NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: Madam Chairperson, Mr President, Deputy President, colleagues, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, last week I stood at the podium here and released the first output of the National Planning Commission's Diagnostic Report, launching a period of public engagement aimed at uniting all South Africans in a process to develop solutions to our critical challenges.
Already we have received dozens of comments and pledges of support and I want to quote just two. The first says:
I'm a pastor from the Dutch Reformed Church in Lynnwood and would love to be part of this wave of renewal. This is one dream we must share and let it spread like fire. I did run the idea of my participation past the Chairperson of the Dutch Reformed Church in the northern part of South Africa, and he gave the green light to be a link to your cause.
That is from Dominee Immanuel van Tonder of the Dutch Reformed Church in Lynnwood, Pretoria.
The second quote comes from Ziphilele Gaju, a teacher from Port Elizabeth, and he says:
We must begin to review and measure ourselves on the basis of what we and the rest of the continent are currently faced with, and begin to revise our past and present for an improved future, without waiting for things to fall apart.
Mr President, we are heartened that our public engagement process has been received so warmly by so many South Africans. In particular, I would like to thank the National Assembly for the opportunity to launch the Diagnostic Report here, affording us an opportunity to engage with the nation's representatives and talk directly to millions of our people. We look forward to engaging also on the solutions.
The National Planning Commission has spent the bulk of the past 14 months, since its appointment, conducting research, meeting with experts and stakeholders and listening to South Africans about the key challenges that confront us.
South Africans are united in affirming that the values of the Constitution should form the basis of the vision. The elements of the vision statement that we tabled last week are drawn directly from our Constitution. South Africans are equally emphatic that eliminating poverty and reducing inequality are our key strategic objectives.
The National Planning Commission identified nine key challenges that confront us in meeting our objectives of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality. These are that too few South Africans are working; the quality of education for most black learners is still substandard; our infrastructure is inadequate to meet our social and economic needs; the spatial legacy of apartheid planning limits social inclusion and growth; our development path is too resource-intensive and hence unsustainable; our public health system is ailing under a massive disease burden; public service performance is uneven; corruption levels are high and undermine service delivery; and finally, South Africa remains a divided society.
These nine challenges are underpinned by extensive research and engagement with key stakeholders. We are fully mindful of the fact that agreeing on the major challenges is in many ways going to be the easy task. Developing solutions that enjoy broad support and are implementable will be much harder. However, a problem correctly diagnosed is a problem at least half solved.
We recognise that these are formidable challenges. We are confident that South Africa has the capabilities to solve them. We raise these challenges mindful of our successful track record in uniting as a people to confront our greatest challenges. Through a national dialogue involving the broader spectrum of our people we can indeed develop solutions and the capacity to implement them. As we point out in the Diagnostic Report, success will require the involvement of all South Africans; clear leadership from all sectors of society; proper planning; clear prioritisation; and meticulous focus on implementation.
It is important that we indicate that the process of consultation takes a shared, collaborative form. That we have made all these documents available - and it will, by the end of this week, be available in all 11 official languages - is only one part of this process. The commission, supported by the secretariat, is very determined to take the idea of elements of the vision statement and the diagnostic document to every corner of South Africa.
We want to share with everyone our observations, and it is vitally important that we get feedback from all South Africans. As we take this process forward, we want to place special emphasis on young people who must be involved in defining the South Africa of 2030, a time when many of us will have passed on, or at least be out of the policy-making arena. It will be their South Africa, their decisions to make, and therefore their involvement is important and the Planning Commission provides a bridge between the present and that future. The public engagement process will be a multidimensional one. In order to give all citizens an opportunity to contribute to solutions, commissioners will visit the provinces and meet with elected leaders, civil society, business communities and, as I said, young people in particular.
We will also receive comments by e-mail, fax, text message and in writing. Soon we will have the full capacity to receive phone calls, so that people can call to simply tell us what they think - not to swear at us, hopefully, but just to tell us what they think and we will be able to collect these inputs.
In addition to using social networking methods to receive input, we will also host what is called an "online jam" for the first time in this country. This will allow thousands of people to participate in an interactive, online discussion on the key issues that confront us. In parallel, the commission is already working on aspects of the plan, conducting detailed research and meeting with experts to guide the development of the plan. There is an incredible amount of detail that is required.
Allow me to illustrate, using just one issue as an example. We have identified the resource-intensive nature of our development path as a key challenge. There are several questions that have to be answered. How will we transition to a low-carbon economy while creating jobs and raising competitiveness - reminding ourselves, of course, that in Copenhagen President Zuma made a very strong global commitment that must speak to us as a nation. Can we transition to a low-carbon economy and still exploit our vast mineral wealth for the good of all of our people? How will we use our water resources more efficiently? What type of infrastructure is required to provide water to all our people, throughout the country? What is our solution to the challenge that some regions are likely to become water stressed quite soon, and there are some parts of the country that are water stressed because they don't have access to water even though they frequently live in the shadow of dams? How do we manage our marine and fishing resources to meet the needs of future generations? How do we produce more food using less water?
As is evident, this single challenge throws up dozens of questions that need to be answered and the answers must be based on solid research, sound evidence and careful plans, and tested with all the major stakeholders.
In November this year, we will release a vision statement and development plan for consideration by Cabinet and the public at large. As mentioned earlier, the Planning Commission is largely advisory. Decisions and implementation reside with the President, the executive, and various spheres of government and entities.
