Minister of WCPD & Premiers on implementation of gender equity & affirming disability mainstreaming in Public

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Meeting Summary

The Departments of Women, Children and People with Disabilities and Public Service and Administration briefed the Committee on the implementation of gender equality and affirming disability mainstreaming in the public service and the provinces. The Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities as well as Kwa-Zulu Natal, Northern Cape and Gauteng participated in the meeting.

The Department Public Service and Administration (DPSA) reported that it had made slow progress in reaching its target and hoped that the joint venture would allow for quicker strides.
In the four levels of Senior Management Service (SMS) in the public service, the majority of women were appointed to level 13 and 14 but not at level 15 and 16. There were very few women at the Acting Director-General and Director-General level, and no province had met the 50% mark. Gauteng retained the top performance and the Free State was last.

The DPSA outlined findings from its Gender Mainstreaming Survey and determined that if qualified individuals were not driving gender mainstreaming, it would not occur. It found that Gender Units should be created in the office of the Heads of Departments or in the offices of the Premier for them to be effective. Most departments were allocated a budget for a gender unit as opposed to mainstreaming gender into all departmental programmes. At the departmental level, it was evident that the required skills to make policies responsive to Women’s Empowerment and Empowerment of Disabled People were lacking. 

The Department had established good partnerships and working relationships with the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) and the Department of Women and Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD) to address the challenges. With respect to the status quo on disability, there was representation of people with disabilities at various levels in the public service, but most Departments fell short of the 2% target. The top performer was National Departments at 0.69% disabled representation.

In the future, the Department would hold the heads of departments responsible for not meeting the 2% disabled target and it would become one of the Department Assessment Criteria.
Overall, however, compliance rate showed a drastic increase and the DPSA provided regular monitoring, evaluation and support for departments. The DPSA determined that at the departmental level, it was evident that the required skills to make policies responsive to Women’s Empowerment and Empowerment of Disabled People were lacking. It was important that the Committee enforced accountability on departments that were not complying with policies that sought to address equity in the Public Service.
The DWCPD outlined the 50/50 gender parity principle and said that it was in line with the decision adopted by the African Union (AU) commission in 2002.  It was also articulated in the AU heads of states solemn declaration on gender equality in Africa that was adopted in 2004.  The principle was aligned to the Southern African Development Community protocol.

At the political decision making levels, the country had progressed from 2,7% pre-1994 to within the 40-45% mark currently, making it 4th on the OECD SIGI and 6th on the Global Economic Index Gap Report. South African women held senior positions internationally and on the continent. At the national level women held senior positions in both the public and private sectors. In the Public Sector, 39.1% women were represented in the SMS levels. Four National Departments had reached the 50% target. However at the private sector level, women as Chairpersons (5,1%) or CEOs (3%) and Directors (17%) were on the very low side (even though there was an upward slant in terms of numbers). A focus on transformation in the Judiciary had seen an increase from 0-30% of female judges since 1994. The MDG Report 2013 showed that more women were entering tertiary institutions and more women were graduating with post matric qualifications including up to doctorate levels. Also, more women were entering research areas. There were also positive trends in the numbers of girls entering fields of study or work previously dominated by men, especially the STEM areas.

With respect to empowering people with disabilities - in the last 20 years the country had seen a sharp increase in access to education. Before 1994, education was not compulsory for disabled individuals and the Department had seen many adults with disabilities enrolled in audit literacy programmes between 2008 and 2011. There was an increase in people with disabilities enrolled at universities and an average of 800 to 1000 young persons with disabilities graduated annually. The NSFAS grant provided reasonable accommodation support to qualifying students, which covered the cost of assisting devices and technology as well as personal assistance. There were definite positive strides in qualitative aspects of disabled empowerment. The 2% disabled target had not been met for several reasons. Reasons included that people were not applying, people did not have the requisite skills, transport was too expensive and job salary did not cover the cost of transport. Another issue identified was underreporting on disability. Disabled status was always based on declaration and some disabilities were not reported because of social stigmas. Many people who were disabled felt less disabled because certain barriers in society were removed. In terms of disability rights and related overall achievements, South Africa claimed the international centre stage with regards to championing the rights of persons with disabilities due to progress that was made in mainstreaming disability such as the development and ratification of the CPRD, the declaration of the Africa Decade for Persons with Disabilities, the Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Toolkit for Africa among other things.

KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Northern Cape gave summarised presentations around the topic of Gender and Disability Mainstreaming and outlined relevant achievements by their respective provincial departments. 

The Committee emphasised that part of the reason why it wanted this meeting was to assess if gender and disability equity was transforming society. Members asked if there was enough emphasis on college programmes for women and people with disabilities, targets for disabled people, challenges faced by disabled people in the workplace and if both disabled people and women were trained in manufacturing of textiles, food and other production. A Member expressed concern that that enforcing the 50% target meant hiring people who were not fully trained or suited for the job. A Member expressed concern that he had heard all of this previously and not much had changed. Concern was voiced about the Premiers who did not send representatives to the meeting. This gave the impression that they did not take Parliament seriously. It was wrong and unacceptable, and the Committees had to write to them and request the reasons for their absence.

