Chairperson, the hon member Mr Sinclair has a problem with alliances that are being formed. I wonder what he has to say about alliances that are exploding at the moment. [Interjections.] Maybe one of these days we will have one party speaking with three voices!
The Western Cape considered this Bill, and we support it. We believe that it is going to close a couple of loopholes that exist at the moment.
Some of the evidence that was presented to the committee was from the Black Sash and they had some pertinent points to make, one of which was that the five-day notice period given to respond to the proposed Bill simply did not provide for the public. They especially alluded to the fact that those members of the public with limited resources would not have had adequate time to engage properly with its content and make critical and meaningful input. They also said that they felt there should be both an internal and an external or independent review mechanism. This was because the internal review mechanism was more of a bureaucratic one where, if a technical mistake was made with regard to the application, it could easily be handled by the department. However, there needed to be some sort of an independent mechanism, to which matters that were not just of a technical nature could be referred.
Lastly, the Black Sash, an organisation of many years standing in dealing with this specific category of indigent population requiring grants, expressed their concern that there had been no agreed definition of disability or consistent application of a standardised tool to assess it. This has subjected many of our clients to the discretion of medical practitioners and officials, which contradicts the basic principles of administrative justice. These are important points. I hope that they will be taken into account in the regulations.
However, the whole debate on this Bill raises some other pertinent points, such as the issue of the war on poverty or poverty as such. I would like to quote from Premier Zille's newsletter of last week where she says:
Almost everyone in South Africa agrees that our country's major challenge is poverty and unemployment.
The question is, how can we enable people to move out of poverty, and earn an income, in a sustainable way?
The "War on Poverty" programme, which is one of the major initiatives of President Zuma's office. It is spearheaded by the Deputy President, Kgalema Motlanthe. Its key strategy is "community profiling". In theory this involves compiling a detailed survey of each household in a community, so that the state can target its interventions with the purpose of enhancing the capacity of the households to move out of poverty and earn a living.
I am sure that every member in this House religiously reads Helen Zille's newsletter every week, and so you will know that she gave a couple of examples and anecdotes about what happened when she visited the community to see the exposition of this particular profiling mechanism.
I want to quote just one example, because it really is illuminating. In this particular case, the person was obviously an alcoholic, who was blind drunk in the middle of the morning. The conclusion of the profiling was that the way to alleviate that person's poverty was to fix the crack in the wall of his house. The state is going to have to mobilise its resources and fix the crack in the wall of the house. Nowhere did it say in the profiling that his alcoholism needed to be addressed, and nowhere did it take into account that the man was a skilled bricklayer, tiler and plasterer and could have done it himself if his alcoholism had been addressed in the first place.
That, unfortunately, is one of the idiosyncrasies of a purely bureaucratic approach. When she addressed the Deputy President in the meeting, she further said:
I used the opportunity to talk bluntly about some of the "unmentionable" causes of poverty: teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, the spread of HIV through unprotected sex, the failure of many fathers to take responsibility for their children. I said that if we were to wage a real and effective "War on Poverty" we would have to be honest about these issues and devise effective strategies to address them. This would require both the government and individuals to take responsibility. The current approach was entrenching poverty and dependence, not eradicating it.
Currently, the Western Cape's strategy as far as poverty is concerned is that the effects of poverty may be eliminated through state intervention, but ultimately people can only be said to be out of poverty when they are able to take care of their own basic needs. The state has a responsibility to facilitate opportunities to escape poverty. It is necessary for people to accept responsibility for making the most of the opportunities. No one can escape poverty through state action alone. It must be a joint effort between the state and the individual, in which each has responsibilities. Nowhere in the discussion by the Deputy Minister did I hear about the responsibility of the individuals concerned. There are many different definitions of poverty in use today. The Western Cape provincial government has chosen to take a capability deprivation approach borrowed from the economist Amartya Sen and consistent with our vision of an open society for all. At its heart is the understanding that substantive freedom, the ability to lead a life of value, is the objective of development and that poverty consists of not having the power, opportunity or means to do so.
Therefore, it follows that while the state has the responsibility to facilitate opportunities to escape poverty, it is necessary for people to accept the responsibility for making the most of these opportunities. No one can escape poverty through state action alone. It must be a joint effort between the state and the individual, in which each has a responsibility.
One of the speakers has alluded to Brazil. With Brazil, I think you will find, there are very few comparisons to be made with South Africa as far as productivity is concerned. In its industry Brazil is per capita one of the most productive nations in the world at the moment. South Africa has an abysmal rate of productivity in world terms. We also have one of the highest dependency rates per capita in the world as far as social grants are concerned.
Therefore, contrary to what has been stated, it is not currently sustainable. We must be careful - just as with the economy, we need to create an environment where people want to participate and not one where people are demotivated in regard to participating in the economic centre. The DA believes that we should have a hand-up society and not a handout society. We support the Bill. [Applause.]