An artist's impression of what the Women's Monument in Thswane will look like
As South Africa commemorates Human Rights Day again, it is opportune to look back on the progress government has made in redressing the inequalities of the past. For the Gauteng provincial government, this has been about more than social and economic transformation.
“We remain committed to ensuring the human rights of the people of Gauteng are respected and promoted,” MEC for Infrastructure Development Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, said this week. “This is evident in our focus on infrastructure delivery as a human right, particularly in relation to access to health and education.”
She said that this year’s Human Rights Day events would be used as a platform to share the provincial government’s vision for further transformation of infrastructure and inclusion. Through this, she hopes to build a better understanding of these plans and benefits, to promote closer collaboration with all sectors of society.
The past 21 years have seen steady progress on the province’s greater goal of building the Gauteng City Region, which draws on the strength of the regional economy to create an environment that benefits all its people.
This vision for an integrated city-region is based on social cohesion and economic inclusion, with the aim to become the leading economy on the continent, underpinned by smart, sustainable and socio-economic development.
The MEC said that the period since democracy had been a journey of restitution to restore dignity and redress decades of racial degradation.
“Of course, challenges remain with most of our people still trapped in poverty and unemployment. But I personally am fulfilled by the knowledge that we are doing work especially around empowering the youth of our society.
“The type of education we provide and the infrastructure we are constructing today are all means to give our people freedom. We free the youth — the school-going young minds — from any form of social actions, practices or beliefs that considers them different to children of other races or as inherently inferior or superior to their peers from other races or even neighbouring suburbs or townships,” she said.
The infrastructure development department has been instrumental in providing the physical facilities to give effect to these objectives through focusing on a number of strategic themes.
First among these is the expansion and maintenance of public infrastructure able to meet the province’s growing demand while redressing economic disparities. This is driven by the need to improve the speed and effectiveness of infrastructure delivery that consistently satisfies the needs and expectations of the province.
The ability to do so has required that the department improve its technical and administrative capacity to become the enabler of development-oriented public service. In pursuit of that goal, an infrastructure development management system has been deployed that supports an efficient and effective planning process that involves all relevant stakeholders.
Mayathula-Khoza said the vision of growing the province’s economy was dependent on her department creating an environment that supports entrepreneurs, specifically through leveraging state infrastructure and assets. Job creation is also being promoted through partnerships between the public and private sectors, with her department acting as a catalyst for economic empowerment of particularly women, youth and people with disabilities.
The department has an important role to play in promoting these economic objectives through its procurement of goods and services that support infrastructure development and maintenance.
Not only has it improved its procurement process for new schools construction, it has also introduced a system for the effective selection, rotation and appointment of services providers. The MEC said this was intended to shorten the process of evaluation in the tender administration process.
One of the keys to the sustainability of emerging entrepreneurs is that timely payment of service providers. All spheres of government have committed to doing so within 30 days, which the Gauteng infrastructure department is moving toward with the creation of a central payment office that will process invoices and handle payment queries.
The province has specific and ambitious economic transformation programmes, many of which are supported by the work of the infrastructure development department.
One of these is the Township Economy Revitalisation Strategy, which aims to support the goal of doubling the size of the economy to R2-billion by 2030. The MEC said her department planned on using this strategy and the Gauteng Tshepo 500 000 skills training programme to expand youth economic participation.
“Some progress has been made to place youth in sustainable employment, but we need to introduce and support more youth in township enterprises, SMMEs and co-operatives,” she said. “Their skills must be developed in economic hubs and industrial parks so they can participate in our infrastructure development and property maintenance projects given that many of our government buildings are in a terrible state of decay.”
In pursuit of this goal, her department has set out procurement targets and ideals.
One of the primary aims is to commit 30% of procurement spend to township-based enterprises and achieve 75% local content input on project. This will be supported by growing the number of township entrepreneurs, SMMEs and co-operatives on its supplier database.
It will also be introducing the above-mentioned supplier rotation for purchases below R500 000 in a bid to promote localisation, while introducing an open tender system of contracts above R50-million to improve transparency and tackle corruption.
These efforts will be supported by improving the department’s supply chain management, including ensuring payment of suppliers within 30 days or less.
Furthering the economic impact government can have on achieving the economic transformation of the province, it is pursuing the creation of five development corridors that focus on developing distinct industries based on different comparative advantages.
These are:
– Central Development Corridor: anchored around the City of Johannesburg as the hub of finance, services, ICT and pharmaceutical industries.
– Eastern Development Corridor: anchored around the Ekhurhuleni Metro as the hub of manufacturing, logistics and transport industries.
– Northern Development Corridor: anchored around Tshwane as South Africa’s administrative capital city and the hub of the automotive sector, research, development, innovation and the knowledge-based economy.
– Western Corridor: encompasses the West Rand district and the creation of new industries, new economic nodes and new cities.
– Southern Corridor: encompasses the economy of the Sedibeng district and the creation of new industries, new economic nodes and new cities.
Mayathula-Khoza said these plans dovetail with the ten-pillar programme of radical economic, social and spatial transformation announced by Gauteng Premier David Makhura in his most recent addresses on the future plans for the province.
The ultimate goal of these initiatives are to move the province and its people to an equal footing devoid of the social and economic inequities of the past. As much as economic transformation could help to overcome these injustices, the MEC said that social change remained an imperative.
“Government cannot to this alone,” she said. “We need the entire society — the private sector, the faith-based communities, sports people, labour, and our NGOs — to realise that racism is deadly. Especially its remnants as they transcend easily to other forms such ethnicity, class and social standing.
“Let us all, on this one day, rededicate ourselves to rid our society of any form of prejudice, hate and disregard of one other.”