SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY, MR BUTI MANAMELA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DPME BUDGET VOTE 2017/18
17 May 2017
Honourable Speaker
Minister in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, as well as Youth Development and Administration, Mr Jeff Radebe
Ministers and Deputy Ministers
Honourable members
Acting Director General, Tshediso Matona and other staff members from the DPME
Ladies and gentlemen
Last week, the nation was shocked as it heard the gruesome details surrounding the death of Karabo Mokoena, a young woman from Gauteng who succumbed to death allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend. Since then, the bodies of Bongeka Phungula and Popi Qwabe were found dumped in some bushes, raped and then shot dead.
Just last weekend, radio personality and actor Mandla Hlatswayo was shot dead as he was reportedly trying to protect young women from being robbed. Today, in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court, 11 men will appear in connection with the rape and kidnapping of a 22-year-old woman.
These are stories that puts me as a young man and leader amongst the youth to shame. It makes me angry that young women in our society are no longer safe and have to look at all times behind their shoulders for fear of rape, robbery or death from us.
There are thousands of young women who suffer in silence, afraid to reach out to a society that should be protecting them.
As a leader amongst young people, I wish to unequivocally proclaim today that real men do not beat up women.
Real men respect women. I encourage more young men to stand up and be men of integrity and courage, to stand up and proclaim that enough is enough and to stand up and demand an end to the senseless and violent onslaught against our mothers and sisters.
Words alone will not instil fear in the hearts and minds of vampires roaming our streets, but solid and firm action from our communities will, as we say, Enough is Enough.
Our government is working tirelessly to confront head on the challenges that face our youth in general, and young women in particular.
The Deputy President launched the “She Conquers” campaign last year. The campaign is about decreasing new HIV infections in girls and young women; decreasing teen pregnancies; keeping girls in school till matric; decreasing gender based violence and increasing economic opportunities for young people.
Honourable House Chairperson
There is increasing attention placed on the plight of young people at a global, continental and national level.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in December 2016, the Secretary General reminded the member nations that “the United Nations must empower young people, increase their participation in society and their access to education, training and jobs.”
The African Union’s theme for 2017 of “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investments in Youth” calls upon its member states to make the necessary investments in youth in order to take advantage of the demographic dividend that Africa’s youth population presents.
As the department responsible for the coordination of youth development across government, the DPME is well placed to ensure that governments youth development approach aligns with the priorities of the National Development Plan 2030 and the National Youth Policy 2020.
The Presidential Youth Working Group Task Team of Deputy Minister appointed by the President in 2014 continues to place youth development at the apex of government’s overall agenda and frequently reports to the President and Cabinet on its work.
One of the key programmes that the Task Team championed was the revision of Preferential Procurement Regulations, commonly known as set asides.
The purpose of the set asides is aimed at increasing access to government procurement by requiring that 30% be subcontracted to support small business, young people, women and people with disability.
Government has responded positively to the loud call by young, especialy black entrepreneurs, to increase their access to government procurement.
It is now up to youth owned enterprises to ensure that they take advantage of these opportunities by demonstrating their value proposition and ensuring that government gets value for money.
I would like to call upon big and established business to open their doors and follow suit, and do business with young entrepreneurs.
We will build a common understanding in the implementation of these set asides, as well as monitor the implementation by all spheres of government and State Owned Enterprises to ensure that young entrepreneurs benefit from these regulations.
Drugs and substance abuse is a major scourge to our society and robs the present and future of far too many young lives. The DPME commissioned an evaluation of the National Drug Master Plan.
The evaluation noted that the plan appropriately covered the three pillars of harm reduction, demand reduction and supply reduction.
However, the evaluation also identified policy incoherence around harm reduction, with law enforcement criminalising users and addicts and thereby working against the public health approach of restorative justice.
The evaluation also identified the need for the plan to provide implementation details for subnational levels of government and the need to sufficiently translate this macro-plan in sector plans or Annual Performance Plans (APPs).
Drugs and substance abuse have cause much pain in our society and families, however the evaluation concludes that the real size and scope of the substance abuse problem in South Africa remains unknown as it is insufficiently researched.
