Address by President Jacob Zuma at the inaugural Community Development Workers Conference held at the Birchwood Conference Centre, Johannesburg

Honourable Premier, 

Honourable Ministers and Deputy Minister,

Mayor and Councillors,

Senior officials

Community Development Workers and Practitioners,

Fellow South Africans,

 

I am pleased to be interacting with our Community Development Workers, who are our link with many communities around the country.

You are an important cadre of public servants as you communicate directly with the recipients of government services on a daily basis. 

Nibaluleke kakhulu njengezisebenzi zentuthuko zomphakathi. Abantu bayakwazi ukubuza izinto kinina ngoba nitholakala eduze njengamakhansela. 

Ngakho-ke kubalulekile ukuthi nazi kabanzi ngokwenziwa uhulumeni emazingeni onke.

We have made several commitments to our people since 2009, and no doubt, they ask you about these commitments from time to time.

I made a commitment on behalf of government in my Presidential inauguration speech on 09 May 2009, assuring the country and international community that for as long as there are South Africans who die from preventable disease; for as long as there are workers who struggle to feed their families and who battle to find work; for as long as there are communities without clean water, decent shelter or proper sanitation, we would not rest or falter.

In my 2010 State of the Nation Address, I reminded public servants of our expected vision that year. I emphasized that the defining feature of the administration would be that it knows where our people live, understands their needs and responds faster. 

I want to thank you for your contribution in assisting government to realise this vision. 

The introduction of the CDW Programme was approved by Cabinet on 19 November 2003. It was introduced primarily to improve the dissemination of information to communities about benefits and services to which all citizens are entitled to.

We rest assured that we are represented well by yourselves in Community Policing Forums, School Governing Bodies, Ward Committees, Hospital Management Forums, Service Delivery Improvement Forums, and other community structures created to enhance public participation in service delivery. 

The programme of Community Development Workers was also instituted to assist communities to access and benefit from the services that could materially improve their lives.

For example, in addition to supporting the War on Poverty Programme, CDWs have been instrumental in empowering citizens by teaching them to plant food gardens in their communities and villages in order to be self sufficient. 

Therefore, you are not only giving our citizens a meal for a day, but you are giving them life skills by teaching them to fish for food for life, thus addressing poverty.  

Your work as our link with communities is also to assess delivery and to let us know where there are still serious gaps. We have achieved a lot in the past 18 years. 

More people now have water, electricity, sanitation, housing and other services than before 1994. However, the gap remains massive and services are still needed urgently in many areas, especially in former homelands which were most neglected during the era of apartheid colonialism.

The current service delivery-related protests in some areas indicate the impatience and frustration amongst communities, as they love and trust their government, and expect it to bring services faster.

It is important to improve communication with our people at all times, to minimise frustrations that are caused by miscommunication or lack of information.

I am aware of your concerns that government departments are sometimes lethargic or lazy in their response to service delivery concerns you refer to them, on behalf of communities. 

Hence, in the State of the Nation Address I announced that all government departments must work closely with communities and ensure that all community concerns are attended to before they escalate. 

This pronouncement should assist you to continue with your service delivery facilitation efforts. 

In the past year, we continued to actively monitor service delivery in communities. We launched the Presidential Siyahlola Monitoring Programme through which I travel to communities with Ministers to get a first hand feel of issues. But, as you know, the President cannot be everywhere. 

I rely on Ministers, Premiers, MECs, councillors and public servants to ensure that the needs of the communities are taken care of. 

They must continuously visit communities and keep people informed of what programmes are being delivered, which ones are delayed and the reasons, as well as an indication of work that is being done generally.

We will therefore expand the Siyahlola programme this year by relaunching government’s Imbizo programme and the Imbizo Focus Weeks programme.

This will enable leaders in all spheres to visit to communities in an organised fashion and keep in touch with our people, thus easing frustrations. 

If Ministers, Premiers, MECs, Mayors, councillors visit communities intensively in one week per quarter, various communities will be covered, if not the whole country.

Community development workers will play a key role in organising these visits, as you have information from the ground, with regards to the needs of the communities you serve.

While expanding communication with the public, we have to ensure that those still wanting to protest in any way, do so within the ambit of the law.

I announced in the State of the Nation Address the need for all to adhere to the Constitution with regards to protest action and freedom of expression in general.

Given the new tendency to use violence during some protests, I have instructed the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster to put measures in place to ensure that any incidents of violent protest are acted upon, investigated and prosecuted. 

The law must be enforced and it must be seen to be enforced - fairly, effectively and expeditiously. 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Communities no doubt ask you about the massive infrastructure programme that we are engaged in, which was also referred to in the State of the Nation Address.

We will have spent more than R800 billion by the end of March this year on building roads, schools, renovating hospitals and clinics, upgrading ports, building dams and all sorts of other infrastructure.

The intention is to improve these facilities, enhance our global competitiveness through world class economic infrastructure, and also to create jobs.

I trust that you will be armed with information on these projects during this conference so that you are able to brief communities in your areas.

The communities also need to be briefed about the opportunities government is providing for youth development. 

In the State of the Nation Address I announced that the apprenticeships and learnerships offered by state-owned companies should be increased and an appeal was made to the private sector to absorb 11 000 FET graduates who are awaiting placements. 

There are various other young people who are looking for internships or fulltime jobs. I will be engaging the private sector further to promote this partnership for youth development.

Already, government is doing a lot on its own to promote youth development.

We have 11 740 young people who are benefiting from various training programmes run by the National Rural Youth Services Corps of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. 

This Department is also planning nine Rural Youth Hubs per province, focusing on the 23 poorest districts in the country. 

