Hon Chairperson, Comrade Minister Chabane, Comrade Deputy Minister Bapela, hon members, the Director-General of the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, and the team, the National Youth Development Agency - I don't see them here; oh, the colleagues are there - my discussion will cover broadly both the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation and the National Youth Development Agency.
The Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation presents our government with the rare opportunity to be the champion of service delivery, the opportunity for the centre to streamline the planning of government priorities from a national level to a provincial level, and may include the municipalities as the Minister has indicated. The co-ordination from the Presidency to the premiers and the leadership of clusters will be responsible for prioritising and not for any further reprioritising in different spheres.
The Constitution of the country says that South Africa is a unitary state, thus doing away with the yearning for balkanisation of our country. The work of citizenry becomes important by monitoring frontline service delivery and raising queries with the Presidential Hotline, thus fulfilling the aims of the Freedom Charter that, "The people shall govern," and that our government is a people-centred government. Whilst the President has entered into performance agreements with the Ministers that require focusing on 12 priority outcomes, Parliament needs to understand these 12 priority outcomes in order for Parliament to do effective oversight over the measurable objectives. The 12 priority outcomes are based on the five broad strategic priorities for government.
The ANC commends the ANC-led government for closing the monitoring and evaluation gap amongst the tools of oversight, such as the Public Service Commission, the Auditor-General, the National Treasury, etc, each of which performs a different function. Some colleagues from the opposition parties are still sceptical about the establishment of this department. The reasons are simple: They still yearn for the past, hence South Africans coming to the Western Cape are called refugees in their own country. [Interjections.]
This department will be central to service delivery and co-ordination of government work. The research informs us that in countries in which monitoring and evaluation departments exist, the service to the people is bound to improve, but we should accept that there is little experience in our country around monitoring and evaluation.
As Parliament we need to monitor the performance of government versus the strategic or the annual performance plans. Though many departments receive unqualified audit opinion reports from the Auditor-General, in many cases there is a gap between expenditure and set predetermined objectives, which remain low, with some departments achieving less than 50% of their set objectives, and other departments scoring as low as 37%.
The Public Service Commission believes that this misalignment can be attributed to a lack of capacity and skills, and to a lack of culture of reporting on performance. Another area of concern between expenditure and predetermined objectives is value for money. A glaring example in terms of value for money is when departments spend about 50% at the end of the third quarter - that is, December - but by the end of the financial year, three months later, they are able to exhaust the budget of the department. This begs the question as to whether the money has been translated into predetermined objectives.
The committee notes the 2012-13 annual performance plan of the department and looks forward to working with the department in achieving these predetermined objectives. The department is still new and needs to build capacity as soon as possible.
The ANC commends the department for the work that has been done by the Presidency in dealing with calls to the hotline. The hotline continues to play an important role in engaging with the citizenry and we appreciate the improvement in the responses to the queries, from 39% to 80%. Again, with the Presidential Hotline there are certain issues that need to be addressed, like call throttling and the cost of calling, as well as the slow responsiveness of the municipalities.
The ANC welcomes the commitment of the executive to focus on monitoring the frontline service delivery and appreciates the visits that have been done by the President and Ministers to institutions such as hospitals, schools, police stations and municipalities. The institutions and the public also benefit from these visits.
The ANC supports the department in its endeavours to co-ordinate sectoral data forums based on the outcomes, with the aim of improving data collection in the departments, to enable evidence-based reporting on progress with the implementation of delivery agreements for the outcomes.
Hon Minister, we recommend that the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation look at its budget closely as the administrator's budget is the biggest amongst the four core programmes. Some of the functions not belonging there must be accordingly allocated. Clearly, the budget of this department has to be attended to over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period in order for the department to build sufficient capacity to monitor and evaluate other departments.
I will now address myself to the National Youth Development Agency, NYDA. The ANC would like to take this opportunity to express our profound gratitude to the former chairperson of the NYDA and his colleagues on the board for steering this ship to where it is today. These comrades must be congratulated on the work that they did in founding the NYDA from the Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission for it to become the formidable force that the NYDA is today. The work has not been easy and they have sometimes received undeserved criticism, because the public has not understood the intricacy of integrating these two institutions. [Interjections.] Some of those very people are those that are grumbling now!
The ANC continues to support the growth and development of the young people as evidenced in supporting the National Youth Development Agency. This is in line with O R Tambo's view that no nation can afford to neglect its youth. The ANC has not said that there are no challenges in the NYDA. South Africa currently experiences a high unemployment rate, and research reports indicate that the majority of those people who are not employed are the youth, some of whom have never been or may never be employed.
Therefore, the role of the NYDA in empowering the young people of the country cannot be overemphasised. So, the establishment of the NYDA is a deliberate intervention by the government to mitigate the challenges such as poverty, unemployment and lack of resources, and to aid the youth to complete their schooling. The Congress of SA Trade Unions, Cosatu, is not the government. [Interjections.]
The NYDA received a lot of negative publicity related to the international youth festival that was held in South Africa. I would like to highlight a few points, whilst Comrade Mkhulisi will expand on the submission of the NYDA. The NYDA informed the committee about the values which, amongst other things, include the developmental nature of our society; service orientation and excellence; integrity and ethics; transparency and fairness; and prudence in looking after their resources.
We are aware that the youth constitute the bulk of the unemployed population in our country. As part of addressing this unemployment and prioritising the youth, resources have been made available to the NYDA. Except for the 2012-13 allocated budget, their budget will grow over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period from R376 million to R449 million, excluding donations. The ANC commends the programmes that the NYDA has set out to empower the young people by promoting economic freedom.
A whole range of programmes are provided to support their overarching goals such as an enabling environment mandate, amongst other things; lobbying and advocating for integral and mainstreaming of youth development in all spheres of government - private sector and civil society; and initiating, implementing, facilitating and co-ordinating youth development programmes.
The NYDA reported that it has presence in all the provinces and many municipalities. The committee hopes to support the NYDA by visiting the centres and projects they have around the country. The ANC supports Budget Vote 6. I thank you. [Applause.]