Thank you very much, Chairperson and hon members, for your constructive comments and your support in the acceptance of our budget. Before I start, allow me, Chairperson, to say that I think this House needs to congratulate Limpopo. They were the first province out of all nine provinces to sign a protocol agreement on the EPWP Phase 2. [Applause.]
And I think that members of this House must go back to their provinces and ask whether their provinces signed up with the national Department of Public Works. You see, these figures are not quite like the way Mr Sinclair understands EPWP. Maybe we just need to spend a few minutes and explain that the budget of EPWP Phase 2 does not sit with the national Department of Public Works. It sits with line-function Ministeries at a national level, and it sits with line-function departments at a provincial level and with local government.
The important part is ... [Interjections]. No, you can't say that, because Mr Wiley needs to talk to you about the constitutional provisions and maybe the two of you can have tea and then you will help each other. [Laughter.]
For once the DA has it right and, of course, Cope is a new kid on the block, so we'll understand. You've got a lot of catching up to do. We've been here for 15 years and you are only starting off on the blocks now, but the problem is that we need to understand and that's what I thought I was doing in my speech. I was giving you examples.
Now if you had done your oversight, Mr Sinclair, you would've understood where the money was. The money is there. It's in the budget. It sits at provincial level and it sits at local government level. We have the model and we have the support and there is a lot of support, and I want to say to ...
Ngifuna ukusho lokhu kumfana wasekhaya ubaba uMlenzana ... [I want to say to my homeboy, hon Mlenzana ...]
... that the support to local government is there. If you remember, we reported about the support that comes from the Development Bank of SA in the committee and we spoke about the support that comes from the Business Trust. So for those municipalities that are participating in EPWP Phase 2, the support is there. We are there for you.
I also said in the committee that besides those two structures giving support to the EPWP and the different spheres of government, we are engaging with the private sector to ask what support they can give in that particular area where they are based in terms of giving capacity, especially where one needs quantity surveyors, architects and surveyors.
And also let me just add that ... and hon Sibande, you are correct, the reason why we appointed the IDT as an intermediary is that, firstly, it is a state-owned entity and it accounts to this House and it accounts to the NA because we want you to have oversight over what happens in the non-state sector.
It can't be a category of the EPWP Phase 2 that doesn't have an accounting mechanism. So that's very important for the committee to also observe, and the committee will be provided with the service level agreement that we signed with IDT so that you have oversight, and you will be able to assist us in making sure that the IDT delivers on what we have agreed to.
In respect of the built environment professionals, we've made enormous progress in terms of the relationship between them - the councils, the Council for the Built Environment, CBE, and the Ministry of Public Works, as well as the department.
When we came into office last year, there was bad blood between the professional councils and ourselves. And I hope that you have noted that one doesn't see those big adverts about the Minister of Public Works and Acsa, and everybody else, in the Sunday papers anymore.
We've reached an agreement with the professional council that we want to see them achieve certain transformation targets and we'll hold them accountable and we are currently going through the process of appointing persons to those boards that serve on the different councils. And, on these issues, we are in regular contact with them. We have structured meetings with them. So we don't talk to each other via the post or on the telephone. We have structured meetings with a structured agenda and we engage on issues. So we are on top of the issues in terms of the professional councils, and the CBE is part of that.
The Construction Industry Development Board, CIDB, has established call centres and I agree, hon Sibande, that the call centres might be in the city centre. When you have a vast province like Limpopo or the Eastern Cape or some of the other provinces or the Northern Cape, you might find that you want the CIDB in rural areas. I will certainly raise that with them, but when you engage with them, as well as in your oversight work with the CIDB, I think you should raise this.
We have reconfigured how Mintek functions. It is no longer a talk shop. For Mintek we are going to set national norms and standards, as the national Minister. When we meet with the nine MECs from the different provinces, we are actually going to look at what progress they are making in terms of the national priorities, so that we can support each other; and the meeting that we had in East London recently was really a landmark meeting.
In fact, it was a shift from the old Minmec style to the Mintek style. And in between meetings with Mintek, heads of departments will meet for a day or two and they will do all the technical work and report back to the political office bearers when we meet in Mintek. So it's a totally reconfigured Mintek that we are looking at and we are going to be setting ourselves very high objectives because this is what the people expect of us.
In fact, in terms of the budgets - and I think it was hon Groenewald who raised the issue of the buildings, and the poor quality of buildings - that is something that we have to be very vigilant about. You see, when it suits some of us, we use Schedule 4 to say national government should not interfere, but then when things go wrong, then they ask the national Minister what happened.
If you read Schedule 4 in Public Works, it's a different concurrent function to Education and Health. That is the problem. So when it suits you and you want to ride alone, then you go it alone. But when it's wrong, then you ask the Minister of Public Works what happened. And then the chickens come home to roost. Because when you built the schools that collapsed, we were not there. It is your concurrent function. It's yours. So you have to be very careful on how you understand Schedule 4, especially when it comes to Public Works. It is a slightly different concurrent function. It has a qualification.
We have said to the Minister of Basic Education, in reclaiming our mandate, that we are keen to assist provinces with the school-building programme, especially when it comes to the mud schools and unsafe structures, so that we can make an intervention that's meaningful. And already IDT has done that, and by September this year, we are handing another nine schools over. This is a big step because those schools are different. They have solar panels. They have IT. They have gardens. They have libraries. They are complete schools. That's the difference and there were two recently opened in Limpopo. That is a different kind of school than just building classrooms. That's an institution that has been built and that the community can be proud of. And once again, Limpopo has taken the lead in this particular process. And we really must say that other provinces should rise to the challenge and give us the opportunity to get IDT to assist in the process.
Comrade Mabija, you are correct. The Public Works Department is where we co- ordinate. It's where we lead the process of the EPWP and yes, what's going to be important for us, as departments, is whether national or provincial is the monitoring and evaluation body of what's going on. We have to do more with less. We're going to get good value for money. We must not always look at money as an obstacle. We must sometimes look at what we are using the current budgets for and see how we can get more mileage out of our rand. So it's going to be important.
With regard to the asset register, hon Wiley, I think you might have misunderstood the Deputy Minister. We need systems that talk to each other because when you want us to transfer land to you, as often happens, there might be a piece of land owned by the national Department of Public Works. We need to transfer that to the province or to local government through you, but then our systems don't talk to each other. So we must have uniform systems that talk to each other. We can't go beyond that in terms of what resides with the province in terms of the Constitution, as well as local government.
Public Works is undergoing a turnaround strategy itself. Very soon, I think next week, the acting director-general will be putting into place a new senior management structure that will respond to the issue of how we deal with project management; how we deal with the core mandate of Public Works, and that's going to be a shift from what we've been doing in the past.
Some of the issues raised by the hon Wiley are more about provincial programmes than national. I wouldn't be able to assist him there. I certainly appreciate all the support that has been given to us in terms of this Budget Vote, but I also want to say to the NCOP that we will support the select committee; whenever they invite us, we will be there. And you still have outstanding oversight over the entities and the department should come back and present a little bit more detail on many of the other projects, but certainly, Chairperson, we are going to achieve our target of halving unemployment by 2014. Thank you. [Applause.]