Investigations into more than 500 000 social-welfare grants in KwaZulu-Natal have saved the taxpayer close to R520-million that would have been lost to corruption, KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele said on Wednesday.
Delivering his State of the Province address in Pietermaritzburg, Ndebele said that more than 200 000 of the half-a-million grants investigated by the special investigations unit in the past year have saved taxpayers R520-million.
”In addition, the special investigations unit has identified more than 10 000 cases for prosecution and civil recovery, and more than 60 000 child-support grants in this category are to be suspended,” he said.
Each of the province’s departments has ”embarked on a comprehensive risk assessment” to improve computer security and access to computers.
Education
On education, Ndebele said he was extremely concerned at the number of school pregnancies and the high levels of truancy at the province’s schools. ”Every year about 5 000 pregnancies are reported to education officials in the province. This is truly tragic. In most cases, the future of the young mother is permanently compromised,” he said.
The province has about 2,7-million schoolgoing children attending more than 6 000 schools.
Ndebele said that ”personal experience” had alerted him to the fact that many of the province’s children were not at school when they should have been.
”If the truth be told, the problem of children bunking school is largely a problem of black youth. This problem seems to be an international phenomenon, from Harlem in the United States, through Brixton in the United Kingdom to Soweto, Chatsworth and KwaMashu and Ngwelezane.
”Many black children face a wasted future as a result of this problem. Essentially this reproduces apartheid inequalities and represents a major challenge to our nation-building efforts,” he said.
He urged parents, clubs and religious communities to make every effort to get children into school.
School violence
The premier also raised the issue of violence in the province’s schools. ”I am very alarmed at the number of criminal incidents affecting our schools. Two weeks do not pass without an incident being reported,” he said.
He has instructed the education department to ”take a stern approach” when dealing with violence in schools.
In what was probably his last State of the Province address, Ndebele pointed out that the backlog in classrooms has been substantially reduced since he became the province’s premier in 2004. ”Since 2004, the backlog of 14 667 classrooms has been reduced by a total of 3 830 classrooms to 9 300 in 2008 respectively.”
Ndebele touched very briefly on the 2010 World Cup preparations, referring to the preliminary draw held last November, and on electricity problems in the province, saying that the provincial executive had recently held a meeting with Eskom.
Addressing basic services in the province, Ndebele said that almost one-third of all households in the province still do not have access to clean drinking water and electricity.
While welcoming the fact that the province has made great strides in the eradication of the bucket toilet system, he said: ”Much needs to be done.”
Ndebele’s State of the Province address will be debated on Thursday. — Sapa