

Now, with regard to question 4, in agreement with Mr Watson, the question will be withdrawn for now.

                         PEACE AND SECURITY

                              Cluster 1

MINISTERS:

Temporary employment of staff in Department of Justice and Constitutional Development

1. Mr O M Thetjeng asked the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development: (a) What percentage of staff in her department has been employed on temporary employment contracts, (b) what is the longest period that a staff member has been employed in a temporary capacity and (c) what staff establishment levels do these temporary staff members occupy? C70E

The DEPUTY MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Chairperson, the reply is that we currently have 11,76% of our total staff complement on temporary employment contracts. This is calculated as follows: the total staff complement, excluding judges and magistrates who, of course, are independent from our department, is 13 005; total staff on temporary employment contract is 1 529 and that gives you a percentage of 11,76%.

The longest period that a staff member has been employed in a temporary capacity is 10 years. The levels of employees in question are as follows: in salary level 1 there are 24 employees; salary level 2 has 79 employees; salary level 3 has 734 employees; salary level 4 has 269 employees; in salary level 5 there are 89 employees; salary level 6 has 35 employees; salary level 7 has 179 employees; salary level 8 has 29 employees; in salary level 9 there are 22 employees; in salary level 10 there are 32 employees; in salary level 11 there are 21 employees; in salary level 12 there are 6 employees; in salary level 13 there are 5 employees; in salary level 14 there are 4 employees; and in salary level 15 there is one employee. That gives you a total of 1 529.

It should be noted that the percentages are calculated according to the salary level in relation to the staff complement. Obviously we are, together with the Department of Public Service and Administration, trying to convert as many of these temporary and these contractual employment situations into permanent positions.

Mr O M THETJENG: Chairperson, I just want to check the following with the Deputy Minister. Seeing he has indicated that they are busy, together with the Department of Public Service and Administration, converting the temporary staff into permanent, what is the timeframe in terms of finalising the process to make these temporary staff members permanent?

Secondly, will this take the entire staff that are temporary or a certain percentage of staff that are temporary and make them permanent?

The DEPUTY MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Well, you could never make all of them permanent. With the department of ours that works with many professionals, particularly lawyers, clearly, with many of them you contract their service as you need it. So that can’t be one of those, particularly regarding those at the higher levels. Obviously, at the lower levels, those positions should clearly not be contractual and should not be temporary. If those posts are available, they should be dealt with.

We have a particular problem, historically, and I do not know what the reasons for this are. For some reason, in the Master’s Office, where there are a lot of vacancies, instead of employing people at a permanent level, the practice has developed that we have temporary staff there. So, clearly, in those areas where there are posts available, those posts will, hopefully, be filled as they go. But you will never be able to get rid of temporary staff and contractual staff completely.

Clearly, concerning the vast majority of them, particularly where there are vacancies, you should not have the anomaly that exists. That is what we are working on and it’s an issue which was raised at the last Cabinet lekgotla as something that should be dealt with quite expediently. Obviously, in terms of timeframes, we want to do it as quickly as possible but I can’t give you specific timeframes. Thank you.

Mr O M THETJENG: Chairperson, I just want to make a request to Deputy Minister: Is it possible to have the response that he has just given in writing? Is it possible to have the response he has given in a written form? Thank you, Chairperson.

The DEPUTY MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Service delivery, Chair. [Applause.]

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: You could even actually access it from the Hansard - even if you had not asked for it.

     Charges against constable for acts committed while on duty

1. Ms D Robinson asked the Minister of Safety and Security:

   (1) Whether, in light of the fact that a number of charges, including assault, have been laid against a certain constable (details furnished) for acts committed while on duty, he has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation of these charges; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details;

   (2) (a) how many charges have been laid against the said constable and (b) what were the findings of the investigations into these charges;

   (3) whether any investigation is being carried out into allegations that colleagues of the said constable either (a) assisted the said constable in assaulting detainees or (b) failed to prevent the said constable from assaulting detainees; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details? C56E

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Chairperson, we investigated three cases of alleged assault against the member. Unfortunately, in building up our case we could not generate incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing. Nonetheless, we decided to subject the matter to disciplinary inquiry. As a consequence of that a report has now been handed to the discipline section of the SA Police Service.

The member was obviously not suspended, because there was no prima facie evidence against him. What we did, given the fact that we were inquiring into what actually happened, is that we placed him under supervision at a community service centre. Thank you.

Ms D ROBINSON: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your answer, Minister. I am still very concerned about the levels of violence that do exist within our society as a whole, and then obviously also within the police force, whether this has been proved or not. We know that many cases similar to this are alleged to have taken place.

I think we can link this to the stress levels under which police work. What is being done in order to assist policemen who have this very difficult job to do to cope with the anger and the violence in their stress? Could you perhaps just elaborate on that, to assist as you have done with the supervision? I think that is a useful way of dealing with it, but what about the others in general? Thank you.

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Well, I don’t know what reasons the hon member would have to connect this particular matter to the question of stress levels, because we do not have that evidence. As I say, we have investigated this matter and as far as we are concerned there was no prima facie evidence that this person actually committed the offences that he allegedly committed. So, I don’t understand why she is making a connection between the two.

