Parliament, Tuesday 20 November 2018 – The Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), Ms Thandi Modise says, the identification of migration as a theme for the Gauteng leg of the flagship Taking Parliament to the People programme was based on evidence.
Officially opening the four-day outreach programme of the NCOP at the Alberton Civic Centre in Gauteng, Chairperson Modise said, researched evidence pointed to migration of people from across the country and across the continent to Gauteng as a major factor behind a number of service delivery challenges facing the Gauteng Province.
She acknowledged that Gauteng is head and shoulder above many provinces, which invariably attracts many people from other provinces, from the Southern African region, the continent and across the world.
She warned that although the Constitution correctly opened doors for people to move in and out of the country as part of major freedoms enjoyed by all, all those crossing South Africa’s borders must obey the country’s laws.
Audio clip:
- Inwords: You must always ….
- Outwords: …. Be respected.
- Duration: 52 seconds.
Download link
https://we.tl/t-C1JmniOWtA
NCOP Chairperson’s message was also a response to Gauteng Premier David Makhura who appealed to the National Council of Province (NCOP) for interventions to help Gauteng effectively deal with a range of challenges linked to the exponential population growth due to among others national and international migration.
Also addressing the opening ceremony of the NCOP’s flagship programme, Premier Makhura said the Gauteng province nearly doubled its population, and grows at nearly 1 million people every five years with negative implications on service delivery. He cited the pressure migration placed on education, health, housing backlog, crime and also under representation of Gauteng people as the number of Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) remained 73 since 1994. He appealed to the NCOP to help address these matters and assist Gauteng build on its successes which include the four times increase of the size of its economy between 1996 and 2017, from R290 billion to R1.4 trillion, as well as achieving 100% unqualified audit findings.
Hundreds of Gauteng residents attended the opening day of Taking Parliament to the People with a theme “Impact of migration - Deepening cooperative governance for accelerated service delivery and development”. Permanent delegates to the National Council of Provinces, Members of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, various members of the Executive, and councillors met about 1000 people to launch the TPTTP programme, run public hearings on education, safety and security, human settlements, health and economic development. They will also visit various service delivery sites in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan, as well as the West Rand District Municipalities.
Chairperson Modise said: “The support and active participation of the communities here is humbling. It is clear that people place their trust in us as public representatives and we should not fail them. We will be spending this week here to listen to any issue that the people might have. We are not here to protect the Executive, we are here to do our work to represent the interests of the people. We will continue to monitor municipalities. We must always get behind the reasons for non-performance.” She encouraged the people of Ekurhuleni to engage the NCOP openly and freely to bring all their issues this week.
The NCOP undertook a preliminary visit in September 2018. “We started working in this province several months ago. The aim was to ensure that we listen to the people to ensure that when we come here this week we are relevant and we are able to deal with the issues that affect them, Ms Modise said.”
Taking Parliament to the People is a flagship programme of the NCOP, which brings together all spheres of government - national, provincial and local government together in one place. The TPTTP will be concluded on Thursday 22 November 2018 with an annual address to the NCOP by President Cyril Ramaphosa, that will be followed by a debate and his reply.
The public hearings will focus this morning on Human Settlements and Health with Ministers and MECs present, and on Education this afternoon at the Alberton Civic Centre in Ekurhuleni.
Service delivery sites to be visited today include Tshwane Innovation Hub, Home Affairs offices in Johannesburg, Invest SA One-stop in Sandton, PRASA’s Nigel Manufacturing plant, Katlehong eKasi hub, Muldersdrift Clinic in West Rand, Soweto eKasi and Monaheng Market in Johannesburg.
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