Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Members of Parliament, it is a great privilege for me to participate in my first Budget Vote today, cognisant of our collective responsibility as the vanguard of South Africa's prosperity and wellbeing. [Applause.] Thank you.
Central to all we do is communication. Communication is the tool through which we can correct the social injustices of our past. It is the very tool that can have profound effects in terms of enabling people to lead the type of lives and attain the type of freedoms they have always dreamed of.
Let me therefore, at the outset, state that the IFP will support this Budget Vote because of the critically important role we believe that the Government Communication and Information System, GCIS, has to play in promoting an educated, informed citizenry. Let me just also hasten to add that the IFP shares the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues in the DA and Cope with regard to The New Age and the Guptas' influence on government communication. [Interjections.]
We recognise that the leadership of the GCIS has made great strides over the past financial year. However, I am sure that the GCIS will accept that there is always room for improvement in the execution of its important mandate. During a recent interaction with the leadership of the GCIS, I raised what I believe to be two critical issues: the need for a clear distinction, at all times, between the ruling party and the state, and between information and propaganda. There is no doubt that we live in a world of spin where government public relations is important. However, it should never be more important than government's core business.
This is clearly the thornier issue of this debate. We have seen the growth of government communications agencies in managing political debate. We have seen citizens being fed a steady diet of good-news stories instead of a healthy diet of news to educate them. We have seen a shift, often, where the public has not been provided with public information in the public's interest but is provided with a healthy dose of stories to make government look good.
A quick glance at Vukuzenzela is a case in point. Between all the stories of new courts opening, jobs being created, social grants being increased and government giving hope to the hopeless - which we welcome, of course - I did not see one story educating citizens on how to access their rights if they were not the beneficiaries of these services. Surely, when service delivery protests rock a community, or when a child with a disability is unable to access education, or when a grandmother from a far-flung rural area is unable to access transport or quality health care, it is not reasonable to provide those citizens with flowery, feel-good stories only.
This is a matter that goes to the very heart of our democracy. Our citizens must be equipped with practical and useful information to better their lives. Information that empowers. Information that educates. Nothing less.
The IFP also notes that while the communication and information aspect of the GCIS at national level is satisfactory, the communication abilities of provinces and municipalities leave much to be desired. Many Thusong Service Centres are in a state of disrepair and are failing because no one seems willing to take responsibility for their management, while there is often little buy-in from other spheres of government. Yet, Thusong Service Centres are the very mechanism that has been put in place to communicate with the ordinary South African. Without functioning Thusong Service Centres, the success of the GCIS to communicate its work to communities, especially rural communities, must be called into question.
A few examples bear testimony. The Mkhupula Thusong Centre in Msinga has no electricity. The Mbazwana Thusong Centre in Mkhanyakude has no centre manager, and provincial departments have failed to come on board. This has negatively impacted upon service delivery in that community. We implore the leadership of the GCIS, again, to engage all stakeholders in this regard, so that the failing centres can be resuscitated as a matter of urgency.
The sheer volume of publications still remains a cause for concern. Vukuzenzela is just one in a slew of GCIS media. Yet, for many of these publications produced by the GCIS, the readership figures are unclear and may be considered relatively unstable. Thus, an excessive amount is still being spent to print a variety of publications, the success of which cannot be verified. We believe the GCIS must review the effectiveness of each publication and determine whether it really reaches its intended audience and its intended outcomes. For example, one can just start by looking at this very glossy Public Sector Manager magazine, which is distributed to all of us and very widely in the public sector, and enquire whether these are read or just simply dumped, because I have seen many of them dumped around Parliament.
In a country such as ours, where the majority of our adult population has access to cellphones, it makes sense to communicate with our citizens via mobile platforms. This will be a step in the right direction to ensure that we reduce printing costs and wastage, as the dumping of undelivered and unread publications nationwide, is, without a doubt, a major problem. The move to mobile platforms must be expedited. I also note that while Vukuzenzela has an online platform, it is outdated. The last publication listed was from last year.
The Media Development and Diversity Agency continues to make great strides in developing community media. The importance of community media can never be underestimated. Not only does it often give a voice to the voiceless, but it can have a profound effect, in many instances, on the development of our communities. We applaud the good work that is being done in this regard.
We know that an informed electorate is critically important to deepening our democracy. The IFP therefore pledges our support to the GCIS in pursuance of this fundamental, national goal. I thank you. [Applause.]