The Committee stated that there needed to be compliance and consequence for non-compliance, and that a programme for disability had to be developed. It acknowledged that this matter cut across all departments and it was something the Committees wanted to recommend to the Chair of Chairs, because it needed to be o n the agenda of Parliament. Parliament needed to bring everything together and enforce and use a cluster approach. With respect to the responses from departments, the Committees would have follow up meetings. The DWCPD was encouraged to force the departments and the provinces to act.
 

Meeting report

Opening Statement by the Chairperson
The Chairperson began the meeting with a special welcome to the Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, the advisors and senior managers from both departments that were present at the meeting – the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD). A packed agenda was to include a briefing by the Minister of Women on Implementation of Gender Equity and affirming Disability Mainstreaming in the Public Service and Provinces. A briefing on the same matter from the Minister of Public Services and Administration was to follow. The Chairperson announced apologies from the Minister of Public Services and Administration as she could not attend the meeting. There were other apologies for the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth, Children and People with Disability, Ms D Ramodibe (ANC), the premier in Limpopo and the premier of the Western Cape. Representatives from the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Northern Cape were present, and there was a string of apologies from the remaining provinces.

The Chairperson stated that disability was high on the Committee’s agenda especially with respect to mandatory oversight for section 95 of the Constitution. The Government was unable to keep up with the commitment to meet the 2% disabled target, and he wondered what the biggest challenges were. Both departments had to transform society in a form and manner that was envisaged and both Committees were working closely together on the issues that the departments were facing. Both Committees agreed that consolidating the cluster of work was a more effective way of dealing with oversight. The Chairperson expressed that the Committees don’t like to “hate on” the department and successes were appreciated, but the role of government was oversight and to try and improve all facets of society. There was a lot of hope at the last meeting on disability and the key issues that were identified had to be captured so that the Committees and Departments could deliver for the people of South Africa. The first presentation was to be a briefing by the DPSA, but the Chairperson first welcomed a word from the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities.

Opening Statement from the Minister
Ms Lulama Xingwana, Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities. stated that it was important to look at the 20 year span of the new democracy in South Africa, and what had been done in this period starting with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and moving on to the policies and legislation that was passed over the years, which had empowered women. Women had faced violence, rape and murder and the government was in joint action to fight this. There were still people with disabilities - the majority of which were unemployed and did not have the opportunity to go to school. Provinces had been asked to send reports to her Department but she had not received any of those reports. She asked that the provinces do presentations so that they were not left out of the discussion.

The Chairperson responded that this approach might not work because provinces did not submit their reports. How else was the Committee supposed to know what was going on in country. She explained that if Parliament requested presentations, then it was a request that should have been met.

A representative from Provincial Department of Social Development in KZN representing the Premier stated that it had received a letter and emailed its presentation to the specified address.

The Chairperson responded that they should not blame anyone for now and that it was possible that there had been a miscommunication regarding the matter. She welcomed the delegation from DPSA and asked for the first presentation.

Department of Public Service and Administration Presentation
Mr Kenny Govender, Deputy Director-General for Diversity Management in the DPSA, thanked the Committee for the opportunity to present and stated that the DPSA had faced difficulties within the public service so the collaboration between departments was beneficial towards meetings targets. The presentation was to focus on both provincial and national issues.

In terms of achieving targets, the DPSA had slow progress and it was hoping the joint venture would allow for quicker strides. The DPSA’s key pillars should be noted, specifically the enabling environment, equality of opportunities, mainstreaming and barrier-free access (see document slide 3 for details).

With respect to gender and a 50% target for women in senior management, the DPSA had made steady progress but it still had a way to go to reach its targets (see slide 4 for gender targets for women in senior management in the public service). The DPSA outlined statistics on representation of women in the four levels of Senior Management Service (SMS) in the Public Service and stated that the majority were at level 13 and 14, but not at level 15 and 16 (Slide 5). There were very few women at the Acting Director-General and Director-General level, and no province had met the 50% mark. Gauteng retained the top performance and the Free State was last.

The DPSA had engagement programmes as well and specific Gender Programme Activities were briefly outlined on Slide 6 of the presentation. These included but were not limited to a survey to assess the extent of gender mainstreaming in the public service and a series of Public Service Women Management Week (PSWMW) meetings.

Overall, however, the compliance rate showed a drastic increase and the DPSA provided regular monitoring, evaluation and support for departments. The DPSA outlined findings from their Gender Mainstreaming Survey and determined that if qualified individuals were not driving gender mainstreaming, it would not occur. It found that Gender Units should be created in the office of the Heads of Departments or in the offices of the Premier for them to be effective. Most national departments were allocated a budget for a gender unit as opposed to mainstreaming gender into all departmental programmes. The DPSA determined that at the departmental level, it was evident that the required skills to make policies responsive to Women’s Empowerment and Empowerment of Disabled People were lacking. 

