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1 28 MARCH 2018 PROCEEDINGS OF THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT The sign † indicates the original language and [ ] directly thereafter indicates a translation. The House met at 10:00. The Deputy Speaker took the Chair and read the prayer. ORDERS OF THE DAY The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please come to orde r. The Secretary will read the First Order of the Day. The SECRETARY: Debate on Vote 7 – Social Development – Western Cape Appropriation Bill [B 3 - 2018]. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I see Minister Fritz. The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM: Hear-hear! 2 The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Morning. Morning Mr Deputy Speaker. †ʼn AGBARE LID: Gooi kole! [An HON MEMBER: Throw coals!] The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Hon Mr Deputy Speaker, hon Premier who is about to arrive, Cabinet colleagues, hon Leader of the Opposition - it is such a pleasure to have him in the House, because he is a dear friend of mine. Hon members of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, Mayors, I see Speakers, municipal officials, special guests, NGOs and community leaders, citizens of the Western Cape. An HON MEMBER: Hear-hear! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to present the Western Cape Department of Social Develo pment’s 2018/19 Budget. As I do so, I would like to take this moment, on behalf of the Western Cape Government and the Department of Social Development, to convey our heartfelt condolences to the husband and children of Ms Cheryl Smith. Ms Smith, who worked within our facilities - those of the Child and Youth Care Centres - died tragically in a motor car accident a week ago on her way to work. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this difficult time, and I just want to say it is quite a difficul t time to lose a staff member. 3 Mr Deputy Speaker, with a total Budget of R2 241 664 000, this Department continues to serve the most vulnerable people of this province. We are guided and empowered by specific core legislation, policy mandates and the Provincial Strategic Goals 2 and 3. Provincial Strategic Goal 2 calls on us to improve education outcomes and opportunities for youth development, while Strategic Goal 3 calls on us to increase wellness, safety and tackle social ills. The strategic goals speak to five key areas of my Department, namely children and families, youth, disability, substance abuse and older persons. What are the challenges that we are facing? We are feeling the effects of a national fiscus, which has a revenue collection shortfall of R50 billion, and which has introduced even more stringent austerity measures. Even as the ANC in this House continues to dismiss the importance of clean audit outcomes from the Auditor-General, the impact of the national Budget shortfall shows just how critical clean governance is for effective service delivery and I think that point about effective service delivery and compliance is important. [Interjections.] Without it, money will continue to disappear and service delivery will fail. It is as simple as that. It is in this context that we have had to stretch and reprioritise our Budget in an effort to keep services going. I applaud my management team, led by the HOD, Dr Robert McDonald and his whole team... [Interjections.] 4 An HON MEMBER: Hear-hear! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: ...for staving off the worst effects of these cuts in some Budget areas and the other challenges we face, but we cannot pretend that service delivery is not suffering in this time of financial crisis. Mr R T OLIVIER: Exactly! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Mr Deputy Speaker, the Department’s Budget has effectively only grown by 5%. When you include Conditional Grants the growth amounts to a mere 6%. This is an extremely tight fiscal environment and it means that my Department must make do with what it has, and stretch each rand to go further and further. We must really turn that rand, hon member Makeleni, we need to turn that rand a lot of times. [Interjections.] Our NGO partners remain a key partner in our efforts. However, the current economic climate and the reduction of the overall fiscal base, has had negative consequences for our support to NGOs and that is another reality. The current budgetary pressure means that the Department is only able to provide below inflation increases to funded Social Welfare NPOs. Specifically, we are providing a minimum of 3% per unit cost and 5.7% for social work post funding and then I want to say social workers within the NPO system they really, really earn far less than our Government social 5 workers and they are doing a sterling job. This comes at a difficult time for some NGOs, which are already struggling financially, and some which have already had to close. One such example is CAFDA. Many of you know CAFDA for years, based in the Grassy Park, Retreat area in the Metro South, which has already shut down its doors. The Department has no choice but to take over services previously implemented by funded NPOs, using our in-house capacity. Unfortunately, this places a strain on the capacity of the Department and remaining NPOs, and may lead to staff burn out, and the risk of lower quality of services. And it is in this regard that we want to say then when some orchestrated uprisings in places like Hermanus puts another strain on us, even though we do not have money. It puts a huge strain on us like we saw this week happening in Hermanus. The Department had to jump in. Unfortunately, very hon members of this House have been in the forefront of organising the uprisings, it appears from their little WhatsApps. [Interjections.] Ms M N GILLION: Hi, what are you saying? Ms S W DAVIDS: What are you saying? The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Yes, I am saying it in the House. I am saying it. [Interjections.] Ms S W DAVIDS: You will not say it outside there. [Interjections.] 6 The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: No, I am saying it here. [Interjections.] Ms M N GILLION: What are you implying? The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Because it is th e truth. It is the truth. [Interjections.] The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: I hope so. The Department is doing all it can to mitigate this situation, including the establishment of NPO Help Desks and networks of support for NPOs at regional and local office level and we are lobbying for more funding to at least ensure inflation-related year-on-year funding increases to NGOs. Mr Deputy Speaker, I cannot understate the negative effects of the Budget cuts from the National Government. A key example is the National Conditional Grant for Expanded Public Works Programme, which was cut from R15,9 million and some Beaufort West youth is sitting here who is not going to have jobs now, from R15,9 million to R1,5 million and the impact of this cut will be felt by young people, who will have 562 less work opportunities available to them, 562 less, and I am not - do not get me wrong 7 - I am not pointing fingers. I am just putting the realities here. I am not saying it is right. You can decide whether it is right or wrong, and the voters are there. They must decide. This is indeed scandalous and it is a scandalous move by the National Government and it is one which necessitated my Department to step in to mitigate the effects thereof and you know, I said to some Beaufort West youth that we know exactly what we are talking about. We will use our expanding network of Youth Cafés and existing youth development programmes, to try and make up for these lost opportunities, but it will not be possible to fully plug the hole left by these funding cuts. Let me speak about the drought. The drought has placed a massive strain on the work of our NGO partners, and the Department. As part of our efforts to mitigate the adverse effects, the HOD and his team have driven a process of responding to the crisis by capacitating our NGOs, many of our NGOs, and remember our old-age homes, our Child and Youth Care Centres and our own services with the aim of building resilience and creating alternative water resources for residential facilities and I am talking here specifically, hon member Makeleni, about water resources, hon member Dyantyi. Mr Q R DYANTYI: Yes, Makeleni, she is coming [Inaudible.] The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: The Department is mindf ul of the impact of the drought on farming and rural communities. In this regard, 8 and under the Community Development and Partnership Development Chief, Mr Mzwandile Hewu, we are part of the Joint Operations Centre convened to drive the response to the crisis caused by anticipated farm-worker job losses and you know, when you just think of a place called Vredendal there is already a processing company that has closed. I have seen those unemployed young people when I went there. Mr Q R DYANTYI: So you are blaming National Government there as well. The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: No, I am not blaming anyone! Mr Q R DYANTYI: Or are you blaming God? Who are you blaming? The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: I am putting the facts on the table for you. [Interjections.] The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: The Department will closely... The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM: Not witchcraft! The MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: ...with the Department..