Nonetheless, we are on record over a number of years now as indicating the programmes that we have to deal with matters that relate to stress levels in the SA Police Service. We built up a section and that section is growing. In fact, it is a full division as we speak, which is referred to as the employee assistance services. It is those services, which are comprised of social workers, psychiatrists and religious leaders who are responsible for the counselling of the members that we have, to try and deal with those matters.

We are aware that one aspect of the problems that our people experience has to do with conditions of service. But I am sure many of us who are seated here are aware of the changes we have made relevant to the conditions of service for the better with respect to our members in the SA Police Service – much better than the case has been in the past to try and address some of the problems that they have.

In terms of workload, we have also addressed the matter. There are more police officials in South Africa today than there have ever been in the past. In fact, by the end of the 2007-08 financial year we shall have in excess of 165 000 members of the SA Police Service. When I became Minister of Safety and Security in 2002, there were 130 000 members.

Now, the growth therefore, in terms of the numbers of the complement of the SA Police Service, has to do with the fact that we are trying to lessen the burden that the members of the SA Police Service have in terms of the work that they do. Thank you very much.

Mr D A WORTH: Thank you, Chairperson. The Independent Complaints Directorate investigated 4 083 complaints of alleged police misconduct between April and December 2005. Of these complaints, 482 related to deaths and of these 227 were directly as a result of police action. Does the Minister agree with the National Police Commissioner that the Independent Complaints Directorate has outlived its usefulness? Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: I don’t like to direct actually to the Ministers, but I am not sure whether that is not a new question altogether that should be asked separately. But, normally if the Minister is in a position to shed light on it, with pleasure Minister. However, I think that that is a new question altogether and not a follow-up question to this question. Is there any follow-up question? No follow-up questions.

                       Metro Police functions

1. Mr M A Mzizi asked the Minister of Safety and Security:

   (1) Whether it is within the jurisdiction of the Metro Police to carry out the function of arrest and detention of suspects; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details;

   (2) whether the line function of the SA Police Service, namely of executing warrants of arrest issued by the courts, has changed to be the line function of the Metro Police, thus giving more authority over to the Metro Police; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details;

   (3) whether his department is considering placing the Metro Police function under the supervision of the Provincial Commissioner; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details? C60E

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Chairperson, he indicated to me earlier on that he had an interest in joining the Metro Police, but he wants to be the chief without any training. [Laughter.]

Members of the Metro Police Service are peace officers and, as such, they have all the powers that the police have. That means they have the power, for instance, to serve warrants of arrest and they have the power to arrest. But they do not have detention facilities, as the police have, and therefore as soon as they have effected an arrest they must then hand over the suspect to the police, who have detention facilities.

Of course, the matter of the police and how they are structured in South Africa is indicated in the Constitution. Section 199 of the Constitution defines the SA Police Service as a “single police service”. In fact, section 205 of the Constitution goes further to define the work of this single police service and says that the national Commissioner exercises - that is not the exact words but this is the effect – command and control of every police person in South Africa at national, provincial and, where appropriate, local government level.

As a consequence of that, there is a discussion and consultations are happening in order for us to implement the Constitution correctly and therefore bring every police officer into this single police service, but that matter has not been finalised yet. It will be finalised when, in the first instance, there is full agreement that will be endorsed by Cabinet, and we will come back to Parliament for the final endorsement. The orientation is towards the consolidation of the Police Service in terms of the stipulations of the Constitution. Thank you.

Mnu M A MZIZI: Sihlalo, cha uNgqongqoshe uyasho khona ukuthi mhlawumbe ngabe benginalo ihaba lokuthi ngifuna ukuya kwaMetro.

Ngizwile futhi uchaze kwezwakala. Okusempeleni, okwenza ukuthi lo mbuzo uvele yingoba kuyabonakala ekusebenzeni kwabo laba beMetro ukuthi abehlukile kangako kumatshigogo, uma ngabe uNgqongqoshe uyawazi amatshigogo.

Inkinga esiba nayo ukuthi uma befika nencwadi ebagunyaza ukubopha umuntu, akubi nankulumo bakukhahlela bakwenze zonke izinto ezingenziwa amaphoyisa. Yingakho-ke size sibuze ukuthi ngabe umsebenzi abaphezu kwawo uyafana ncamashi yini nowamaphoyisa. Ngiyezwa-ke lapho Ngqongqoshe njengoba empendulweni yakho uthi banalo ilungelo lokukwenza konke; kodwa kuvuka imibuzo.

Maduzane nje kuke kwaba necala lena kwaZulu-Natali, noma uNatali ngifuna ukumlahla eceleni nje, lapho kwatholakala khona ukuthi wona lawa matshigogo anawo amaseli lapho ebopha khona abantu. Kuthe-ke ijaji lomthetho enkantolo enkulu lathi uma ngabe uboshwe yitshigogo laze lakuvalela, kufanele kuthathwe ngokuthi ubanjwe ngendluzula. Uma ungayifunda nje iCitizen yakho yayizolo, kukhona Lokho, Ngqongqoshe.