The Department had established good partnerships and working relationships with the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) and the Department of Women and Children and People with Disabilities (DWCPD) to address its challenges (see slide 9 for more detail). With respect to the status quo on disability, there was representation of people with disabilities at various levels in the public service, but most Departments fell short of the 2% target. The top performer was National Departments at 0.69% disabled representation. Slide 11 of the presentation further outlined statistics on representation of persons with disabilities at various levels in the Public Service. 

The DPSA outlined provincial and national departmental compliance on Job Access and Gender Equality Strategic Frameworks on Slide 12 and reported that the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape had not submitted anything. The DPSA said that departments requested to submit remedial plans where disabled representation was below 1% in provincial and national departments, and where provincial and national departments at SMS was below 30%. There was an improvement in departments that implemented remedial plans and representation of persons with disabilities had improved in seven provinces and in national departments. Only two provinces remained at the same percentage (see document slide 14). 

Discussions had been initiated with the Deaf Institute for intake of deaf interns that were trained by the institute and it was reported that the Public Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) trained 764 employees in a Disability Management Course over 2012. 

The DPSA reported that the Policy and Procedures on the Management of Sexual Harassment in the Public Service was approved and the roll out process would occur in November. Furthermore, a process was underway between the DPSA and the National Treasury to address PERSAL cleanup. The definition of disability was to be based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and questions on impairments would be based on the Washington Group provisions.

The DPSA listed challenges. For both disability and gender, the absence of sector specific legislation made it difficult to enforce compliance besides the Employment Equity Act.  Provinces continually found ways of not implementing Cabinet decisions on equity targets alleging that those decisions were not binding. It was important that the Portfolio committee enforced accountability on departments that were not complying with policies that sought to address equity in the public service. With respect to a way forward, the DPSA planned to undertake a study that would establish facts about the attrition rate of people with disabilities in the public service as well as the extent of people with disabilities rotating within departments and the underlying reasons.

Further consolidation of working relationships with the DPME, DWCPD, and PALAMA with special focus on how to best improve gender and disability mainstreaming training as well as consolidating the DPSA’s relationship with the DoL on monitoring departmental performance around Employment Equity through increased DG reviews were cited as other important ways of moving forward. The DPSA concluded by stating that it was trying to achieve its targets but was making slow progress.

The Chairperson thanked the DPSA for its presentation and the next delegation began their presentation.

Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities Presentation
Minister Xingwana stated that she had already made a brief introduction and would allow the delegation to go into detail. She planned to add additional input during the discussion period.

Ms Ranji Reddy, Chief Director: Monitoring and Evaluation, DWCPD, stated that the DWCPD wanted to focus on more empowerment issues and its goal was to create an enabling policy and legislative environment. Examples of this were the Constitution, a white paper on the Integrated National Disability Strategy, the Employment Equity Act, the Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, the National Policy on Women Empowerment and Gender Equality among many others (see presentation slides for more detail).

The DWCPD outlined the 50/50 gender parity principle and said that it was in line with the decision adopted by the African Union (AU) commission in 2002.  It was also articulated in the AU heads of states solemn declaration on gender equality in Africa that was adopted in 2004.  The principle was aligned to the Southern African Development Community protocol.

At the political decision making levels, the country had progressed from 2,7% pre-1994 to within the 40-45% mark currently, making it 4th on the OECD SIGI and 6th on the Global Economic Index Gap Report. South African women held senior positions internationally and on the continent. At the national level women held senior positions in both the public and private sectors. In the Public Sector, 39.1% women were represented in the SMS levels. Four National Departments had reached the 50% target. However at the private sector level, women as Chairpersons (5,1%) or CEOs (3%) and Directors (17%) were on the very low side (even though there was an upward slant in terms of numbers). A focus on transformation in the Judiciary had seen an increase from 0-30% of female judges since 1994. The MDG Report 2013 showed that more women were entering tertiary institutions and more women were graduating with post matric qualifications including up to doctorate levels. Also, more women were entering research areas. There were also positive trends in the numbers of girls entering fields of study or work previously dominated by men, especially the STEM areas.

On the topic of the enactment of the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality (WEGE) Bill – the Bill would focus on both public and private bodies as defined in the legislation. It sought to attain progressive realisation of a minimum of 50% representation and meaningful participation of women in decision-making structures including boards and the judiciary. It spoke to issues of building women’s capacity to participate as well as provided supporting mechanisms for women and this allowed enforcement, which was a huge gap in pushing the gender parity principle with any authority. The WEGE Bill also legislated for gender mainstreaming across private and public bodies and provided for regulations including institutional mechanisms for advancement of women’s empowerment and gender equality. 

The DWCPD was working with girls around the country in terms of career development in initiatives such as the Techno Girls Project, Cell C and the Take a Girl Child to Work programme. UNICEF has taken the techno girls project globally as an example of best practices.  DWCPD also held discussion forums with young women with disabilities and these sessions allowed for interactive discussions on the challenges they faced and what opportunities existed for them. With respect to working with rural women to empower them, one of the spin offs included a long-term investment on women who would have a corollary impact on the lives of their daughters and young women. A MOU with DRDLR made provision for 50% of land allocated to go to women. Empowered women would find it easier to prepare themselves for senior positions in the workforce and would be able to hold their own in an environment dominated by men. In another initiative, the DWCPD collaborated with PALAMA and continued to train employees in gender mainstreaming and has also facilitated gender responsive budgeting training. Some departments, such as the Department of Correctional Services were grooming and training a pool of middle managers through the executive management training courses. 