We also want young people to know about short-term job opportunities in the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Community Work Programme. These programmes will assist to provide much needed skills to improve the employability of the youth. Other departments also have youth development programmes in place. We want all to find ways of promoting these programmes to ensure that they assist the youth.

Also important for you as community development workers, is to help us spread the word that education is an important and essential service in our country.

It is for this reason that we are prioritising the remuneration of teachers in the work of the Remuneration Commission that we are establishing to look at the working conditions of public servants in general.

Our message still stands for teachers to be in school, in class, on time, teaching, and not abusing learners especially the girl child. The children should also arrive in school on time, ready to learn and respect their teachers. 

When you engage parents, School Governing Bodies and other stakeholders, you should reiterate government`s seriousness in turning our schools into centres of excellence, thus elevating education to its rightful place in our society.

In the State of the Nation Address we also emphasised that we will insist on returns for our investments in public servants. 

We want public servants to work hard and make us see the benefits of improving salaries and conditions of service.

If citizens continue to complain about poor services, it will mean we are not getting value for money. If citizens complain about long queues in hospitals, licensing departments and other frontline service departments, we will not be doing our jobs efficiently as government.

It also means the Batho Pele principles that the Department of Public Service and Administration is championing are not being implemented.

I have therefore directed the Department to ensure that the Batho Pele and other principles are adhered to so that we can achieve the caring, effective and efficient public service we committed to.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Your role is also to make communities aware of draft legislation before Parliament that requires public input. 

In my 2013 SONA, I placed special emphasis on the pending Bill on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment that has been approved by Cabinet for public comment. The Bill criminalises practices that adversely affect women and girls. 

Given the current surge and violent attacks on women we have to engage our communities on understanding how collectively we can address these problems. 

As facilitators and agencies of public participation, you should actively mobilise citizens to fight the abuse of women and children, and crime in general. 

Government alone cannot fight this scourge, we need the support and active participation of communities.  

We are happy to see many civil society organisations actively promoting the campaign for safer communities for women and children.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I urge you as well to take forward government`s declaration of war on corruption and the promotion of good governance.

We have noted the report released on Tuesday, 12 March 2013 by the Auditor General, Mr Terrence Nombembe. 

He said the overall audit outcomes for national and provincial government regressed in the past year. It is regrettable and unacceptable that the situation has not improved since the last report.

We will study the report as government and use it to improve the way departments work. 

However, the audit outcomes are consistent with the Management Performance Assessment Tool findings we reported on last year.  

Last year the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency conducted an assessment of 103 departments which identified some of the challenges that lead to qualified audit outcomes. 

We have directed the Departments to implement the changes that were suggested by the Presidency to them after the internal assessment, in order to improve the weaknesses they have in their management systems which ultimately lead to poor audits. 

The assessments identified a number of areas needing improvement.

These include the need to improve monitoring and evaluation methods internally as well as the setting of service delivery standards and implementing improvement plans. 

Also important is the need to manage financial disclosures of senior managers and ensuring awareness of the code of conduct. 

They are also to improve supply chain management and procurement systems.

The Presidency will continue to carry out these assessments on an annual basis. The next report is expected to be concluded mid-year. This will enable Cabinet to track whether management practices are improving in departments. 

The Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation will work with National Treasury, and the Department of Public Service and Administration to assist departments with the development of further improvement plans.

The department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation is also currently in the process of implementing a municipal assessment programme together with the Department of Corporative Governance and Traditional Affairs which will similarly assist municipalities to identify weaknesses and develop improvement plans.

It is taking longer but we believe that the systems we are putting in place will assist departments to improve. Additional to this, is the need to train officials in financial management, even those who do not work in finance departments.

I am also pleased that your work also goes beyond the borders of our country, so to speak.

We are in the process of concluding the public participation phase of our third African Peer Review Mechanism Report. 

In drafting this third APRM report, we held consultative conferences in the nine provinces of the country. 

In this regard, I want to thank all of you who have mobilised communities to ensure that their voices are heard in the APRM process and throughout the African continent on matters of democracy and political governance; economic governance and management; corporate governance; and socio-economic development.

As a partner in the Open Government Partnership initiative which was launched in September 2011, the South African government is currently drafting its first Government-Self Assessment Report. 

This report will highlight the progress government has made over the past 12 months in the areas of promoting transparency, citizen participation, accountability, and the fight against corruption. 

We ask that you mobilise communities in your areas to participate in the Open Government Partnership process so that their voices are heard not only in their local municipal spaces but across the world.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In the 2013 State of the Nation Address we also announced that government will now align all plans with the National Development Plan. 

This means that we must communicate this Plan to communities in all 11 languages so that they understand what we are talking about. 

The Plan contains proposals for tackling poverty by creating more jobs and bolstering the quality of education. 

It unites all of us behind a vision of a South Africa where all will have clean water, affordable electricity, proper sanitation, decent jobs, decent housing, reliable public transport, adequate nutrition, quality education, social protection, quality health care, accessible recreation, safer communities and a clean environment. 

The Plan promotes an active citizenry, people who do not fold their arms but who work with government to create a better South Africa. We will work with you to promote that culture in our country.

All the work we will be doing going forward as government will be informed by the Plan.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I wish to conclude by encouraging you to continuously remember the commitment made in the inauguration of this fourth administration, that to achieve all our goals, we must hold ourselves to the highest standards of service, probity and integrity. 

We said then that, “Together we must build a society that prizes excellence and rewards effort, which shuns laziness and incompetence’’.

Let us build a strong culture of service and dedication to the people we serve.

I thank you and wish you well in taking forward the work of improving the quality of life of all.

 

I thank you.