Ngabe uNgqongqoshe uthini kule mpendulo yejaji ethi cha abanalo ilungelo lokubopha – ngoba, ngempela bakushaya kangangokuthi ungagijima uyongena evenini uma kufike bona engakafiki amaphoyisa. (Translation of isiZulu paragraphs follows.)

[Mr M A MZIZI: Chairperson, no, the Minister has indicated that perhaps I was extraordinary in wanting to go to Metro. I did hear and was satisfied with her explanation. In essence, what brought about this question is the realization that the work that the Metro does is no different from that of the “matshigogo”, if the Minister is familiar with that concept.

The problem we often encounter is that each time they bring along with them a warrant of arrest, they engage in many forms of harassment, which policemen don’t engage in. This is the basis of the question we are asking, which is whether their work is similar in nature to that of policemen. I accordingly hear the Minister and it is very clear from your explanation that they can do just about everything that the police can do. This, however, raises questions.

Recently there was a court case in KwaZulu-Natal, although I want to avoid Natal, and in the course of things it was discovered that these “matshigogos” have their private jail cells, where they put arrested people. The Judge of the Supreme Court stated that if you had been arrested by the “tshigogos”, and you were going to be held in custody, it could only be concluded under the circumstances that you had been forcibly arrested. If you could read the article in the Citizen, hon Minister, it is what I am referring to here.

What then is the implication of the Minister’s response as opposed to the Judge’s pronouncement on the matter? The Judge stated that they didn’t have the right to make arrests. This is so because these people could assault you seriously, to the point where you really would choose to run and get to a police van before the police have even arrived on the scene.]

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Well, I am sure it is obvious to you that I am not trained legally, but I understand the law the way that I have explained it.

Once you become a peace officer, you have the right and the power to serve a warrant of arrest and to arrest. And, if they had detention facilities - I am saying they don’t have detention facilities - they would also have the right to take you into their detention facilities, because they are peace officers and they are able to do the work that police do. That is how I understand the law. I do not know the circumstances that led to the honourable Judge in Durban making the remarks he did.

With regard to the question of the standing of the Metro Police and some of the problems that attend to their functions, I want to say that it is on the back of those problems that we decided we needed one line of command so that we would not have a situation in which there are people established in ways that place themselves – whereas they are police officers - outside of the jurisdiction of the police.

We want to attend to some of the difficulties that relate to the implementation, by these other police structures, of our programme of policing in South Africa. That is why we say, let’s follow the Constitution, because when we have consolidated all policing in South Africa under the SA Police Service, we will not have some of the problems that we have as we speak.

The CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP: The next question is Question 13, by Mr Van Rooyen to the Minister of Safety and Security. Hon Minister, you are a hardworking Minister today. All the questions are directed to you.

      Police recruits deployed to Free State and crime figures

1. Mr C J van Rooyen asked the Minister of Safety and Security: (1) (a) How many new police recruits were deployed to the Free State during 2005 and (b) to which areas were they deployed; (2) whether there was any decline in crime figures in these areas as a result of these deployments; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details? C67E

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: I am surprised that it is only three questions. I usually get a lot of questions from this House.

There are 210 police officers that were deployed to the Free State in 2005. Seventy of them were sent to Northern Free State; 55 were sent to the Eastern Free State, and the Southern Free State was given 85. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to indicate what happened in terms of statistics regarding their involvement in these areas.

But we would really want to believe that, as the general trend is indicating a downward slope with respect to crime in South Africa, the Free State surely must also have benefited from the additions that were made in the province relevant to the deployment of new police officers.

Mr D A WORTH: In view of the reply, this question is also with regard to the Free State. Minister, I am sure that you would agree that the best deterrent to would-be criminals is what Justice Fagan refers to as ``the certainty of detection and punishment’’.

In view of this, how did the Free State detective services reach an over 8% vacancy level, and how does your department plan to deal with this issue?

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: In response to an earlier question, I did say that we are increasing the contingency of our police officers everywhere in South Africa. We also believe that, with time, every vacancy that we have is going to be filled.

But there is something that we also do when we deploy people. We do a profile of the places where they are going to be deployed. It is on the basis of the needs for that area that, in the end, we allocate members. Therefore, at times, you will see that there seems to be some kind of lopsidedness with respect to our deployment of people.

But, as the English people would say, there is actually method to that kind of madness. It has to do with the fact that we are looking at the profiles of the various places where we deploy police. It is our intention finally that indeed we will attend to this matter of staff shortages, wherever they arise in the SA Police Service, whether it is the functional police members that we have or administrative staff who are a support network to the functional police in the service.

See also QUESTIONS AND REPLIES. The Council adjourned at 15:10. ____

            ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS



                         MONDAY, 22 MAY 2006

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Introduction of Bills

 (1)    The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development


      a) Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of
         Communication-related Information Amendment Bill [B 9 – 2006]
         (National Assembly – sec 75) [Explanatory summary of Bill and
         prior notice of its introduction published in Government
         Gazette No 28807 of 5 May 2006.]


     Introduction and referral to the Portfolio Committee on Justice
     and Constitutional Development of the National Assembly, as well
     as referral to the Joint Tagging Mechanism (JTM) for
     classification in terms of Joint Rule 160, on 23 May 2006.


