Accounting for progress made by mid-point of current term
ACCOUNTABILITY is an act of being responsible for bringing about certain conditions, or for accomplishing certain things.
One is accountable through some structure of oversight that are in place to ensure that those responsibilities are carried out.
Procedures for seeking accountability entail the right to scrutinise, transparency, to demand information and ultimately to sanction if responsibilities are not met.
In other words, accountability entails a responsibility to answer for what one has been committed to achieve.
Every third week of February since 2014, I have delivered the state of the province address to account and answer for what the Eastern Cape provincial government has committed to achieve.
As we mark the midpoint of our provincial administration, it is the time for us to account by assessing the progress made against the commitments agreed to at the beginning of our administration in 2014.
To deliver on our electoral mandate and commitments, we adopted the provincial development plan driven by the provincial medium term strategic framework’s seven focus areas: Improved quality of education and skills development; Improved health profile of the province; Stimulating rural development, land reform and food security; Transforming the economy to create jobs and sustainable livelihoods; Intensifying the fight against crime and corruption; Integrating human settlements and building cohesive communities; and Strengthening the developmental state and good governance.
To give an account on each of these seven focus areas and other related areas:
In education, we are implementing a three-year transformation strategy committing to a seven-point turnaround plan aimed to address identified challenges in education. The seven-point plan, which has been implemented since August last year, covers: An increased number of functional schools; Rationalisation and realignment of schools; Capacitation and functionality of districts and head office; Mobilisation of social partners and the change agenda; Supply of trained teachers; Adherence to national budget allocation norms; and Working towards achieving an unqualified audit.
To improve the health profile of the province, the government has been strengthening and restructuring the provincial healthcare system, with a particular focus on: Re-engineering of primary healthcare; Reduction of disease burden with a special focus on TB and HIV/Aids; Reduction of child and maternal mortality rate; Improvement of facilities management and hospital administration; Enhancement of health management information systems and the strengthening of human resources for health.
Through our agricultural economic transformation strategy, we are: Stimulating rural development, land reform, and food security; Enhancing the commercial and small-holder development;
Producing high potential commodities in spatial and commodity-based clusters across the province.
To boost economic growth and create much-needed jobs, we have implemented the following six programmes: Developed support for and promoted small, micro and medium enterprises and cooperatives; Implemented a 30-day payment of service providers; Maximised local procurement opportunities, developed local suppliers and provided off-take agreements to promote employers of 100 or more people; Driven Operation Phakisa maritime industry promotion; Promoted the province as a tourism destination to increase the number of tourists; and Grew the renewable energy sector. To curb crime and corruption, the Department of Safety and Liaison in the Eastern Cape oversees the effectiveness and efficiency of the South African Police Service in the province, and ensures effective social crime prevention through interdepartmental co-ordination and engagements with the national department, and law and enforcement agencies.
In our effort to build integrated human settlements and cohesive communities, the provincial government has been: Developing sustainable human settlement that is accessible and located in areas of high economic opportunities. This includes the provision of housing to meet the demand of housing across the province; and
Providing housing to special groups such as war veterans and other designated groups.
To foster accountability and good governance, the provincial government has: Developed and implemented measures to foster accountability and consequence management, including through the introduction of a provincial leadership pledge; Signed service delivery agreements with members of the executive, improving oversight and monitoring of government priorities; and Implemented cost-containment measures and piloted the integrated financial management system.
To ensure a comprehensive role of ensuring economic growth, job creation and a sustainable budget that provides communities with the level of services it expects from municipalities, we are: Strengthening support to improve governance; Supporting the provision of basic services; Supporting municipalities through the Back to Basics programme; Rolling out war rooms at ward level; Working hard to ensure a smooth process of amalgamation of some municipalities; and Strengthening collaboration with traditional leaders around nation-building, social cohesion, moral regeneration and rural development.
In an ever-shrinking fiscal environment, it is important for us to do the best job possible with our allocated resources. We call them our provincial priorities of priorities. They are: Provision of provincial infrastructure; Transferring of the roads function to the transport portfolio; Broadband roll-out; and Improving the health profile of the province, including improved integration of healthcare-related services.
We have made the following progress in the implementation of Masiphathisane, our integrated service delivery programme:
The establishment of districts and metros as Masiphathisane ambassadors throughout the province; Performance contracts of head of departments have been amended to ensure the implementation and institutionalisation of Masiphathisane; Service delivery facilitators, public liaison officers, district managers of the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, inter-government relations, officials and public participation officials have been identified to be the face of the campaign in districts and local municipalities; and Proper monitoring and evaluation of the functionality of war rooms at both local and district level has been done.
The province is rolling out the following strategic infrastructure projects as critical enablers of service delivery and economic development: Road infrastructure and road resurfacing; Renewable energy; Accelerated school infrastructure development initiative; Refurbishment of further education and training campuses; Water supply projects; and Drought relief projects. To improve the quality of life and living standards of those in the low-income bracket, we are working hard to take care of vulnerable groups through several programmes. They are: Provision of military veterans housing; Repatriation and reburials of those who died in exile; Women development initiatives; Responding to the violation of the rights of children; Inculcating the culture of reading and learning; Strengthening the social safety net; and Skills development for persons with disabilities.
Ours is a living administration which welcomes scrutiny, and invites opportunities to engage and collaborate for the Eastern Cape to be the best it can be beyond our term of office ending in 2019.