Hon Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Deputy President Mr Kgalema Motlanthe, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, fellow South Africans and our veterans who are with us in Parliament today, let me begin by thanking all hon members for their contributions to this debate.
On 9 February we outlined a plan that will help us deal with the triple challenge of unemployment, inequality and poverty. We thank hon members for the general support of the plan. We welcome your suggestions on the implementation of the plan. Some hon members have raised caution about unveiling such a bold plan during a global economic meltdown and uncertainty, especially in Europe. While there is uncertainty, there are also opportunities, especially in Africa and the emerging economies. For example, sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow at an average of 5,4% over the next five years, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.
With the development of a continental free trade area, the South African manufacturing and export industries stand to benefit significantly from the expanded African market and the removal of obstacles to the movement of goods and people across borders. In addition, our membership of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc, Brics, is also yielding results. We have achieved a fourfold increase in exports to fellow members in the Brics group of countries, while imports from them have doubled. I look forward to the Brics summit in New Delhi, India next month, where we will be able to share the South African story and our drive to achieve labour-absorbing growth.
We are also exploring partnerships in other regions, for example the Middle East. We want to get South Africa working, growing and moving, as has been accurately outlined by the hon Minister Gigaba. We have put before the nation a workable plan that will enable us to do just that.
Hon Holomisa pointed out the need for the state to intervene in the economy in the interest of the poor. Hon Godi also welcomed the enhanced role of the state in the economy. We agree with the hon members. In our view, the state must play a central and strategic role in driving investment, especially in underdeveloped areas, as we are doing with the infrastructure programme.
Hon members, including hon uMntwana wakwaPhindangene, hon Ma-Njobe, hon Hoosen and hon Mfundisi raised sharply the need to improve the performance of the state in order to achieve our goals. In 2009, we took a decision to change the way government works and to improve the performance of the state. We introduced the performance monitoring and evaluation function in government, with a focus on outcomes, and the results are encouraging in a few departments.
I have undertaken a number of visits to the provinces to monitor the performance of education, health, job creation, rural development and local government. Community members are the best monitors. They tell us outright where the problems are during these visits and where the achievements are. These visits will continue this year as well. In other words, we don't only listen to the reports, but we get to the people who are supposed to receive the services. They will tell us whether there is delivery or not.
We have tasked the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency to continue monitoring progress among all departments to ensure compliance with this performance culture. The department, working with the offices of premiers, has also started a joint programme of frontline service delivery monitoring, also conducting unannounced visits. They visited 120 facilities last year.
Many departments have internalised this new ethos and are improving the way they deliver services. The Department of Home Affairs has reduced the turnaround time for identity documents from an average of 127 days in 2007 to less than 45 days by February 2011. [Applause.] Similar improvements have been achieved in the processing of passport applications. More recently, the department cleared the backlog of 57 000 permit applications.
The South African Social Security Agency has reduced the average turnaround time for processing new social grant applications from 30 days to 9 days. [Applause.] Parallel to that, there is an initiative in place to upgrade 300 social grant distribution centres. To date, 221 centres have been completed. [Applause.]
The Department of Mineral Resources established a new online application system in April 2011. It has enabled the department to issue prospecting rights within three months and mining rights within six months as opposed to the periods of six and twelve months, respectively, which had been the case previously. [Applause.]
Regarding the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, between 2009 and 2011 a total of 43 665 cases have been disposed of as a result of the introduction of additional regional and district backlog criminal courts. We applaud the judiciary for the extra hours put in to ensure access to justice. [Applause.]
Hon Meshoe mentioned the need to improve support to small businesses. There are noticeable improvements in the performance of government agencies providing services to small businesses. As was said last Thursday, we are merging the small business support institutions and a new one-stop institution will be launched in April this year.
We said in 2009 that government must pay small businesses within one month of receipt of a legitimate invoice. To fast-track timely payment to small, medium and micro enterprises, SMMEs, a call centre was established through the Small Enterprise Development Agency to facilitate payment within 30 days. As of 15 December 2011, the hotline call centre had answered in excess of 25 000 calls and facilitated payments in excess of R270 million to small enterprises. [Applause.] We continue to monitor the performance of the call centre to ensure continuous payment and that there is an improvement in this regard.
I met with the directors-general of national and provincial departments in 2009 and 2010 and instructed them to institute changes in the functioning of departments, including financial management and oversight. Among the measures that are being undertaken as a result to further improve efficiency, all departments have been instructed to put in place monitoring systems to track an invoice as it moves through the various stages of approval in the departments. Officials are required to provide a monthly exception report to the National Treasury on the number and value of invoices that have not been paid within 30 days. We are monitoring the compliance of departments with these instructions.
Hon Kopane, we noted the issues you raised relating to poor service delivery in some public hospitals and clinics. The national Department of Health has developed core quality standards for the availability of medicines and supplies, cleanliness, patient safety, infection prevention and control, positive attitudes and waiting times. The department has audited compliance with these standards in 4 210 health facilities and quality improvement plans are currently in the process of being developed to address identified gaps.
In working to improve citizen care, we want to ensure that health professionals become caring and understanding. They should not make a visit to a hospital or clinic more traumatic than the ailment that brings a patient to these facilities. We assure you that we are progressing well in changing the way government works to improve efficiency and put citizens first.