     In terms of Joint Rule 154 written views on the classification of
     the Bill may be submitted to the JTM within three parliamentary
     working days.

1. Draft Bill submitted in terms of Joint Rule 159

   1) The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development

   (a) Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Amendment Bill, 2006, submitted by the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development 8 May 2006. Referred to the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development and the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Affairs.

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister of Transport

 a) Strategic Plan of the Department of Transport for 2006 to 2009.

1. The Minister for the Public Service and Administration a) Medium-term Strategic Plan of the Department of Public Service and Administration for 2006 to 2011.

                     TUESDAY, 23 MAY 2006
   

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Council of Provinces

1. Referral to Committees of papers tabled

1.      The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Economic and Foreign Affairs for consideration:

      a) Strategic Plan of the Department of Foreign Affairs for 2006 to
         2009.


2.      The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Public Services for consideration and report:

      a) Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment,
         tabled in terms of section 231(2) of the Constitution, 1996.


      b) Protocol to the Convention on International Interests in Mobile
         Equipment on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment, tabled in
         terms of section 231(2) of the Constitution, 1996.
      c) Explanatory Memorandum to the Convention on International
         Interests in Mobile Equipment and the Protocol to the
         Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment on
         Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment.
3.      The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Security and Constitutional Affairs for consideration and report:


      a) Draft Practical Guidelines for Employees in terms of section 10
         of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2000.

4.      The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Security and Constitutional Affairs for consideration:

      a) Report of the Auditor-General on the Financial Statements of
         the Presidents’ Fund for 2003-2004 [RP 229-2005].

5.      The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Security and Constitutional Affairs:

    (a)      Report of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) for
        January 2003 to December 2003, in terms of section 18(5)(c) of
        the Domestic Violence Act, 1998 (Act No 116 of 1998).

    (b)      Report and Financial Statements of the Judicial Service
        Commission for 2005.


    (c)      Proclamation No R.3 published in Government Gazette No
         28528 dated 17 February 2006: Commission of inquiry to conduct
         an investigation into alleged illicit activities of certain
         South African Companies or Individuals relating to the United
         Nations Oil-For-Food Programme in Iraq, in terms of the
         Commissions Act, 1947 (Act No 8 of 1947).

    (d)      Government Notice No R.159 published in Government Gazette
         No 28528 dated 17 February 2006: Terms of Reference of the
         President of the Republic of South Africa for the establishment
         of a Commission of inquiry to conduct an investigation into
         alleged illicit activities of certain South African Companies
         or individuals relating to the Oil-For-Food Programme in Iraq,
         in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,
         1996.

6.      The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Education and Recreation for consideration:


      a) Strategic Plan of the Department of Education for 2006 to 2010.


      b) Strategic Plan of Sport and Recreation South Africa for 2006 to
         2010.

7.      The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Joint Budget Committee for consideration and
    report:

      a) Submission of the Financial and Fiscal Commission on the
         Division of Revenue Bill for 2007-2008, tabled in terms of
         section 9(1) of the Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Act,
         1997 (Act No 97 of 1997).


8.      The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance:
      a) Report of the Registrar of Long-term Insurance for 2004.


      b) Report of the Registrar of Short-term Insurance for 2004.


      c) Report and Financial Statements of the Financial Services
         Board on the Registrar of Friendly Societies for 2004.


      d) Government Notice No 317 published in Government Gazette No
         28699 dated 31 March 2006: Adjusted allocations in terms of
         the Division of Revenue Act, 2005 (Act No 1 of 2005).


      e) Proclamation No R.16 published in Government Gazette No 28675
         dated 29 March 2006: Fixing of date on which certain sections
         respectively must come into operation, in terms of the Revenue
         Laws Amendment Act, 2005 (Act No 31 of 2005) and Revenue Laws
         Second Amendment Act, 2005 (Act No 32 of 2005).


      f) Proclamation No R.17 published in Government Gazette No 28675
         dated 29 March 2006: Fixing of date on which section 103(1)
         shall come into operation, in terms of the Revenue Laws
         Amendment Act, 2002 (Act No 74 of 2002).


      g) Government Notice No 316 published in Government Gazette No
         28698 dated 31 March 2006: Commencement of the provisions in
         terms of the Auditing Profession Act, 2005 (Act No 26 of
         2005).


      h) Government Notice No R.238 published in Government Gazette No
         28627 dated 17 March 2006: Determination of fees payable to
         the Registrar of Securities Services in terms of the
         Securities Services Act, 2004 (Act No 36 of 2004).


      i) Government Notice No R.239 published in Government Gazette No
         28627 dated 17 March 2006: Determination of fees payable to
         the Registrar of Friendly Societies in terms of the Friendly
         Societies Act, 1956 (Act No 25 of 1956).


      j) Government Notice No R.240 published in Government Gazette No
         28627 dated 17 March 2006: Determination of fees payable to
         the Registrar of Financial Services Providers in terms of the
         Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002 (Act No
         37 of 2002).


