Madame Speaker
His Excellency, President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa,
The Deputy President, the Honourable Shipokosa Paul Mashatile,
Deputy Ministers in the Presidency, Honourable Kenny Morolong and Nonceba Mhlauli
Honourable Chief Whip, and Honourable Members

The period between 30 May 2024 and the early hours of Sunday, 30th June 2024 felt like South Africa was teleported to what the infamous British statesman, Joseph Chamberlain (1836 - 1914) described as “living in most interesting times…in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and also new objects for anxiety.” A period that required unquestionable patriotism and great leadership to ensure our democracy prove its maturity and for our country continues to hold its own in global standing. A period when class clowns also attempted to be actors, but we collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the heroes did not go off the stage. As we have witnessed in this house, the clowns came on, got the biggest, juiciest laughs, and then left the podium. The business of leading remain the responsibility of great men and women because the African National Congress under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa and other reasonable South African political leaders opted to make prioritised the interest of South Africa and for that SA is still the great country of Nelson Mandela.

Acknowledge the President addressed the personal character assassination but deal with VBS and On-Point.

Those who live in glass houses must remember not to throw stones.

Tshivenda tshi ri “shango alilali, u ladza mudi wau” – ri a livhuwa President vho ladza Afrika Tshipembe, Therefore, Mr President, the responsibility as the department at the apex of the administration, is to support you and the Deputy President, as you lead the implementation of government’s priorities as you articulated in the recent Opening of Parliament Address and earlier in this budget vote debate.

Whether in the production of goods or the delivery of services, coordination helps organisations achieve high performance outcomes – we deem the South African government as an organisation with its own dynamics.

As such the coordination role of The Presidency will be more critical as government completes the outstanding work of the 6th Administration whilst bracing for the implementation of the 7th Administration priorities. Let me assure you, Mr President and Honourable Members that we are ready for continuity and change.

For this period, 2024/25 financial year, The Presidency is allocated a budget of R612 million, which is a reduction in the baseline allocation by R40.7 million compared to 2023/24 financial year. The allocation is broken down per programmes as follows:  Administration R532,  2  Million,  Executive Support, R50.9 Million, Policy and Research Services R20,4 Million,

Bearing in mind the fiscal constraints, we are determined to discharge our responsibility and mandate with commitment, resolve and dedication to provide the necessary support to the President and his Executive as per their mission.

A defining feature in the coordination role of The Presidency is ensuring government-wide high-quality, data and evidence- based decision making. To achieve this, there is a need to fast- track “work already underway to professionalise the public service… and prevent undue political interference in the administration of the state” to quote ‘s Opening of Parliament Address (2024).

We therefore appreciate the 6th Parliament for passing the Public Service Amendment Bill and the Public Administration Management Amendment Bill. These Bills mark a significant milestone in the ongoing efforts to enhance the professionalism, efficiency, and responsiveness of the public service and administration in South Africa. These two Bills introduce provisions aimed at enhancing administrative powers, strengthening accountability mechanisms, and improving efficiency in the public service. These reforms align with President Ramaphosa's vision for a professional, efficient, and ethical public service which is also one of the three priorities in the Medium Term Development Plan of the Government of National Unity.

The Public Service Amendment Bill proposes amendments to the Public Service Act to empower heads of departments with administrative powers, enhance the role of the Director-General in  the  Presidency,  clarify  the  role  of  the  Public  Service

Commission, and provide clarity on the appointment and career incidents of heads of departments.

Similarly, the Public Administration Management Amendment Bill seeks to harmonize critical aspects of public administration across all spheres of government. The Bill also emphasizes the promotion of ethical standards for public servants by prohibiting those employees participating in procurement processes from being employed by those service providers who did business with their entities

The harmonisation of critical aspects of the public administration across all spheres of government through the PAMA Bill will also lend support to the local government reforms as will be coordinated through Operation Vulindlela. In this regard, we will soon consolidate the progress report on the work of the eThekwini Presidential Working Group to reactivate its work and support  the  initiatives  of  the  KwaZulu-Natal  Provincial government and the newly appointed Executive Mayor in the work to turnaround the metro administration. We are confident that through the work of this Presidential Working Group we should be able to develop a workable blueprint to assist other metros facing challenges as directed by His Excellency, the President and the envisage local government reforms.

The local government reforms must also institutionalise the implementation of the district development model with its measurable and impactful One-Government, One-Plan approach. StatsSA has committed in the 2024/ 25 work programme to re-engineer the household survey programme so they can provide lower-level data to inform the district development model. This is part of our responsibility to implement measures to ensure that communities have access to dependable and high-quality services.