Hon Davidson raised the issue of the fight against crime. The Statistics SA Victims of Crime Survey 2011 confirms that the general perception by South Africans is that crime is indeed being brought under control. More than 40% of households surveyed believed that the level of both violent and nonviolent crime had decreased in their area of residence during the period 2008 to 2010. Successive crime reports demonstrate that substantial reductions in serious crimes have been achieved. We must not be shy to congratulate ourselves on this achievement, which is the result of sterling work by our police, the criminal justice system as a whole and communities. [Applause.] But the fight against crime and corruption continues. We will not become complacent.
We are increasing the number of skilled personnel in areas such as crime scene investigation, forensic analysis, fingerprinting and investigation, prosecution and legal aid, which will further improve performance. Already the impact of the improvements in investigative and forensic capacity is evident in the improved detection rates for serious crimes.
The Department of Correctional Services has introduced electronic monitoring of offenders who are granted parole and reintegrated into society. To promote access to justice, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development have completed major additions to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, as well as the new wing in the Western Cape High Court. Three new courts were completed in Tsakane, Ntuzuma and Kagiso. The department will be completing the construction of a new High Court in Limpopo and Katlehong. We will also be starting with the construction of a new High Court in Mpumalanga and new courts in Mamelodi, Port Shepstone, Dimbaza, Bityi and Plettenberg Bay. [Applause.]
The deployment of the SA National Defence Force on the border is yielding results. We are clamping down on illicit economic and criminal border activities.
Hon members raised the scourge of corruption as a serious problem. We are doing a lot already to combat corruption. Hon Hoosen, we reiterate our undertaking made in 2009 to combat fraud and corruption in tender processes. Our announcement about vetting supply-chain personnel is one of the interventions in this regard. Hon Chikunga outlined most of the interventions in the fight against crime and corruption. A lot has indeed been done.
The anticorruption task team constituted by representatives from the security agencies is currently investigating 45 corruption-related priority cases against 151 accused persons and assets in excess of R600 million have been seized. Assets worth more than R1 billion obtained through illicit means have been forfeited to the state in the past two years.
Meanwhile, since the inception of the national anticorruption hotline, which is managed by the Public Service Commission, a total of 1 499 officials were charged with misconduct for corrupt activities at the national and provincial government levels. We thank all those who use this hotline to report alleged corruption.
In addition, the Special Investigating Unit, SIU, is probing cases arising from 23 proclamations, relating mainly to procurement irregularities in national and provincial government departments and also in some public enterprises. We have split the function of heading the SIU and the Asset Forfeiture Unit to improve focus and output.
It is important to emphasise that most of the corruption you read about in the media is exposed as a result of the work of government and its agencies. [Laughter.] [Applause.] Hon members should remember that South Africa is the only country that has a programme to fight corruption. [Applause.] It is not being fought anywhere else. [Applause.] That's why you can't read about corruption in other countries. That's the reality. South Africa has a programme to fight corruption and it is fighting it. You are supposed to be saying "well done" to government. [Applause.] [Interjections.] Let us work together to promote clean governance and remove corruption from the Public Service and society in general. We are one of the countries in the world with a dedicated programme to fight corruption. [Interjections.]
The courts, led by the Constitutional Court, through their judgments, continue to make an indelible mark in the transformation of society to realise the vision set out in the Constitution. As outlined by Minister Radebe, an initiative to assess the impact and effect of the decisions of the superior courts, in particular the Constitutional Court, will be undertaken this year. This assessment will reflect on the impact of the constitutional jurisprudence in the past 17 years of our democracy towards the realisation of the transformation goals envisaged by our Constitution. The assessment will also focus on the role of the other arms of the state in giving effect to court judgments.
We reiterate that this exercise must not be viewed as an attempt by government to undermine the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, which are enshrined in our Constitution. It is, in reality, an enhancement of our constitutional democracy. [Applause.] We reaffirm our firm belief in the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary and of all three arms of the state. [Applause.]
To the hon Meshoe, we wish to emphasise that this exercise, as decided upon by Cabinet in November last year, falls within the mandate of the executive to formulate and review policies of government. There is nothing unusual or untoward about this. In fact, the Chief Whip of the Majority Party, the hon Motshekga, reminded us that constitutions the world over are dynamic and subject to review. [Applause.] In recognition of this fact, our Constitution provides that it must be reviewed at least annually by Parliament in terms of section 45(1)(c). That is why there is the Constitutional Review Committee in Parliament, and therefore reviewing these matters is not a matter that is foreign to what our Constitution dictates. We are actually within our mandate. If you have forgotten the Constitution, revisit it! Go and read it! [Laughter.] [Applause.]
The hon Mulder stunned all of us and the whole country yesterday with his bold denial of historical facts about land dispossession. [Interjections.] [Applause.] We recall the words of Sol Plaatje on the impact of the Natives Land Act of 1913, when he said:
Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.
John Langalibalele Dube stated around the same period:
Most Europeans would not know, and will never know, the bitterness of being driven from one's birthplace.
[Applause.] [Interjections.] The land question is one of the most emotive issues in our history and the present. It must be handled with the utmost care, not in the careless and callous manner that the hon Mulder handled it yesterday. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
As a responsible government, we resolved to address the land reform problem through restitution, redistribution and tenure reform, within the confines of the Constitution and informed by the national policy of reconciliation and nation-building. We felt it was not going to help the country for us to be emotional about the land question. We therefore urge the hon Mulder to tread very carefully on this matter. [Interjections.] [Applause.] It is extremely sensitive and to the majority of people in this country, it is a matter of life and death.
HON MEMBERS: Yes! [Interjections.] [Applause.]