      k) Agreement between the Government of the Federal Republic of
         Germany and the Government of the Republic of South Africa
         concerning Financial Cooperation in 2004, tabled in terms of
         section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


      l) Explanatory Memorandum on the Agreement between the Government
         of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the
         Republic of South Africa concerning Financial Cooperation in
         2004.


      m) Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
         Republic of South Africa concerning Support to the Risk
         Capital Facility (SA/007/04), tabled in terms of section
         231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


      n) Explanatory Memorandum on the Agreement between the European
         Community and the Republic of South Africa concerning Support
         to the Risk Capital Facility (SA/007/04).


      o) Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
         Republic of South Africa concerning EPRD Audit/Evaluation
         Facility (SA/006/05), tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the
         Constitution, 1996.


      p) Explanatory Memorandum on the Financing Agreement between the
         European Community and the Republic of South Africa concerning
         EPRD Audit/Evaluation Facility (SA/006/05).

9.      The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Social Services:


      a) Project Agreement between the Government of South Africa and
         the Government of Ireland on a Project for Supporting the
         Prevention, Care and Support of HIV and AIDS and the reduction
         of its impact in the Limpopo Province, through the Provincial
         Department of Health, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the
         Constitution, 1996.


    (b)      Explanatory Memorandum on the Project Agreement between
         the Government of South Africa and the Government of Ireland
         on a Project for Supporting the Prevention, Care and Support
         of HIV and AIDS and the reduction of its impact in the Limpopo
         Province.


    (c)      Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
         Republic of South Africa concerning Programme of Assistance to
         the Victim Empowerment Programme of the Department of Social
         Development in the South African Government (SA/003/05),
         tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


    (d)      Explanatory Memorandum on the Financing Agreement between
         the European Community and the Republic of South Africa
         concerning Programme of Assistance to the Victim Empowerment
         Programme of the Department of Social Development in the South
         African Government (SA/003/05).


10.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Local Government and
    Administration:

      a) Strategic Objective Grant Agreement No. 674-0332 between the
         United States of America and the Republic of South Africa for
         Increased Sustainable Local Government Service Delivery, tabled
         in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.

      b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Objective Grant
         Agreement No. 674-0332 between the United States of America and
         the Republic of South Africa for Increased Sustainable Local
         Government Service Delivery.

      c) Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
         Republic of South Africa concerning Support to Urban Renewal
         Programme in the Eastern Cape (SA/001/05), tabled in terms of
         section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.
      d) Explanatory Memorandum on the Financing Agreement between the
         European Community and the Republic of South Africa concerning
         Support to Urban Renewal Programme in the Eastern Cape
         (SA/001/05).


11.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Education and Recreation:

      a) Strategic Objective Grant Agreement No. 674-0328 between the
         United States of America and the Republic of South Africa for
         Increased Access to Quality Education and Training, tabled in
         terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.

      b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Objective Grant
         Agreement No. 674-0328 between the United States of America and
         the Republic of South Africa for Increased Access to Quality
         Education and Training.

12.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Land and Environmental Affairs:
    a) Amendment number five to the Grant Agreement between the
       Government of the United States of America acting through the
       United States Agency for International Development and the
       Government of the Republic of South Africa for the Increased
       Commercial Viability of Existing Small and Medium Agribusiness,
       tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


    b) Explanatory Memorandum on Amendment number five to the Grant
       Agreement between the Government of the United States of America
       acting through the United States Agency for International
       Development and the Government of the Republic of South Africa
       for the Increased Commercial Viability of Existing Small and
       Medium Agribusiness.


    c) Letter of Agreement for the Provision of Funds from the National
       Forest Programme Facility, through the Food and Agricultural
       Organization of the United Nations to Department of Water
       Affairs and Forestry of the Government of the Republic of South
       Africa, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution,
       1996.


    d) Explanatory Memorandum on the Letter of Agreement for the
       Provision of Funds from the National Forest Programme Facility,
       through the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
       Nations to Department of Water Affairs and Forestry of the
       Government of the Republic of South Africa.


    e) Agreement between the Government of the Republic of South Africa
       and the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark regarding the Urban
       Environmental Management Programme in South Africa (2006-2010),
       tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


    f) Explanatory Memorandum on the Agreement between the Government
       of the Republic of South Africa and the Government of the
       Kingdom of Denmark regarding the Urban Environmental Management
       Programme in South Africa (2006-2010).


13.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance, the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional
    Affairs and the Select Committee on Local Government and
    Administration:


      a) Strategic Objective Grant Agreement No 674-0330 between the
         United States of America and the Republic of South Africa for
         Democratic Consolidation Advanced, tabled in terms of section
         231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


      b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Objective Grant
         Agreement No 674-0330 between the United States of America and
         the Republic of South Africa for Democratic Consolidation
         Advanced.

14.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Economic and Foreign Affairs:


    a) Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
       Republic of South Africa concerning Economic Development Support
       Programme in the Eastern Cape (SA/003/04), tabled in terms of
       section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.
    b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Financing Agreement between the
       European Community and the Republic of South Africa concerning
       Economic Development Support Programme in the Eastern Cape
       (SA/003/04).


    c) Strategic Objective Grant Agreement No 674-0331 between the
       United States of America and the Republic of South Africa for
       Support for Economic Growth and Analysis, tabled in terms of
       section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.
    d) Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Objective Grant
       Agreement No 674-0331 between the United States of America and
       the Republic of South Africa for Support for Economic Growth and
       Analysis.