Ms Lidia Pretorius, Chief Director:  Advocacy and Mainstreaming, DWCPD, continued the presentation. She began by explaining why the 2% disabled target had not been met. Reasons included that people were not applying, people did not have the requisite skills, transport was too expensive and job salary did not cover the cost of transport. Another issue identified was underreporting on disability. Disabled status was always based on declaration and some disabilities were not reported because of social stigmas. Many people who were disabled felt less disabled because certain barriers in society were removed. In terms of disability rights and related overall achievements, South Africa claimed the international centre stage with regards to championing the rights of persons with disabilities due to progress that was made in mainstreaming disability such as the development and ratification of the CPRD, the declaration of the Africa Decade for Persons with Disabilities, the Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Toolkit for Africa among other things (see slide 8 for details). 

With respect to empowering people with disabilities - in the last 20 years the country had seen a sharp increase in access to education. Before 1994, education was not compulsory for disabled individuals and the Department had seen many adults with disabilities enrolled in audit literacy programmes between 2008 and 2011. There was an increase in people with disabilities enrolled at universities and an average of 800 to 1000 young persons with disabilities graduated annually. The NSFAS grant provided reasonable accommodation support to qualifying students, which covered the cost of assisting devices and technology as well as personal assistance (see slide 9 for more details). There were definite positive strides in qualitative aspects of disabled empowerment.

Another departmental focus was on skills development and economic empowerment for disabled persons and cited a list of interventions to this end, including learnerships, development of skills and vocational-oriented exit level qualification at grade 9 level for learners with intellectual disabilities and a progressive roll out of rehabilitation services. These interventions had various impacts, such as 54% of the 9541 young people with disabilities enrolled in learnership programmes between 2008-2011 successfully completed them, and 46% gained employment after completion (see slide 10 for more examples). Further interventions included the Department of Labour Employment Services and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act 2000. Listed impacts were: 961 of the 1746 job seekers with disabilities registered in the employment services database in 2010/11 were placed and 12 sheltered employment factories in Gauteng, Western Cape, North West, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal employed 926 persons with disabilities among other things (see slide 11 for more examples). 

With a focus on social protection, social grants allowed for more than a million South Africans with disabilities to access monthly disability grants and with a focus on transport, the universal design approach that was adopted for BRT systems provided for accessible systems to be rolled out in all metropolitan cities, secondary cities and rural areas (slide 12). 

Lastly, focusing on self representation and empowerment, the recognition of the right to self-representation and the recognition and strengthening of representative organisations of persons with disabilities, resulted in political self-representation by people with disabilities, with 16 MPs (1 DM), 8 MPLs (including 3 MECs) and 72 councillors as well as self representation across many organisations (see slide 13 for more examples). Moving forward, the DWCPD suggested the finalisation of transversal/cross-cutting policy and legislation as well as strengthening national machineries, the progressive roll out of the Sector Rights-based Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy and to strengthen research into priority areas for gender and disability equity promotion. Increased publication of thematic research would also be beneficial. 

Minister Xingwana stated that the DWCPD would identify which departments were below 30% employment of women, and it would develop plans with them to make sure that they improved towards the target of 50%. The DWCPD was working in conjunction with the DPSA to develop a pool of women for middle management in SMS positions. The DPSA had to devise a representation strategy, while the DWCPD was working with network partnerships, women associations and other organisations that were focused on capacity building, not only in government, but in preparation for board membership. DWCPD had to continue to focus on young women such as the Techno Girls Programs and encourage all departments to participate in Women’s Management Week. The DWCPD would monitor the decision taken by Cabinet in November of 2012 that all DGs and Heads of Departments (HODs) should have a Key Priority Indicator related to attainment of Gender and Disability Equality, and there should be punishment for non-compliance in this space. She thanked the Chairperson.

The Chairperson commented on correspondence regarding the provincial presentations and noted that they were supposed to be sent to the Minister, but there was a misunderstanding.  She allowed the provinces to do their presentations regardless, but stipulated that the provinces do only 5 or 6-minute presentations and 10 minutes would be the cut off time.

KwaZulu-Natal Presentation
Dr Sibongile Mkhabela, Senior Manager: Human Rights Directorate, Office of the KZN Premier, stated that Disability issues and Gender Equality issues had been elevated to the cabinet level.  In KZN, there was a program of action for peoples with disabilities, which was adopted by cabinet in 2011. Since then, it had been monitored and last year in August the Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Strategy Implementation Plan was also adopted by Cabinet and is monitored quarterly. She also indicated that there was a Gender Provincial Profile, which served as a baseline for planning, intervention and monitoring.