We are working with the Department of Social Development as well as other key departments in the Social Cluster and social partners, to enhance the effectiveness of our interventions.
We will continue to vigilantly monitor the implementation of these interventions.
The DPME has now established in its structure a Youth Branch. This will ensure that we have additional capacity to effectively perform our role of coordinating youth development in the country and ensuring maximum impact.
In the 2017/18 financial year, we will table the National Youth Development Agency Amendment Bill before Parliament.
We will be consulting stakeholders on the amendments and will finalise the amendments within the next few months.
Along with these, we have also initiated the process of developing a national Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the National Youth Policy.
The framework will ensure effective Monitoring and Evaluation of high impact prioritized interventions of the NYP 2020 as well as the institutionalization of youth development across government.
The President recently announced the names of the incoming Board members of the NYDA. We congratulate the incoming Board members and wish them well in their new role of providing governance and strategic direction to the agency.
As the key implementing agency for youth development in the
country, the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) has
been allocated a budget of R430 million. The NYDA will focus on primarily on youth entrepreneurship and National Youth Service.
Young people have demanded more access to NYDA services.
The NYDA will open four new branches over the next two years in Ekurhuleni, Richards Bay, OR Tambo region in the Eastern Cape and Newcastle in KwaZulu Natal, which shall extend its services to more young people.
Furthermore, the NYDA has positively responded to the call of young people and all branches shall be equipped with free Wi-Fi services to provide young people with access to technology.
The soon to be launched NYDA app will become another platform for youth to connect to their agency.
In the 2016 / 2017 financial year, the NYDA has provided 700 young entrepreneurs with grant funding to assist them with starting and growing their own businesses, while 60 000 young aspiring and established entrepreneurs have been provided with Business Development Services. The agency will invest R72 million in economic participation programmes in the 2017/2018 financial year.
This will result in over 800 new entrepreneurs being funded through developmental finance with the creation of more than 3 000 jobs in numerous sectors.
In the 2016/17 financial year, the NYDA provided over 400 young people with full scholarships through the Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund while 950 000 young people have been provided with group and individual career guidance.
A further 500 young people have been provided with technical skills training that will enable them to become artisans.
About 70 000 young people have participated in the jobs programme aimed at providing them with life skills and job preparedness training.
A further R80 million will be invested towards education; jobs and skills development in 2017/2018.
This will see 5 000 young people being placed in available job opportunities; 500 students will receive scholarships through the Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund and 60 000 young people will be provided with skills development training.
The NYDA will spend R46 million in 2017/2018 to support the National Youth Service Programme.
A reconfigured National Youth Service Unit will develop norms and standards for NYS programmes; build the capacity of NYS implementers; create a Central Information Management System; register NYS projects and implement a national communications and marketing plan.
Our citizens deserve decent, good quality and timeous services. The DPME’s Frontline Service Delivery Monitoring assesses the quality of government services rendered to the public.
The voices of citizens are critical to our monitoring approach. In 2016/17 the DPME conducted 199 frontline monitoring visits, including unannounced and improvement monitoring visits.
In this financial year the DPME will double its efforts and conduct at least 400 visits in the existing sectors being monitored across all provinces. Forty-one visits have already been conducted.
Our citizen-based monitoring method continues to strengthen the use of citizen feedback at multiple levels for improved services.
It also strengthens the role of existing participatory forums including community police forums, clinic committees, ward committees, and community-based organisations in service delivery improvements.
The youth development agenda is complex.
Young people want solutions now.
They are tired of waiting.
We are playing and will continue to play a strong coordinating role in directing youth development; ensuring that youth priorities are adequately met; monitoring services and developing evidence based policies and programmes that advance the youth development agenda.
Citizens, including young people must play their part too in helping to monitor government services. Together we must safeguard community assets and build responsive and caring services for all our citizens.
To the young women, I leave you with the words of the beauiful and strong Maya Angelou, who said “leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise; into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise, I rise, I rise”
I thank you.