15.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance, the Select Committee on Economic and Foreign Affairs and
    the Select Committee on Local Government and Administration:

    a) Financing Agreement between the European Community and the
       Republic of South Africa concerning African Union/Nepad Capacity
       Building in Governance and Public Administration (SA/006/04),
       tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the Constitution, 1996.


    b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Financing Agreement between the
       European Community and the Republic of South Africa concerning
       African Union/Nepad Capacity Building in Governance and Public
       Administration (SA/006/04).

16.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance and the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional
    Affairs:

    a) Agreement between the Government of the Swiss Confederation and
       the Government of the Republic of South Africa concerning
       Operational Police Commanders Training in the Democratic
       Republic of Congo, tabled in terms of section 231(3) of the
       Constitution, 1996.


    b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Agreement between the Government
       of the Swiss Confederation and the Government of the Republic of
       South Africa concerning Operational Police Commanders Training
       in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

17.     The following papers are referred to the Select Committee on
    Finance, the Select Committee on Land and Environmental Affairs and
    the Select Committee on Local Government and Administration:


    a) Agreement between the Government of the Republic of South Africa
       through its National Department of Water Affairs and Forestry,
       and the Government of Switzerland through its Swiss Agency for
       Development and Cooperation concerning the Masibambane – ‘Local
       Government Capacity Building through Knowledge Sharing’ Project
       (01.04.2005-31.03.2008), tabled in terms of section 231(3) of
       the Constitution, 1996.


    b) Explanatory Memorandum on the Agreement between the Government
       of the Republic of South Africa through its National Department
       of Water Affairs and Forestry, and the Government of Switzerland
       through its Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
       concerning the Masibambane – ‘Local Government Capacity Building
       through Knowledge Sharing’ Project (01.04.2005-31.03.2008).

18.     The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Labour and Public Enterprises for consideration:


      a) Preliminary Annual Report of the Department of Labour for 2005-
         2006 [RP 45-2006].
19.     The following paper is referred to the Select Committee on
    Security and Constitutional Affairs for consideration:


      a) Strategic Plan of the Department of Correctional Services for
         2006/07 to 2010/11.

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister of Home Affairs

   1) Strategic Plan of the Department of Home Affairs for 2006/07 to 2008/09.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. Report of the Joint Monitoring Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests on Investigation regarding the Auditor-General’s Report on the Alleged Non-disclosure of Ministers and Deputy Ministers.

 Background


 The Auditor-General had on 15 September 2005 requested information
 regarding the disclosure of interests of the following Members of the
 Executive.
 The Office of the Registrar checked the disclosures and forwarded the
 following table to reflect the disclosure status of the member
 concerned. The Registrar also indicated to the Office of the Auditor-
 General that she would seek the responses from the Members concerned
 regarding the alleged non-disclosure.

 Close Corporations

 Section 21 Companies |Enterprise name            |Name                       |Disclosed in the| |                           |                           |Register        | |The Tertiary Education Fund|Pandor GNM                 |No              | |of South Africa            |                           |                | |Black South African Freedom|Sisulu Guma LN             |No              | |Songs and Poems            |                           |                | |Community Peace Foundation |Mabandla B                 |No              | |Community Peace Foundation |Mlambo Ngcuka P            |No              | |Creative Housing Utility   |Oosthuizen GC              |No              | |JobCo                      |Didiza AT                  |No              | |Biz Africa 1477            |Malusi G                   |No              | |Land and Agriculture Centre|Hanekom DA                 |No              | |SA National NGO Coalition  |Padayachie RL              |Resigned        |


 All Members had responded to the Registrar’s request for clarification
 and amendments.


 Following the publication of the “Auditor-General’s Report on the
 Declarations of Interests by Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Government
 employees” in January 2006, the Chairperson of the Joint Committee on
 Ethics and Members’ Interests requested that the Registrar obtain from
 the Auditor-General further information regarding the alleged non-
 disclosure of Members.


 The Registrar established that the Auditor-General’s Report was report
 was based on the 15 September 2005 request for information.



 The Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests met on the 5 April
 2006 to consider the Auditor-Generals’ Report.






 In order to obtain background information regarding the completeness
 and accuracy of Company and Intellectual Property Rights Organisation’s
 database, the Committee requested that the Chief Executive Officer of
 CIPRO brief it on the above matters as well as the process to resign as
 a director of a company.

1. Briefing by the Company and Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (CIPRO).

Mr Modiba (Deputy Registrar of Companies), Mr Voller and Mr Ali attended on behalf of CIPRO. They indicated that the Registrar of Companies had suddenly taken ill and was unable to attend.

The Committee was informed that Mr Modiba would respond to queries from the Committee on behalf of the Registrar of Companies. The Committee expressed its displeasure that the Registrar of Companies was not available to attend the Committee meeting.