For gender mainstreaming, key indicators were employment/unemployment and entrepreneurial involvement; political representation, participation and positions held in decision making bodies; access to education, health services, economy, water and sanitation and electricity; rural-urban poverty and gender based violence. The key indicators of disability mainstreaming were transport, unemployment, education, health, accessible and targeted housing, social safety and security and social protection. 

With respect to women in politics and decision making bodies, the gender and the executive was 50/50, excluding the premier as of 2011, gender and the legislature was 39% female and 61% male as of 2011, the speaker was a woman and 52% of portfolio committees were chaired by women. Comparing women’s representation in provincial legislature in 2004 and 2011, KZN went from 26% in 2004 to 39% in 2011. Women’s PR representation was higher than at the ward level overall and in all the provinces. KZN had the lower proportion of women in ward seats at 17%. Certain departments made improvements in terms of percentage of females at SMS level and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) made this biggest improvement going from 38% to 42% (see slide 9 for details).

For persons with disabilities, the KZN province was at 0.20% and the leading department, the Department of Arts and Culture, was at 1.76%. The DCSL, DEDT and the Royal Household were all at 0%. Certain departments made minimal improvements, including Human Settlements, COGTA and Public Works, which represented a slight shift in the right direction (see slide 10).

With employment intervention, Cabinet and COHOD monitored gender and disability equity targets. Heads of departments were requested to implement the strategy that intended to ensure that the departments met the national employment equity targets in terms of females at SMS level and employees with disabilities at all levels, as well as audit employees to identify those with disabilities and adhere to the COHOD resolution to not employ males at SMS level. The department has increased access to education, and the enrolment at the primary school level is near parity (0.97). Gender Parity Indices at the secondary and tertiary levels were greater than unity, which meant that girls are more likely to access secondary or tertiary education than boys.  The key problems were that girls’ enrolment in science, engineering and technology programmes at tertiary institutions was low compared to boys.

With respect to the Premier’s Disability Priority Project, the KZN Department of Education facilitated registration of seven office-based educators to do a Bachelor of Education in Special Needs Education at University of Zululand. Many other examples of educational intervention were listed on slides 15 to 18 of the presentation document. 

The Chairperson stated that Members were leaving the meeting and she wanted the presenter to speed up so proper discussion could occur following the presentations. She strictly requested a summary.

Dr Mkhabela summarised with slide number 5 and stated that mainstreaming of gender and disability in education, health services, and economy was being rolled out and monitored at a higher level. The poverty that was experienced in KZN underwent intervention based on statistics available to the province. Gender-based violence was being tackled in schools, communities and in relation to public servants.

The Chairperson asked for the Gauteng delegation to begin their presentation.

Gauteng Presentation
Mr Zain Bulbulia, Acting Head: Gender, Office of the Gauteng Premier, began the presentation by saying that the Committee room was not easy for him to access. Gauteng had adopted a policy in 2010 related to Gender Equity and Disability Rights which had been approved and adopted. Gauteng was at 1.6% disabled employees and if one did not include numbers from the Department of Finance the province would be past 2%. He handed the presentation over to his colleague Ms Delores Mbuli, Director for Gender from the Office of the Premier in Gauteng.

Ms Mbuli stated that it was unfair for the delegation to be presenting because it had a long presentation and it had to be summarised. KZN has looked at the agenda on disability in terms of political outcomes and the province focused on the outcomes of government. They developed a gender, youth and disability Programme of Action and looked at the short term and long term planning focusing on relevant priorities. KZN examined tangible results and it was important for the province to look at delivery of provincial priorities that they had focused on with respect to planning and budgeting and reporting. In that way the province would pick up if there were any other problems in the department and could come up with corrective measures. The province would go to departments and determine gender problems in the departments. The departments would then prioritise what they were doing.

Gauteng aligned their political outcomes and programmes to the millennium development goals and gender and development priorities. In terms of achievements, there were a large number of girls passing matric, and last year Gauteng was placed first in terms of the matric results. The province examined how female learners were performing in matric regarding mathematics and science, and there was an improvement that area. In terms of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Grade R schools, over 8% of public primary schools had Grade R and out of the 66 706 children who accessed ECD, 32 593 were female learners. This showed the access of female learners into education has improved. Top student performers originated from no-fee schools. Children coming from no-fee schools were performing well so the myth was shattered. 

With respect to the cleanliness of toilets - toilets were a private place and female learners. The province had taken a decision to come up with a programme on cleanliness of toilets and that was rolling out very well. The province was not producing a lot of social workers but within the schooling system there should be support systems that support learners with challenges. In terms of the training of educators able to teach sign language, the province increased their capacity and this was important because it had been an issue that was sidelined for quite some time.

By virtue of how the health sector was structured, Gauteng was performing well. In light of breast cancer month, there was rigorous work that was being done related to the topic. Cervical cancer screening, mammograms and family planning policy programs were underway to combat the problems faced in Gauteng. With respect to issues of sexuality education, the province has been busy. Around issues of safety, there were 460 000 men and boys enrolled in gender-based violence programs, and Gauteng had community policing forums and station in the province.  Some were deployed at schools. In terms of violence against women, the province had 122 functional Victim Empowerment Centres and they were busy rolling out the Ikhaya Temba model in three communities.

