Hon Deputy Chair, we are delighted to be invited to this House to reflect on the visit by the NCOP to our province, in particular to the Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality. This is one of the highly poverty-stricken areas of our country which needs a special focus by our government.
We are still thrilled by a decision of this august House to continue to take Parliament to the people. This remains a powerful tool in bringing all spheres of government under one roof to deliberate on improving access to basic services for our people. We saw participatory democracy in play, where communities could engage their leaders on almost every aspect of governance that has a bearing on their daily lives. We could see the enthusiasm of our people to gather more information about their government through attending, in large numbers, both plenary and sector-specific meetings.
The display of music and cultural activities on the opening day further re- engineered the spirit of the communities in a positive direction. The advance visit by the committee of the NCOP was able to focus the engagement with the community on matters that they raised earlier to see and observe whether some of their challenges had been speedily attended to. Some of the regular irritants of the community, such as potholes, illegal dumping, and bad village roads, were attended to in advance and gave the communities a lot of confidence in the NCOP visit. We are following up on these matters to ensure that what has been achieved is sustained.
National Ministers have developed follow-up programmes to enable their departments to attend to matters on which they made commitments. Key to this is a basket of services that has been identified to change the lives of the people of Maluti-A-Phofung for the better.
The Maluti-A-Phofung Local Municipality has intensified its programme of fixing village roads to enhance access to various villages in Qwaqwa. The electrification programme to ensure access to electricity has also been intensified this year. During the visit most rural communities were complaining about not being able to cross over to the other village during rainy periods. This complaint had been attended to by the installation of movable steel bridges in various villages in Qwaqwa.
Some communities were complaining bitterly about access to potable water. The municipality has initiated a big water scheme from the Sterkfontein Dam to bring permanent relief from the problem of water shortages in the area of Qwaqwa. The collaboration between government and traditional leaders in relation to service delivery has been enhanced by the NCOP visit. The Department of Social Development has started to collaborate with the traditional leaders around pension pay points and food parcel distribution through the use of various traditional council offices to provide this service. The Department of Economic Development is also reorganising the communities into co-operatives to leverage the job opportunities in these areas and to maximize local economic development initiatives.
Through the community works programme, over a thousand youths have been engaged in the Maluti-A-Phofung area as an intervention to mitigate the effects of unemployment. There has also been a drive to engage these rural youth in the capacity-building programmes through the department of agriculture and rural development. A considerable number of the youths have been trained at Thaba Nchu College on the rural development programme. This has been recruited from Qwaqwa as a nodal point to provide them with survival skills.
In an attempt to heed the call of homelessness in the area, as articulated by the communities during the NCOP visit, the Department of Human Settlements has allocated over a thousand housing subsidies to this area. This will not only address homelessness, but will also bring temporary relief to the unemployed. Key to this has also been the engagement of building contractors from the area to build these houses as a mechanism to grow the economy of this area.
The Department of Basic Education has also intensified its effort in the area to promote the culture of teaching and learning. At the beginning of the school term this year, the focus was the district of Thabo Mofutsanyana which did not perform well in Grade 12 results. The focus has been to supply the area with learner teacher support material on time. This area is contributing a significant number of the Dinaledi schools, and has been a focal point in our endeavour to promote mathematics and science in schools.
The Department of Health is championing its drive to revitalise primary health care facilities in Qwaqwa to improve the effectiveness of the clinics in the area, including the issues of working space, environment and safety at clinics. The campaign to fight the scourge of HIV and Aids in rural areas has been intensified in Qwaqwa, including the promotion of male circumcision.
Over 150 students from poverty-stricken families in Qwaqwa have been offered bursaries to pursue various careers at universities and technikons. A critical lesson learnt is that we need to dispatch our advance team in time to work with provincial officials in order to identify low-hanging fruits so that we strengthen the confidence of our people in the effectiveness of the programme of Taking Parliament to the People. It will also ensure that we provide sufficient time for sectoral meetings to afford communities enough time to engage on sector-specific issues.
We also need to involve ward councillors in this programme to foster more understanding around their constant interaction with the community at grass- roots level. The national departments must also receive the profile of the area in time and be able to package a basket of services which they will be able to make firm commitments on. This will strengthen the hand of the local municipality further in order to remove the focus only on councillors.
We remain committed as the Free State government to pursue all commitments that were made to the people of Maluti-A-Phofung during this visit, and further commit to redirect our resources to make immediate interventions on some critical challenges raised by these communities.
We remain convinced that the integrated development plans of municipalities remain key in ensuring that we deliver services in a co-ordinated manner to our people. Hon Deputy Chair, this visit has rightfully proved our belief that, working together, we can do more. Thank you. [Applause.]