The Committee expressed concerns on the accuracy and completeness of the database. In his response to this, Mr Modiba indicated that the database was audited and it was their view that the information was accurate. He conceded that while there are no backlogs some data may have been incorrectly captured and further that there was some information missing. Mr Modiba informed the Committee that the current e-lodgement system allows for the client to update the information electronically, thus reducing the margin for error. CIPRO had also offered to address any issues related to errors on their system on a case-by-case basis. In his input to the Committee, Mr Modiba stated that the Companies Act prescribes the process to follow when a director resigns from a company. The Act also prescribes the process to deregister a company. He agreed that CIPRO was constrained by the prescribed processes in the Companies Act.

The Committee recommended that should CIPRO find their work constrained by the Companies Act they should table amendments for Parliament’s consideration. The Committee also recommended that CIPRO improve communication with its clients.

The Committee agreed that it will hold a follow-up meeting with the Accounting Officer of CIPRO.

Briefing by the Auditor-General.

In his briefing to the Committee, the Auditor-General stated that his Office had received numerous requests to investigate alleged irregularities by government employees and had, on that basis, carried a transversal audit of 142 departments. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that public officials declare their interests appropriately.

The CIPRO databases were compared to the PERSAL database. When the list was scrutinised, Ministers and Deputy Ministers were included on the list. The Auditor-General reported that the Minister for the Public Service and Administration had indicated that she would issue a letter to all other Ministers informing them about the audit investigation with a request to cooperate with the Auditor-General.

The Registrar had been sent correspondence from the Auditor-General on the disclosure status of the Members. The Registrar responded with the information table above.

The Auditor-General indicated that the Ministers and Deputy Ministers had an opportunity to respond to the report before it was finalised.

The Committee asked the Auditor-General whether he had verified the accuracy of the CIPRO database. The Auditor-General said that he could not verify the completeness of the CIPRO database.

The Auditor-General in response to a question by a Member, indicated that there was direct engagement with individual Members and the Minister for the Public Service and Administration.

The Committee agreed that in similar cases related to Members of Parliament there should be communication between the Auditor-General, the Office of the Registrar and CIPRO. In this regard the Auditor-General should engage the Registrar to ascertain all the information before any report related to Members is published.

The Chairperson thanked the Auditor-General for the report and agreed that the process assisted in improving awareness and would aid in ensuring compliance with the requirements of the Code of Conduct.

The Committee then considered the Report of the Registrar and agreed to the following;

1. Minister C Nqakula

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of the Minister’s interests in Votani Mawethu.

The Minister responded on 13 October 2006 that Votani Mawethu was an NGO which was established to assist people to obtain identity documents for the 1999 election. The directors shut down the programme of the organisation in 2000.

The Minister was not aware that the organisation was not formally disbanded, but has now taken steps to disband the organisation.

Findings

The Committee found that the entity was a not-for-profit organisation and therefore did not need to be disclosed.

The Committee noted that the House had adopted a Committee Report on 11 November 2005, ATC number 1262, which states that Members need not disclose not-for-profit entities.

1. Deputy Minister Padayachie

The Deputy Minister has disclosed his interests in Raffles Health and Fitness Club, Vintria Investments and Property Development, Triveni Property Enterpises, he also advised the Registrar of his resignation from the SANGO Coalition.

Findings

The Member complied with the requirements of the Code, accordingly there is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Deputy Minister ME Surty

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of the Deputy Minister’s interests in Go Ja Beng Fast Foods and Happy Developers. The Deputy Minister had disclosed his interests in Casbah Cinema, Hectaris and Hectaris and Zinrus Developers.

The Deputy Minister advised that Go Ja Beng Foods and Happy Developers were deregistered on 27-06-2001. The de-registration was published in the Government Gazette of 22 June 2001, Gazette number 22372, notice number 129785.

Findings

The Committee ruled that as these companies are formally deregistered there is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister GNM Pandor

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of the Minister’s interest in Luthando and The Tertiary Education Funds of South Africa.

Minister Pandor indicated in her response on 18 October 2005 that she had disclosed her interests in Luthando in 2003 and 2004 . In 2005 she resigned her directorships in Luthando and therefore did not deem it necessary to disclose.

She also indicated that the section 21 company Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa no longer existed.

Findings

There is no breach regarding the Tertiary Education Fund as Members are not required to disclose directorships in section 21 companies. Refer to (ATC of 11 November 2005 number 1262).

The Committee found that on the matter of Luthando, the Member had disclosed in 2004. With regard to her directorship in Luthando the Committee accepts the Minister’s undertaking that she had resigned her directorship.

The Committee finds that there is no breach of the Code.

1. Deputy Minister N Hangana

Deputy Minister N Hangana has disclosed her interests in Balsas Management and All Pay.

Findings

There is no breach of the Code as the Member disclosed her interests as required.

1. Deputy Minister GC Oosthuizen

On the 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of interests in companies in Momentum Oil Refinery Explorations, Thaba Drank Kelders, Braai Spot CC and section 21 company Creative Housing Utility.

The Deputy Minister Oosthuizen produced documents which show that he resigned as director of Momentum Oil refinery on the 1 January 1985. Deputy Minister produced documents that shows that he resigned from Creative Housing Untility on 20 June 1987.

