Listing the successes with NDP implementations
IN THE last article, “Government is at work to implement the NDP, and there is progress”, I undertook to communicate better on how we are progressing with the implementation of the National Development Plan (NDP), Vision 2030. I noted that only demonstrable action and hard evidence will suffice as proof that the NDP is alive and being implemented.
The Department Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation’s mid-term review of government’s performance shows that, while we continue to make progress on a number of fronts towards achieving the NDP targets, in particular, on the provision of basic services to millions of people who were previously denied them, and on education, health, and security, to name a few – our performance and delivery can be enhanced; we can prioritise better, and we can utilise our limited resources more efficiently and more effectively.
Allow me to share some of the performance data, without being exhaustive.
Education Overall progress was steadily made in this crucial NDP area. The basic education system is on an upward trend. Access is almost universal with 98.8 percent of 7 to 15 year olds in schools according to StatsSA General Household Survey 2015. The number of bachelor passes is rising and the matric pass rate is recovering.
For the first time in 2015 South Africa has exceeded the international mid-point score of 500 in the southern and eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality assessment for grade learners who obtained 558 and 587 in Language and Maths respectively.
The country is the most improved in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, with the average scores of Grade 9 learners in Mathematics rising from 285 in 2003 to 372 in 2015. The international midpoint is 400 (DBE Report).
On higher education, the 2016 target to fund 205 000 university students through the National Student Financial Assistance Scheme has been exceeded, with 255 213 students funded, reversing the decreasing trend from 2014 (186 150) to 2015 (178 961). The 2016/17 target of increasing the number of people qualifying as artisans by 21 199 has been achieved, compared to 14 389 in 2014/15. Bursaries awarded to PhD students have risen to 3 454 in 2016 from 2 845 in 2014. Health Total Life expectancy at birth has increased from 57.1 years in 2009 to 63.3 years in 2015. Stats SA estimates for 2017 place our overall Life Expectancy at 67 years. Government’s internationally acclaimed HIV/Aids and anti-retroviral programmes are critical to these gains, among other factors.
Child health has improved, with under-5 mortality decreasing from 56 deaths per 1 000 live births in 2009 to 37 deaths per 1 000 live births in 2015; and Maternal Mortality Ratio has improved from 158 deaths per 100 000 live-births in 2014 to 154 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2015. The cabinet has now endorsed the White Paper on National Health Insurance, which will radically transform access to health in our country.
Basic services Some 724 430 additional house-holds (HHs) have been connected to the electricity grid since 2014 (58 percent of the set target of 1.25 million by 2019), and 52 778 HHs to the non-grid connections (50 percent of the 2019 target). 305 100 additional HHs have received access to water since 2014.
Human Settlements Some 331 108 units of all housing types were delivered since 2014 (which is 44.4 percent of the 2019 target); 5 258 units in old hostels were upgraded, (52.6 percent of 2019 target), and 252 390 gap market loans were provided by state finance institutions and banks (43 percent of 2019 target).
Social protection Some 17 million beneficiaries have access to social assistance. 94.6 percent of children receive the child support grant and 92.4 percent older people receive the old age pension (Sassa Statistical Report. May 2017).
More to do To highlight where progress is being made is not to deny that there are many challenges along the way. In education, quality and outcomes remain are concern; in basic services reliability of supply is an ongoing issue and often a trigger of community protest; crime is still hard to control sustainably; corruption has taken public centre-stage; and social cohesion is under stress.
The economy And of course, the economy is our more pressing challenge, as it continues to be stuck in low-growth, and remains largely untransformed – this in the face of growing unemployment, particularly among the youth. First quarter 2017 GDP data confirmed that the economy is in a technical recession.
We need an urgent response to arrest this downward economic free fall, based on partnership and co-ordination between the government and the various social partners, as argued in the previous instalment of this column. Failure to act will inevitably result in the erosion of our gains and ongoing progress. It will be much harder to deal with the triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty.
Transformation The government has several initiatives directed at growing and transforming the economy in line with the NDP. These are outlined more cogently in the NinePoint Plan adopted in 2015, and the implementation of its sectoral (ie industry, agriculture, enterprise development) and cross-cutting (infrastructure, science and technology, investment) initiatives continues apace. Clearly, attention must be given to expediting and enhancing the impact of these initiatives, and plugging obvious gaps.
A key area on which there is strong all-round consensus is the need to restore the confidence of citizens and investors in the short to medium-term trajectory of the economy and the country in general.
The Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba’s recent reaffirmation of government’s commitment to confidence-boosting actions must be welcomed and engaged with. We are better in conversation as a country and as different role-players on our common challenges and solutions than when we are apart and consumed by pessimism and cynicism. We need more opportunities for this than less, and this is something that the NPC will address in due course.
As we address these short-term economic imperatives, we must be equally seized with the country’s well-known longer-term challenges. The fact is, 23 years into our freedom and democracy, the majority of black people are still economically disempowered. They are rightfully dissatisfied with the economic gains from liberation.
White households earn at least five times more than black households, according to reports recently released by StatsSA. And to boot, the situation with regards to the ownership of the economy also mirrors that of household incomes.
The pace of transformation in the workplace, the implementation of affirmative action policies as required by the Employment Equity Act, 1998, also remains very slow. The skewed nature of ownership and leadership patterns needs to be corrected. There can be no sustainability in any economy if the majority is excluded in this manner.
The emphasis on radical socio-economic transformation must be understood against this background. Radical socio-economic transformation must be reflected in the intent, content, faster implementation of government policies and programmes, guided by NDP.
This requires that the government exploits to the maximum the strategic levers at the disposal of the state, while forging necessary partnerships with the private sector, labour and others.
Perspective The progressive changes we are working to bring about are long-term. We must have the humility and honesty to acknowledge where there are shortcomings, to learn from them, and to take advice.
The NDP is thus a work in progress – work that is less than five years old under the NDP banner, even as it builds on previous achievements. The idea is to set in motion the building blocks for a country that in 2030 is appreciably better than today. Many of the objectives and plans will take many years to deliver.
Importantly, the NDP was never meant to be plan for the government alone. We have not developed compacts with our broader social partners – business, labour and the rest of society around joint and several implementation actions, as directed by the NDP.
In the absence of a framework of knowing who is doing what, how exactly will we know what is being done to advance the NDP? How will we measure success and how will we report on this in future? These are matters that require attention and engagement, and the NPC will pronounce on them in due course.