KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HE PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA AT THE LAUNCH OF THE COMPREHENSIVE
RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AT MUYEXE VILLAGE; GREATER GIYANI MUNICIPALITY,
LIMPOPO PROVINCE
17 August 2009
The Premier of Limpopo, Mr Cassel Mathale,
The Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Kwinti,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Honourable MECs,
Our Honourable Traditional Leaders,
Mayor and Councilors of the Greater Giyani Municipality,
Distinguished Guests,
Community of Muyexe,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
During the election campaign, we made it clear that rural development and land
reform would be one of our key five priorities, and that we were determined to
change the face of rural areas.
In the State of the Nation Address on the 3rd of June this year, we said we
would develop and implement a comprehensive rural development strategy linked
to land and agrarian reform and food security.
We announced that we had chosen the Greater Giyani Local Municipality in
Limpopo as one of the first pilot projects for the Comprehensive Rural
Development programme.
We are pleased to be here today to bring that undertaking into fruition, to
launch the Giyani project.
The former homeland areas will become a central focus of the the rural
development programme.
You will also remember that during the inauguration address we made an
undertaking that we would not rest for as long as there were communities
without clean water, decent shelter or proper sanitation.
We said we would not rest for as long as there were rural dwellers who were
unable to make a decent living from the land on which they live.
Being born in a rural area or the countryside should not condemn people to
life of poverty and underdevelopment.
As we said also in the State of the Nation address, our vision for the
development of rural areas arises from the fact that people in the rural areas
also have a right to basic necessities.
They have a right to electricity, water, flush toilets, roads, entertainment
and sport centres.
They have a right to shopping centres, good schools and other amenities like
their compatriots in urban areas.
They too have a right to be helped with farming so that they can grow
vegetables and raise livestock so that they can feed their families.
Working together with communities, traditional leaders and councilors, we will
be able to speed up this work.
In order to realize our goals of developing rural areas, we have established
the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Affairs, as a key coordinating
Ministry.
Obviously the work is criss-crossing and requires many other departments,
which will work with the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform to
achieve these objectives.
The Comprehensive Rural Development Programme is our national collective
strategy in our joint fight against poverty, hunger, unemployment and lack of
development in our rural areas.
It is an embodiment of our unshaken commitment that we shall not rest in our
drive to eradicate poverty.
A number of interventions are in the pipeline. Over the medium term,
government has pledged over R2.6 billion in conditional grants to provinces.
This will be used for agricultural infrastructure, training and advisory
services and marketing, and for upgrading agricultural colleges.
One of our priorities is to ensure that land reform through redistribution and
restitution, is more coherently linked to the creation of livelihoods for the
poor.
Land is linked to development in rural areas. We have recognised that in order
to move forward decisively with the land redistribution programme, significant
changes will have to be made to the Willing-Buyer Willing-Seller model of land
redistribution.
Government will have to investigate less costly alternative ways of land
acquisition, by engaging with all stakeholders within the sector.
The general view is that the Willing-Buyer Willing Seller model does not work.
We will be seeking a much more pragmatic formula to land redistribution.
It will be a formula that should address the issue as part of our country’s
ongoing effort at national reconciliation. It should not be seen as a
super-profit-making business venture.
Ladies and gentlemen,
A critical part of the rural development strategy is to stimulate agricultural
production with a view to contributing to food security.
In this regard, Government will support the provision of agricultural
implements and inputs to support emerging farmers and households nationally.
We must also make agricultural loans accessible and ensure agricultural
extension services of a high quality.
Over the medium term, the aim is to bring about a measurable increase in
agricultural output.
Therefore, the Ilima/Letsema campaign to enhance household food security will
be intensified.
To promote food security, government will also work to protect valuable
agricultural land from encroachment by other developments.
While we focus on encouraging communities to grow their own food, measures
will also be put in place to ensure access by poor households to basic foods at
affordable prices; and generally to improve the logistics of food distribution.
We speak about changing the face of rural areas. In this regard, Government
has to improve the delivery of services – including education, health, housing,
water, sanitation and energy.
Departments that are responsible for the delivery of these services will
develop spatially targeted strategies to respond to the diverse needs of rural
areas.
Improving rural service delivery will ensure that South Africa meets her
development targets for 2014, which are linked to the Millennium Development
Goals.
Government will also intensify the implementation of the Rural Transport
Development
Programme. The objective is to promote rural transport infrastructure and
services.
This will include non-motorised transport infrastructure, provision of rural
transport passenger facilities and rural freight transport logistics.
It pains us to see women carrying groceries walking long distances from the
taxi drop off point to their homes. Many rural school children also walk
unimaginable distances to schools due to lack of proper roads and lack of
transport.
Transport is critical for enhanced socio-economic activity and, broadly, a
better quality of life.
We must also invest in future agricultural development and training. Dedicated
resources will be set aside to revive agricultural training colleges to ensure
that they develop and run appropriate training programmes to support rural
economies.
Agricultural colleges will be turned into centres of excellence and access by
emerging farmers to professional mentoring services will be enhanced.
Moreover, government will ensure that skills development and training services
are accessible to farm workers.
Rural Further Education and Training colleges have to be strengthened and
equipped to address a range of relevant rural development skills challenges.
We said in the State of the Nation address that evidence from various studies
shows that
common among all dynamic regions - urban or rural, is always the presence of a
vibrant centre or service node.
In this regard, spatially targeted grants such as the Neighbourhood
Development Grant programme will be provided for the revitalisation and
development of rural towns.
This will make rural towns serve as service centres of rural economies.
As part of the rural development strategy, Government will also support
initiatives that promote other forms of economic potential of rural areas
including tourism, light manufacturing and cultural work.
Various cultural activities such as traditional music, arts and crafts,
traditional sports can be useful income generating activities in our rural
areas and should be harnessed.
Clearly to achieve our goals we must ensure better cooperation between all
three spheres of government. We will achieve this through better coordination.
We are on the way towards that goal. I met with Premiers and Metro Mayors last
week and we agreed to improve working systems to promote better service
delivery.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very pleased to say that because of this programme we are launching
today, every household in Muyexe Village will have at least one person
employed, for a period of two years.
This will be through job opportunities that the CRDP would have created during
this piloting.
This will apply equally to all rural areas where the project is being
implemented. In this period of two years, those contracted in the created job
opportunities will be provided with training.
There will also be an exit strategy as well, implemented six months before the
two year contract ends.
This will ensure that participants in the programme are able to get jobs or
start a business enterprise to sustain themselves when the contract ends.
The indicator of the measure of the success of the comprehensive rural
development programme will, amongst others, be the level of social cohesion and
development facilitated in the rural areas.
The extent to which our rural communities have the infrastructure you find in
urban areas as well as possibilities of income generating activities, will also
be a good performance indicator.
The programme must ensure the delivery of clean water, decent shelter to
proper sanitation and enterprises development support.
Our collective developmental interventions will initially focus on meeting our
people’s basic needs especially food security. The next step is the
entrepreneurial stage and large scale infrastructure development.
The intervention will finally, culminate into the emergence of small, micro
and medium enterprises and village markets.
We are very optimistic about this programme.
I am therefore most pleased today to officially launch the Comprehensive Rural
Development Programme today in Muyexe Village, Giyani.
Let us all work together to make it a success. What you do in this village
will serve as a lesson to other communities.
We will take what we learn here to other villages in other parts of the
country, as these will be tried and tested interventions.
Together we must succeed. Working together we must do more to improve the
quality of life in rural areas.
I thank you.
Sent via my BlackBerry Device from Vodacom - let your email find you!
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You are subscribed. This footer can help you.
Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this
message.
You can visit the group WEB SITE at
http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options,
pages, files and membership.
To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You
don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put
anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this
address (repeat): [email protected] .
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