The Deputy Minister indicated that Thaba Drank Kelders and Braai Spot CC were dormant and were deregistered in November 2005. The Deputy Minister had also shown that the companies had not traded for more than 10 years and that Thaba Drank Winkel was established in 1986 and the Deputy Minister was unaware that he was connected to the entities.

Findings

The Committee finds that there is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Deputy Minister MKN Gigaba

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of the Deputy Minister’s interests in Development Enterprise for Management and Strategic Services as well as Biz Africa.

In his response on 11 October 2005 the Deputy Minister submitted a copy of his letter of resignation from Development Enterprise for Management and Strategic Services. The Deputy Minister advised that his participation in Biz Africa was in his capacity as the President of the ANC Youth League, he relinquished the Presidency on 14 August 2004 and, automatically, all interests in Biz Africa.

Findings

There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. The Committee notes that Deputy Minister Gigaba had disclosed both the interests in his 2004 disclosure, this gives credence to his response that he is in the process of resigning the interests.

1. Deputy President P Mlambo-Ngcuka

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested in writing details of the Deputy President’s interests in Lesila (burial society) and The Community Peace Foundation, a section 21 company.

The Deputy President responded on the 14 November 2005 that in 1997 the University of the Western Cape deregistered the Community Peace Foundation.

The Deputy President indicated that Lesila was established in 1999, in response to frequent requests for assistance with burials by members of the community.

The Deputy President further indicated that Lesila was established to provide financial support to needy families who could not afford burial expenses. Lesila was therefore an organisation for which no benefit or remuneration could be accrued. In any event the organisation never operated.

Findings

Based on the information received the Committee finds that as there was no intention of financial gain in the establishment of the Lesila Burial Society, there is no breach of the Code of Conduct.

1. Deputy Minister L Xingwana

Deputy Minister Xingwana had advised the Registrar of her resignation from City Cat after the matter was considered by the Committee on 11 November 2005.

Findings

The Committee finds that there is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister SN Sigcau (Deceased)

2. Deputy Minister DA Hanekom

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested the Deputy Minister in writing to submit details of his interests in the Land and Agricultural Policy Centre. The Deputy Minister has disclosed his interests in Tregoyd.

Deputy Minister Hanekom, in his response, confirmed that he resigned from the Land and Agricultural Policy Centre 10 years ago. He contacted the Land and Agricultural Policy Centre in order to ensure that his resignation is formalised.

Findings

Tregoyd has been disclosed, so there is no breach. The Land and Agricultural Policy Centre is a not-for-profit organisation and therefore there is no breach of the Code of Conduct.

1. Minister JT Radebe

Minister Radebe declared his interest under Land and Property, he has a 50% interest in Stand 1993 in Houghton.

Findings

There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister ZST Skweyiya

The CC Hoewe 114 Lyttleton was a property-holding CC that owned two holiday flats in Port Edward, which were sold in 2005. The flats were previously disclosed in the 2003, 2004 register. The Minister has also subsequently signed papers to be excluded from the CC.

Findings

There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister L Sisulu-Guma

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested the Minister in writing to submit details of her association with Black South Africa Freedom Songs, a section 21 company. The Minister indicated that the entity had never operated.

Findings

Members are not required to disclose interests in not-for-profit organisations. There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Deputy Minister S Shabangu On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested the Deputy Minister to advise the status of her resignation from Western Ocean. The Deputy Minister had informed the Registrar that she had resigned her interests in Western Ocean
2. She submitted proof of resignation. (This matter was previously considered by the Committee.) Refer to ATC 11 November 2005 page number 1262.

Findings

There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister AT Didiza

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested the Minister to submit details of her association with Jobco, a section 21 company.

The Minister indicated that the Directorship arose from her role as government trustee on the Business Trust. The programmes included Tourism and Education. The Minister updated her record accordingly.

Findings

As this is a section 21 company directly associated with the Minister’s executive role, there is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

1. Minister B Mabandla

On 3 October 2005, the Registrar requested the Minister in writing to submit details of her association with The Community Peace Foundation. The Minister advised she was never a Member of the Community Peace Foundation and in any event it was deregistered in 1997.

Findings

The Company was deregistered. There is no breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.

Conclusion

In its consideration of the alleged non-disclosure of interests, the Committee noted that there is no conflict of interests. There is also no evidence that any member named above has promoted his or her financial interest.

The Committee notes that the purpose of the Code is to ensure that the member discloses his or her financial or pecuniary interest. In the cases outlines above there are no current active financial interests that have not been disclosed. The Committee is also mindful that the purpose of the Code is to promote ethical conduct.

In its consideration of these matters, the Committee has concluded that it must develop further guidelines to assist members. To this end the Committee hopes to host a series of workshops within Parliament to promote debate on the issue of ethics and examine various systems of accountability for elected representatives. The Committee will also host a conference on ethics in public life to obtain expert view and facilitate public comment on the issues.

The report was adopted by the Committee on the 23 May 2006.

Signed

Mr L Landers Date Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests

Mr AL Moseki Date Deputy Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests