Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana clarifies the mandate of the department in the context of the latest criticisms by the Democratic Alliance

17 Apr 2012

Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
I greet you all

My sincere appreciation to all of you for responding on such short notice to attend this media briefing.

At the outset, let me reiterate our position that we appreciate the contribution of opposition parties in helping to strengthen our nascent democracy and promoting accountability by the Executive.

However, this noble goal cannot be advanced if the public statements of the Opposition party are based on factual inaccuracies and are primarily meant to mislead the public and to denigrate government.

The call by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to the Human Rights Commission to probe the alleged failure of the department to protect the rights of people with disabilities is a case in point.

We want to put it on record that the department has not under any circumstances failed the vulnerable groups of our community, namely, women, children, and people with Disabilities. This is evident in the nature of programs the department undertakes to address the plight of these vulnerable groups as mandated.

Of utmost importance is the need to explain and clarify the mandate of the department. The mandate of the Department of women, children and people with disabilities (DWCPD) is to promote, facilitate, coordinate and monitor the realisation of the rights of women, children and people with disabilities.

This mandate is achieved through advocacy and mainstreaming, monitoring and evaluation and institutional support and Capacity Building programs.

This therefore clearly indicates that the department is in its nature not an implementing agent but more a co-ordinating and monitoring ministry that seeks to ensure that government departments as service delivery institutions and implementing agents, and the private sector, complies and implements services, projects and programs to empower the vulnerable groups -Women, Children, and People with Disabilities.

We further assure South Africans that when DWCPD was established by President Jacob Zuma in May 2009 this was a sign that government is indeed serious about supporting and uplifting the plight of vulnerable groups. This is evident in the interventions that are in the form of programs that the department is spearheading.

Within the three years of existence, since 2009 to 2012 (to date) a lot has been done noting the fact that with more resources, human and financial a lot can still be achieved.

It is a fact that South Africa is leading internationally regarding the Best Practices for People with disabilities. This is evident in the representation of people with disabilities in various decision-making bodies such as Parliament, the judiciary, the boards of different institutions provinces and councils. As a department we remain impatient with the failure by both the private and public institutions to meet the 2% employment target for people with disabilities which all government departments are supposed to meet, now extended to March 2013.

We are the first (1^st) country to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, the only country in Africa that has social security grant for people with disabilities, orphaned and fostered children and the elderly.

Our Agenda to promote the rights of people with disabilities is further advanced through:

• Coordination of a National Awareness Campaign on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by strengthening the development of disability awareness campaigns, mainstreaming disability into all the national commemorative days, and consolidating the activities of Disability Month across all three spheres of government.
• Finalising a national framework for universal access and design, which will, among others, include a review of minimum norms and standards, enforcement mechanisms, capacity development framework for accredited accessibility auditors and a financial model for the roll out of universal access across all three spheres of government.
• Finalising the National Disability Policy, which will include an audit of all existing legislation and policies against the articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), an analysis of options to ensure enforcement of any disability-related legislation, restructuring of the institutional arrangements across all three spheres of government as well as between government and civil society, and the finalisation of a monitoring and evaluation framework for disability mainstreaming.
• Focusing on specific interventions to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to education, employment, rural development opportunities, health and rehabilitation services and that they are and feel safe.
• Championing the rights of people with disabilities at international level by, among others:
  • Supporting the sterling work done by DEAFSA, the South African Federation for Mental Health and Disabled People South Africa, when they all hosted world conferences of their international bodies in 2011, and supporting Down Syndrome South Africa as a country when they host the World Down Syndrome Congress in Cape Town in August 2012,
  • Depositing our First Country Report on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by August 2012, and by
  • Leading a country delegation to New York in September 2012 to participate in the Conference of State Parties which takes place annually.

It is also true that the department is backed by a budget of R142 million per year, of which 55,150 million is transferred to the Commission on Gender Equality, leaving the department with a budget of 86,850 million to coordinate and monitor departments, that are service delivery institutions, on the direct delivery of programmes to support, empower and develop vulnerable groups. 

The Budget is highly inadequate and cannot cover all programs constituting the mandate of the department.

We are the first to concede that there are capacity constraints within the department which affects our capacity to discharge our mandate. We are having discussions within government about the need for additional funding to enable the department to be fully capacitated. We are confident that addressing internal institutional capacity will help to strengthen our coordination and monitoring role.

We therefore want to emphasise once more that when our expenditure patterns and budgeting are scrutinised, this must be done with a full appreciation of our mandate and the programmes we are expected to implement.

On the report of the mismanagement and skewed spending priorities, the following facts apply:

• It is true, as declared by the department in 2010/11 Annual Report, that the department underspent by 66% in 2010/11 in the programme for the Rights of people with disabilities due to the fact that at that time the department was a year (1) old and the programme lacked capacity as most of the posts were vacant.
• To date the posts are being filled continuously, programs are being coordinated and monitored. We are, accordingly, recording an increase in the spending pattern that led to the fact that the 2012/2013 budgets for travel and subsistence appear to be high.
• The fact of the matter is that our mandate requires that we travel to provinces, engage various stakeholders, and monitor various service delivery points. Our co-ordination and monitoring work have an impact on our travelling budget.
• As much as the department is working closely with machineries established at provincial and local government, the department has a responsibility to strengthen the capacity of these machineries through our institutional capacity program.
• On the unauthorised and irregular expenditure matters of 2010/11, this attributed to lack of systems and incapacity at the time.
• With regard to international travelling, the expense was related to the country honouring our international obligations. Our department, on behalf of South Africa, has to report to the United Nations from time to time because we are signatories to UN Conventions relating to women, children and people with disabilities. Our international commitments means that the department, in discharging its mandate, will have to travel to the United Nations, Geneva and South African Development Community (SADC) countries to report on the progress we are making in advancing the goals reflected in the various Conventions and Protocols to which we are signatories. Failure to do so amounts to a dereliction of duty.
• With regard to the New York trip that the DA statement refers to, we would like to state that in 2011, our department delegation was comprised of seven officials at a cost of about 1, 1 million, contrary to 6.8 million or 9 million as reported. The rest of the delegation was from Parliament, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs) and other government departments and their departments or entities covered their expenses. The expenditure utilised for this purpose was not from the disability budget.
• Based on our monitoring and evaluation report on the status of the equalisation of opportunities for people with disabilities, which was conducted through the department of Basic Education, we revealed that 476 000 children with disabilities are out of school. This therefore led the department to conduct consultative road shows to the nine provincial administrations to present the status and action plan of People with disabilities.
• So far a presentation to Western Cape Provincial legislature revealed that, for instance, the Western Cape Provincial Administration showed the biggest decline in the country, from 302 in June 2010 to 253, at 0.6% in March 2011. Only three departments met their target.

Going forward as partners committed to equality, equity and social justice we will therefore monitor equal access to all services and opportunities and ensure that all departments attain the 2% equity target on people with disabilities.

We also appreciate the growing assistance through forged partnerships between government and the private sector that are continuously heeding to our call to support the mission, vision and mandate of the department.

I thank you.

Issued by the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, April 17 2012

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