On the topic of job creation, issues were raised around the Extended Public Work Programme (EPWP) and the province tried to look at 456 women on child support, which were also involved in cooperatives. The province was attempting to align cooperatives with what was already present. In terms of skills development, it was a key area and Gauteng was working on skills development. For people with disabilities, the province was at approximately 0.11% of the 2% target. During disability month, the province looked specifically at supporting people with disabilities.

Forty women’s agricultural cooperatives were supported and women were involved in agriculture and rural development projects (see slide 43). With respect to human settlements, 9 450 housing units and 5 345 tents had been delivered to date. In Gauteng, there were a lot of achievements In terms of access to basic services there were a lot of improvements and there was representation of women at committees. The targets were exceeded and obviously there was a lot of training provided to women councillors (see document for complete presentation as what was presented was only a brief summary).

The Chairperson immediately asked for the presentation from the delegation from the Northern Cape.

Northern Cape Presentation
The Northern Cape stated that the special programmes directorate was located in the Office of the Premier under Programme 3 and comprised the Office on the Status of Women, the Office on the Rights of the Child and the Office on the Status of Persons with Disabilities and Moral Regeneration and Transformation. The youth and senior citizens would soon be added to this. 

The delegate skipped through the organogram, and objectives to save time (see presentation document for details).

The purpose of the women’s employment and gender strategy was to advance the ‘basic needs’ approach to women’s empowerment and Gender Equality to ensure that Government approached these challenges in an integrated manner (slide 6). With respect to disability, the province outlined Provincial Program of Action 2007-2008, which was reviewed and explained that it was aimed to alleviate poverty amongst disabled people and their families. The province also described the Service Delivery Framework for Persons with Disabilities in Municipalities from 2008, which aimed to create a conducive environment for Persons with Disabilities in Local Government. 

With Employment Equity, the Provincial Diversity Management Training Manual 2011 was in circulation and the aim was to increase employment of women and persons with disabilities by assisting the Employment Equity Manager or any person who was tasked with the training to have an understanding of diversity management and to be able to train other staff members on diversity (further details on employment equity enabling instruments on slide 8 of the presentation). 

Achievements in the area of gender mainstreaming showed that the provincial gender machinery was established and functional. Gender Focal Persons had been appointed in all Provincial Departments from the levels of assistant manager to deputy manager. All Municipalities had Special Programmes Officers who dealt with a variety of issues such as gender, persons with disabilities, children, youth, elderly and IDPS (slide 9). Slide 10 listed more achievements in mainstreaming gender in the Northern Cape. On the topic of disability mainstreaming, the office facilitated training sessions on disability mainstreaming, conducted awareness raising programmes on the UNCRPD and ran other awareness raising programmes though partnerships between SALGA and SASSA. They also raised awareness on the relationship between disability and HIV/AIDS (slide 12). 

The Chairperson interrupted the presentation and asked them to stop.  She suggested that the delegation circulate the document for the Committees to read. The Chair suggested that if there were any key findings the delegation could share, they should do it now.

The delegate began the presentation again and enumerated progress statistics on the topic of representation of women and persons with disabilities in the workplace. The highest numbers were in the Office of the premier with Gender Representation (SMS Level) at 41% and Disability Representation at 2.21% (see slide 16 of presentation for details).  In departments and municipalities, gender representation (SMS Level) was 27.27% and disability representation was 0.34%.  

Discussion
Mr D Kekane (ANC) said he thought the first presentation was impressive because not only was the DPSA providing job opportunities for the disabled and women, but it was also providing training and preparation so that those individuals were ready for their jobs. The tradition was that women should not go to school and the disabled were relegated to the background. He asked if there was enough emphasis on college programmes for women and people with disabilities because that was where the production happened. Carpenters were taught to design and they could open many factories. Gone were the days of just asking for employment. Women had to be prepared for production and to open up their own factories and produce whatever was needed. The women today were able to do bricklaying and build houses.  He wanted to know for both disabled people and women, in the domains of manufacturing of textiles, food and other production, if they were being trained in these areas of work. If not, then they were being deprived of opportunity. 

Mr D Du Toit (DA) expressed interest in the first presentation on the issue of the percentage of the status quo on gender. He stated that if one were to graph the percentages, it would show that 60% of the numbers lied in the representation between 34-38%, which was quite large. The median was around 34-38%. On disability, it was a different percentage. 50% was lying between 0.36% and 0.41%. A statistical analysis showed that there was a glass ceiling.  Why didn’t the numbers increase? He was worried that enforcing the 50% target meant hiring people who were not fully trained or did not have the opportunity to finish their education. He stated that he was worried that those factors were creating a glass ceiling. The stats were not wide, they were narrow and they were between the percentages mentioned. The statistics were not exceptions.  It was a general thing, a backlog of education and training. He acknowledged that this had been addressed but the department should not go too quickly and end up with people not suited for the job.

