Date: 16 March 2018 – Venue: International Convention Centre (ICC) in East London
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, I greet you all and thank you for joining us for this briefing on the outcomes of our visit to this province.
The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) has just concluded a very successful three-day visit to the Eastern Cape to assess whether the commitments made when we last visited this area as part of our flagship programme, Taking Parliament to the People of November 2016, were implemented.
I say the three days were fruitful because the various sites we visiting since Tuesday till yesterday and the public engagements we had with the residents of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality and the Alfred Nzo District Municipality (which incorporates Matatiele, Mbizana, Ntabankulu and Umzimvubu local municipalities) has given us an opportunity to see first-hand what challenges face the various communities that reside in this vast and diverse province. In order to do justice to the province the almost 50 NCOP delegates, joined by their provincial legislature counterparts, were divided into seven groups with three based in Buffalo City and four in Alfred Nzo District to form manageable teams that visited the various projects and talked to affected parties about progress made since the last visit.
Let me state it from the onset that, the main purpose and focus of this programme is to sit together with the relevant stakeholders in government – plus the beneficiaries of government programmes - to identify bottlenecks that result in the service delivery backlogs and jointly find ways in which we, as Members of Parliament, can get involved in helping find solutions to those challenges.
The municipalities visited in the Alfred Nzo district presented the delegations with the most heart-breaking findings. Yesterday the group based in Mbizana was alerted of a tragic incident where five-year-old Ziwe Mkhethwa, a learner at Luna Primary School, who had been reported missing on Monday (12 March) was found dead at her school’s pit latrine toilet the next day.
Young Ziwe’s horrific death highlights the terrible infrastructural conditions under which some of our learners, especially those in deep rural villages of our country, continue to endure.
Despite numerous commitments made when we visited this province in November 2016 it became apparent that almost 16 months later, in some areas of Alfred Nzo district, no finger was lifted to implement certain aspects of our recommendations. Water and sanitation facilities remain the most scarce commodities in the district’s rural schools even though the Eastern Cape Department of Education has contracted the Amatola Water Board to provide bulk water and sanitation services to the schools in Alfred Nzo District.
We have requested for a report detailing the challenges faced with all the implementing agents contracted to the department. We want to see how we can intervene to unlock these stumbling blocks.
Some of the 2016 undertakings were to improve a range of basic education related infrastructural service delivery issues such as:
- maintenance of access roads to primary and junior secondary schools,
- building of temporary classroom structures,
- erection of proper fencing,
- playing fields,
- understaffing,
- health related issues,
- none delivery of textbooks,
- pupils without birth certificates,
- learner ratio per teacher,
- teacher-aid allowances in the case of special schools,
- renovations on old school building structures,
- proper water and sanitation system for ablution facilities and clean running water for utilisation by learners and teachers, to mention a few.
As we go back to Parliament at a time when the debates and discussions around budget allocations (Budget Votes) for various government departments will soon start we will definitely keep the allocations for rural schools infrastructure a top priority.
Not all was doom and gloom in the province as the visits to Buffalo City also exposed us to a gem called the Ncera Macadamia Farming enterprise. The “project” moved from struggling due to erratic funding to a more sustained funding and business model which has ensured that the business does not suffer from cash flow challenges. As the founding plant/site, in Ncera, they have also built a factory but funding is now needed for machinery and sustaining the second plant in Willowvale.
We are pleased with the good progress made in implementing the recommendations of the NCOP in as far as Early Child Development Centres is concerned. At Masakhane ECDC, for instance, the delegation was appreciative of increased funding from the conditional grant of the Department of Social Development that has enabled the centre to admit more learners. The support model of the early childhood development centre has been replicated across the province of the Eastern Cape and benefiting many children who are now exposed to early development initiatives. Despite this, the delegation has encouraged the department to meet the national norms and standards of funding ECDCs which cover 264 days of the year instead of the current model of covering 209 days.
We were pleased to hear that at St Thomas School for the Deaf, situated outside King William’s Town, the department bought the land from the church as recommended and they are now renovating the school as committed to us during our visit in 2016.
The Education department has also delivered on its promise by buying mini-buses for Fundisa Special School to ensure the learners have access to in King William’s Town.
The HOD of the provincial Social Development department is looking into a plan to curb the payment of NPOs delivering on the ECDC on a quarterly basis. He is working on a three year financial plan to eliminate the bottlenecks associated with this.
There is an ongoing drive by the Department to register children who do not have birth certificates with special focus on ECDs.
We are happy with the fact that the province has taken relevant strides to ensure that all the low hanging fruits identified during our earlier visit - issues like the delivery of textbooks, fencing of schools, filling of clerical vacancies and the delivery of desks - have been addressed.
Going forward we will invite the provincial executive to come to Parliament to engage them about some of the issues that are still outstanding, particularly issues relating to infrastructure such as the provision of classrooms, toilets, administrative buildings and even schools. We will do this in collaboration with the Speaker of the province and the relevant select committees from the NCOP and the portfolio committees from the province. We will also deploy all the relevant committees back to the province to focus on many of these issues and ensure that the programme has the relevant plan with clear targets and financial commitments.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
Enquiries: Moloto Mothapo 082 370 6930
For interviews with the NCOP Deputy Chairperson contact:
Modise Kabeli
Cell: 081 715 9969
Email: mkabeli@parliament.gov.za
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