Hon Chairperson, Deputy Minister and colleagues, let me start by dedicating this speech to my mother who is turning 76 years old today. [Applause.] I want to say to her, Mom, I thank you. I really thank God for giving me a mom of your calibre, and may God bless you with many more years to come.
Thank you very much, hon Chairperson, for the opportunity afforded me to discuss this very important topic. The ANC sees a successful developmental state as that which has a strong planning capacity and the capacity to intervene in strategic areas, meaning that it is a state that acts as an effective system of continual co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of government programmes and projects.
The ANC further understands that in order to achieve this, we need to have a public service that has the capacity to execute the tasks with which it has been entrusted and that does so through placing the right personnel in the correct positions. I think we are the first people, hon Singh, to acknowledge that we need the right personnel in the right positions and, where this is not the case, corrective measures need to be implemented through training and redeployment.
Yes, this is a problem, but it is important not to find fault, and rather, as a good citizen, to say that these are challenges - as you have been saying - and this is where we think we will be able to go. This particular topic is very important, because we have created a platform in terms of which people can assist in responding to the very same challenges we are facing today. You have that opportunity then to assist because, as the current government, we understand that we are servants of the people and we open our ears, not just to listen, but with the understanding that you are here to contribute. Whatever you are contributing is very important, especially if that contribution is towards reshaping our country, because nobody has the remedy for the challenges that we have.
The global economic crisis has increased the demand on the state to speed up its pace of delivery, while, at the same time, posing the challenge of increasing the pace of our response to the economic crisis. To me, it challenges us to transform our attitudes on how we do our business, meaning that we have to apply a professional ethos and values, while not running the risk of moving towards stagnation and chaos.
Previous speakers mentioned how countries like China have succeeded, but they also cautioned that when we do transformation or put reform systems in place, we must guard against being very hasty, because if we are too hasty, we may face chaos in the process. But, if we are too slow, we may face stagnation.
Good governance demands a very alert public service that is responsive to the needs of our people, especially the rural poor. The public service needs to respond in an equitable and transparent manner. One should remember that the state must be able to intervene as and when needed. For it to respond, it needs a quality, professional, committed and responsive public service. What is also important is for there to be a well- designed set of institutions and systems for budget formulation and execution. I agree with Mr Singh there, because that will help to define how public funds are raised, allocated and managed. To me these are quite serious prerequisites for financial prudency.
I want to join the speakers who always argue that our challenge lies in an incapacity to co-ordinate, co-operate, monitor and evaluate our brilliant and responsive programmes, policies and legislation that are already in place. If we are to see more of an impact, we have to refocus our energies towards results-based budgeting and performance budgeting which the Public Finance Management Act was geared up to achieve.
The only problem with the Act is that it is too compliance-based and it also promotes budgeting that directs planning rather than vice versa. Although it promotes transparency and timeous reporting, it lacks the mechanisms to foster this. Moreover, the authority to budget and spend lies with the accounting officer, who is an official and is not forced to consult, even though he could consult an executing authority regarding allocations to priority programmes and projects.
We also need to remember that timelines are not entirely flexible within the Public Finance Management Act regulations. If executing authorities are not vigilant, they find themselves rubber-stamping what officials have already concluded. This then concretises the criticism that planning follows budgeting. We have to turn the situation around in a speedy manner in order to avoid the repetitive cycle so that we can avoid the same occurrences in the future, especially starting from the next financial year.
I want to put forward a case study that was done in Mpumalanga around early childhood development, which we all know is a national priority - and we all know that many people refer to the lack of early childhood development as an impediment to development in our rural areas.
This illustrates the dangers related to the lack of co-ordination and synergy within our programmes. In Mpumalanga, for instance, we have a population of more than 3,6 million people and, of that population, 7% are children between the ages of 0 and 4. About 20% of those children are orphans.
Based on statistics from 2006, more than 2% live in abject poverty, more than 3 000 are in pre-Grade R, and 27% are in Grade R. They are served by 268 early childhood development centres, of which 220 are community based. They are subsidised at R4,40 per child in the rural and previously disadvantaged areas, while the private ones are subsidised at R11,00 per learner, per month. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]