Ms J Maluleke (ANC) noted the DPSA had taken into consideration the location of gender needs in the department and found that it was not uniform. She asked for the DPSA’s view. She expressed that she would like to hear from the Minister and that although there was successful work done by the DWCPD, there was still the challenge of disabled people in the workplace. There were reports in the media about some disabled people employed at the front desk so it “looked like we were doing our job” but the reality was in other places they were not employed. How were they monitoring their work and the situation where people with disabilities were employed? Were the disabled employees satisfied? Perhaps monitoring where people with disabilities were in terms of their employment would be beneficial. In terms of statistics on the political women agenda and disabilities, the Committee was aware it was the work of the ANC and they did not blame anyone, but it was their responsibility when talking of MDGs to have addressed the challenges in the country. 

Mr S Marais (DA) stated that he was not going to be nice and that he had served in the Committee since becoming a Member of Parliament. Some of the rhetoric he had heard at the meeting, he heard way back in the old days. What had changed? All he had heard over the years was excuses about people with disabilities. Committees and departments should not come up with excuses as to why standards and targets were not met. One of the major problems was that there were no consequences for non-compliance. There would never be compliance if there were no consequences for non-compliance. No one was going to force anyone to comply. When the Committee visited the South African Reserve Bank and asked about people with disabilities, the bank said that people with disabilities worked in the mint. He was furious, and it was surprising if that was how the Reserve Bank saw the abilities of people with disabilities. The statistics that were shown here in terms of school leavers and further education proved the point - these individuals had abilities and people looked, unfortunately, first and foremost towards their disabilities. He said he found the excuse by the departments in terms of classification to be absolutely unacceptable. No one wanted to be classified in terms of race and often those people who did not want to be classified as disabled were registered with SARS or their department for their disability. Some individuals were registered with Social Services. 

Mr Marais stated that the presenter only mentioned tertiary institutions and some other disabilities. He asked why they took part in an event on cerebral palsy. He did not think that the departments understood the definition of disabled. The departments prided themselves on policies and that was fantastic but so what? He had many interactions with SARS on how they looked at people with disabilities. In Parliament, in the days of President Mbeki, there were targets associated with women, but what about people with disabilities? Sometimes there were excuses and promises and in some cases the situation worsened. With respect to disabled people that paid tax and who claimed medical expenses, SARS had a policy in place to red flag those clients. Any person that claimed medical expenses was classified as red flag clients, and this was infuriating because Mr Marais had a disabled child who was now red flagged. He stated it made him feel like a criminal and asked why people with disabilities were being criminalised.  There were constant excuses of how people wanted to be classified and how they clarified these issues. He stated that departments should stop setting targets and making excuses when they were not reached. It was fantastic what the Committee and departments were doing for women and with equity but he did not feel any progress was being made. Mr Marais explained that he worked with people who have disabilities, and that certain individuals had approached him and he then referred them to people at SARS to help them but there was a huge discrimination and this happened in the public service and across the department. The Minister’s comments were predominantly about women and he wanted to see the government “put their money where their mouth was” on the topic of disabilities. He explained that there were so many acceptable definitions of people with disability that people could not hide behind who and what they were.  He said the presenters were constantly repeating and the provinces were the same.  

Ms E More (ANC) said that she wanted to take another angle, adding that the problem was much deeper because it talked to education in the country. It started at the Committee. If the Committee empowered women from the group level, then they would get opportunities. The Department did not want to comply for the sake of complying. The government needed to make sure people they had put in certain places were skilled. She explained that they had a state agency with names of disabled people that they could put in different places, but since some companies did not have accessibility, certain people did not get employed. She asked what the country was going to do to empower these people. The committees and departments always talked about the same issues but no solutions and accountability resulted from it. There had to be consequences.

Ms M Mohale (ANC) was worried about the Premiers who did not send representatives to the meeting. She asked how seriously they took Parliament. It was wrong and unacceptable, and the Committees had to write to them and request the reasons for their absence. She explained that it was Wednesday, which was Cabinet Day and the Minister was there. She asked what was wrong with them and why they could not come. She explained that most people were employed at the provincial levels and asked why women were not at 50% and disabled at 2%. The provinces’ behaviour was not acceptable. She said that the “truth would set you free” and with statistics the Committee could see where they were going and where they were lagging behind. Where were they going? Was it enough to say that “disabled people were encouraged to apply” and how did people who were visually impaired get the adverts?

Ms Mohale wondered about ECD and how girls and disabled children were “taken up”. How did they cope at the different centres? Directing a request towards DPSA, she asked them to tell the Committees about their job access strategy. How was it fitting in the DPSA? Was each department picking it up and trying their best? She stated that maybe the government would be able to move somewhere and that maybe 2% would no longer be targeted. Also there were relationships of different departments with institutions of higher learning, so they could get disabled people starting there.
 
Rev D Ximbi (ANC) concurred with other speakers. Addressing DPSA, he did not know if they were waiting for a legislative bill but they needed to force the departments or the provinces to act. He said he thought the DPSA needed “teeth to bite”. 