The work of the National Planning Commission clearly does not stop in November. November merely signals the end of the first phase of the work of the commission. Next year and in subsequent years, the commission will produce much more detailed plans on specific topics, guided by the Green Paper on the National Planning Commission and the needs of the President and Cabinet.
For example, in 2012, we might present detailed reports on food and water security and on managing the transition to a low-carbon economy. Each of these reports will have much more detail than can be fitted into a single overarching national development report.
Turning to some of the specifics of our budget, we are asking Parliament to vote an amount of R83,8 million to the NPC this year. I want to emphasise that it is "million" with an "m" and with six zeroes, because in the press last week some journalist got it very wrong and said that we were spending R63 billion. I want to stress to the members of the parliamentary press gallery that it is a "million" with an "m" and six zeroes, please.
The Appropriation Bill provides for a purpose for each programme. The programme of National Planning has as its purpose to help develop the country's long-term vision and national strategic plan and contribute towards better outcomes in government through better planning, better long- term plans, greater policy coherence and the clear articulation of long- term goals and aspirations. The commission and the secretariat, which is based in The Presidency, will strive to achieve these goals by working together with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation and other departments and spheres. In particular we will work closely with other government departments that provide strategic advice and support to the President and Cabinet.
The commission consists of the chairperson and 25 independent commissioners who are part-time, appointed on the basis of their expertise and experience. The budget for National Planning provides resources to compensate commissioners for the time that we take from them and for work that they do in fulfilling the mandate of the commission. Resources are also provided for administrative support, travel and accommodation, meetings and other public engagements. These resources can be found in the subprogramme called "Ministry".
The Ministry subprogramme also includes resources for a programme called the National Income Dynamics Study, Nids. Nids is South Africa's national panel study, a longitudinal survey that will span at least a decade. Nids Wave 1, which is the base survey, was undertaken in 2008, Wave 2 last year and Wave 3 will be undertaken in next year. In Wave 1, 7 305 households were surveyed, and a total of 28 255 individuals were interviewed. The SA Labour and Development Research Unit, Saldru, at the University of Cape Town, UCT, is the implementing agency for Nids Wave 1 and 2. The Nids Wave 3 tender process is nearing completion and the contract will be signed in the current financial year.
An important component of the Nids is capacity-building; through the contract with Saldru they have to train students in quantitative analysis. In this regard 14 scholarships were awarded to students doing their honours, masters, PhD and post-doctoral work.
The Nids data set provides an invaluable resource with which to track the income, employment and asset status of South Africans. As an example for the usefulness of this programme, one of the studies, Low Quality Education as a Poverty Trap, undertaken by Professor Servaas van den Berg at Stellenbosch University this year, shows that the education system generally produces outcomes that reinforce current patterns of poverty and privilege, instead of challenging them. The inequalities in schooling outcomes manifest via labour market outcomes, perpetuating current patterns of income inequality. This is a key conclusion of the Diagnostic Report that we released last week. All Nids papers are available on the Nids website and I would like to encourage members to take the time to follow the analysis and research.
The second subprogramme covers research and policy support to the commission and Ministers. This covers the salaries of the secretariat in the main. The third subprogramme covers communications and public participation, enabling the commission to listen to the public, receive input of various types and to communicate the findings and reports of the commission. In addition to the more traditional means, we are making a special effort to communicate with young people, as I said.
When the President appointed the National Planning Commission, in his mind, he saw it as part of a series of reforms aimed at improving coherence in government and the performance of the state more generally. For this reason, the success of the NPC as an initiative is at least partly dependent on working together with other stakeholders inside The Presidency, in government in general and in society at large. We pledge to continue to work collaboratively with other stakeholders, even with Minister Nzimande.
When commissioners were appointed, I do not think that they knew what they were signing up for. They probably thought that it would take a few hours a month of their time. This has not been the case. Commissioners have given up huge amounts of their time, attending meetings, overseeing research, consulting with stakeholders and engaging with government departments. We thank them for the hard work and sacrifice that they are making to contribute to the development of the vision and plan. They do this because they are patriotic South Africans who are passionate about the success of this country.
The President's appointment of such independent-minded outsiders to do such a difficult and complex job is a huge vote of confidence in our democracy and in our Constitution. We thank him for his leadership and support throughout the process so far.
In addition to my role as chairperson of the National Planning Commission, there are several functions that I perform that do not relate to the work of the commission directly. The President has asked me to help co-ordinate work on the North-South Corridor, an international effort under the auspices of the AU and Nepad to promote infrastructure investment in road and rail along this important corridor. The signing of the tripartite agreement this past weekend is going to require a lot more effort on the North-South Corridor.
I also serve as one of the joint chairs of the Transition Committee of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, tasked with designing and mobilising a Green Climate Fund. The work of this committee is especially important as we look forward to hosting COP 17 in Durban later this year.
As a board member of the Green Growth Institute, I am part of a globally represented, nonprofit institute dedicated to the promotion of economic growth and development while reducing carbon emissions, increasing sustainability and strengthening climate resilience. In particular, the institute supports emerging and developing nations in their efforts to create and implement national and local strategies and policies for pursuing green growth. In conclusion, I would like to thank both the President and the Deputy President for the support that they have given us in our work over the past year. We are convinced that the boldness displayed by the President in appointing the Planning Commission and the faith that he has displayed in their abilities will be evident as we embark on this journey. I also wish to thank the staff in the Ministry and in The Presidency for their hard work in the process thus far. Thank you. [Applause.]