Last year when I was tabling the StatsSA Budget, I urged all of us to endeavour to use statistics for insight – what we refer to as data driven decision-making to avoid what the renowned Scottish poet Andrew Lang once warned against – “most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination”. I do not wish to take this House to the intentional misinterpretation of statistics on the success and weaknesses of the 6th administration last Friday during the OPA Debate when others designated themselves teachers dishing out exam fails with much drama but I expected no less performance from one pursuing a Masters degree in Theatre and Performance - it was just a wrong stage.

However, allow me to explain the context of South Africa’s employment situation. The year 2020 with its Covid-19 pandemic brought with what no human being could imagine or predict, it changed the world as we knew it. Covid-19 shook down everything we had, including our economy and its jobs. According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLSF),

South Africa had 16,4 million people in employment in the first quarter of 2020. We lost 2,3 million jobs in the second quarter of that year, down to 14,1 million jobs. Overall, the South African economy rescinded to 2008 levels

It was the government in partnership with business and labour that developed and implemented the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan that enabled us to the current employment numbers even surpassed the pre-Covid-19 levels. Currently, the number of employed persons in South Africa is sitting at 16,7 million, an increase of 2,6 million jobs from the low of 14,1 million during Covid-19 and 16.4 million pre-Covid-19.

In the first quarter of 2024, nine of eleven industries showed higher employment levels than those recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic. Notably, the finance industry has seen the most significant recovery, with 680,000 more jobs compared to the second quarter of 2020. The community and social services sector — which includes government — increased by 547,000, and the trade sector followed with 525,000 more individuals employed than during the pandemic levels, while the transport sector saw an increase of 177,000 employed.

Private households saw an increase of 173,000 jobs, followed by 150,000 in manufacturing and 149,000 in construction compared to the second quarter of 2020. In addition, agriculture saw an increase of 142,000 jobs, while mining experienced an increase of 81,000 employed individuals than during pandemic levels.

Because of the ANC’s commitment to the eradication of poverty, unemployment and poverty, President Ramaphosa developed the Presidential Employment Stimulus, a special programme focused on coordinating government initiatives towards public and social employment creation. The overall performance of this initiative from October 2020 until March 2024 continues to exceed set targets. The initiative created more than 2 million job opportunities with a total budget R42 billion. As the President highlighted, more than 84% of participants in the programme are youth and with 64% being women beneficiaries

Our largest programme under the Presidential Employment Initiative is the Basic Education Employment Initiative, commonly known as the Teacher Assistant programme, which to date has created over 1 million opportunities for young people to be placed as assistants in schools across the country, becoming the largest youth employment programme in South Africa's history and serving as teacher replacement pipeline.

The Social Employment Fund (SEF), another large-scale programme is aimed at supporting the social economy through the non-profit organisations and coordinated through the Industrial Development Corporation of the DTIC. The SEF supports the work of civil society organisations to create employment by building on the work they already do to enable community-driven solutions to local problems. These include frail care, Early Childhood Development, combating gender-based violence, community safety, placemaking, river cleaning, support to creative industry amongst others. Since the start of the programme in April 2022, the SEF has created more than 167 000 job opportunities against a target of 100 000.

Other Presidential Employment Stimulus programmes include the subsistence farmers support through the subsistence producer relief programme, a revitalised national youth service, public employment programmes for Metros, and placement support for university graduates.

Another important initiative is the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention, known as PYEI.

Appreciating the opportunity that technology provides to bridge access gaps and the rate at which the youth have adopted technology, the PYEI successfully established the SAYouth.mobi platform to create remote access to new opportunities for young people irrespective of their location. Through the SAYouth.mobi job seekers can access the network to find job opportunities, to earn income, and to stay engaged and connected. The platform provides young people with ongoing recommendations to learning and for support so that they know what they must do to grow their profile and access more opportunities. Of the the SAYouth.mobi platform registered users, more than 1,3 million earning opportunities were secured by young people since its inception. We will continue to work to ensure SAYouth.mobi becomes a platform of choice for young South Africans looking for opportunities.

The Presidency, together with development partners and other government departments will continue to provide strategic oversight and coordination of the Presidential Employment Stimulus and the PYEI and other public employment initiatives.
Madam Speaker,

We will remain focused on the work of the National Logistics Crisis Committee to unlock the bottlenecks in our ports, freight and rail and ensure the full implementation of the National Logistics Roadmap with active and meaningful participation of all stakeholders, to achieve the same levels of success of NECOM.

We are cognisant of the magnitude of the work at hand and the scarcity of resources, it is for this reason that we are not only reliant on the convening power of The President but our firm belief in the importance of partnerships for the pursuit of the country’s shared goals and the business sense of using other people’s money, but we were socialised to know that Munwe muthihi a u tusi mathuthu.