The Chairperson explained, on the issue of the gender relation that part of the reason the Committees wanted this meeting was to assess if gender and disability equity was transforming society. The Committee ensured that the DG had to deliver in terms of disability. When performance assessments were done and the result was positive for the DG, they received a bonus. That was how they normally helped – the department came up with evaluation and performance contracts. The only way to complement this was to put a deadline and then interrogate and ask why it did not happen. Sometimes the Committees interacted with foresight in other areas so many things Members were raising was in the past. The Committees wanted to thank the Public Service Commission. Once the head met with the DG of provinces, a different story was told. When departments did not comply, the Committee did not have the authority to beat them up.  She said there needed to be compliance. The other issue that came on board was to develop a programme for disability. The Chairperson stated that there was a lot of work from the meeting so they had to do planning, but this matter cut across all departments and it was something they wanted to recommend to the Chair of Chairs, because it needed to be on the agenda of Parliament. Parliament needed to bring everything together and enforce and use a cluster approach. Departments had to surpass the 2% so the Committees needed to come up with a very tight programme in terms of dealing with that. There was an issue with disclosure of disability and it needed to be tightened. The curriculum for sign language and brail needed to be elevated and there was progress but there needed to be advocating at the home level. They needed to start to open disability access points and there was a lot of work that they needed to do which should not have been such a burden. The advocacy would challenge the DWCPD to come up with a programme to advocate around disabilities that should be implemented. She said it was important to find out who wants what so they could assist with the services that were there. With respect to the responses from departments, they would have follow up meetings. She said they needed a day to focus with COGTA looking at both the districts and municipalities so they could see challenges in important areas. She then asked for responses to questions that were posed during the discussion. 

The Minister thanked the Chairperson and the Honourable Members for their comments and contributions. She addressed the question raised about training people for production and factories. By using the FETs that were available, the DWCPD was indeed working jointly with the Department of Higher Education. The Minister complained that the uptake was not good and the departments should encourage young people with disabilities to apply for funding that was set aside. Referring to comments from Mr Du Toit, she said he indicated that the departments should go slowly and not push too quickly and she agreed that they had targets and deadlines and they had to make sure they met those deadlines. She said they were at 39% for women and the goal was 50% for 2015 so the departments had to push. Many girls were going to tertiary education and many were graduating so they could not say they were not ready for senior management, and the departments emphasised the fact that they were not talking about receptionists. They also expected people with disabilities to be at senior levels, but in most departments these types of people were at lower levels. 

The WEGE Bill would look at qualification level and placing of these units so they were at decision-making level and were able to report to the DG and qualified individuals and senior managers in provinces. She explained that in terms of monitoring the working environment, the department had a survey where they were looking at the environment where people with disabilities were working, and this was what subsequently informed policy referred to with DPSA. They were developing a reasonable policy, and after that they would be able to enforce employment of people with disabilities. The DWCPD believed that the change had been slow and implementation had been slow as well, but on top of that they developed legislation that would enforce the rights. She believed the departments would be able to make change. 

Referring to slide 9 from the DPSA presentation on the inclusive education policy, the Minister commented that it was all about awareness and inclusion. That was what inclusive education was about. On the topic of bursaries, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) was running young women and disabled programmes and had trained many skilled people in rural areas. In terms of where to go and who to contact, the DRDLR was working with the DoL to create a databank where they would be given the name of people ready for employment, and in this databank they included people with disabilities then they took them to the departments who employed people with disabilities. This type of practice should also be done in the private sector. The question of declaration was important. People who did not declare could not be accommodated. As long as they did not declare they could not get the accommodation they required. She requested that the Committees assist the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities alongside the DPSA to encourage members of the public service to declare if they had a disability. 

The Chairperson thanked the Minister for coming to the meeting and excused her.

An official from the DPSA stated that the Minister had covered to a large extent what they were going to express. With respect to comments by Mr Du Toit, the DPSA thought it was important to note that 58% of the public service was women and 32% were male. Looking up the ladder the majority of people were men. There was a sufficient amount of women in the Public Service, but the DPSA needed to give them more exposure at lower levels to prepare them for senior management. The location of the gender unit, specifically when they were located in Premier and HOD offices; saw better performance, so they were more effective. Targets were simply measurements to enable the departments to measure how well they were doing or not. There was a lot of work that happened broadly, and the DPSA thought it was important to align work across various offices for employment because employment initiatives did not always translate into actual employment in the public service. There was a gap and it was something the DPSA needed to start focusing on. The department indicated that enforcement of compliance was a challenge across the public service. The Public Service Act, in terms of section 16, provided for a reporting mechanism – in other words if departments did not comply, the DG for DPSA could request a report. The Minister could request a MEC and then the Minister would report to Parliament about compliance. There was no real enforcement beyond that. The DPSA were worried about the area of enforcement. The implementation of the job access strategy had occurred, but the DPSA acknowledged that there was poor implementation. The document was there and it gave them assisting mechanisms. Based on the reports received at DPSA, there were very poor levels of compliance to the job access strategy. They were dealing with it as part of their ongoing advocacy with departments. To conclude, the programme on disability management could be made available and it was constantly being reviewed.   

The Chairperson thanked everyone who made it to the meeting and thanked the Members before ending the meeting.

The meeting adjourned.
 

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