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Keynote Address at Provincial Budget Indaba
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 EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

SPEECH DELIVERED BY PREMIER MA STOFILE

AT PROVINCIAL BUDGET INDABA

ON 7 AUGUST 2000



" A new global strategy against poverty needs to be mounted – with more resources, a sharper focus and a stronger commitment." –UNDP 
Poverty Report 2000



Chairperson
 Members of the Executive Council
 Senior Managers of this province
 Colleagues

I greet you all on behalf of the people in KwaMpisi, Somerset East, Ugie, Tsomo, Adelaide, Hanke and in Ngqushwa. These people are the 
poverty-stricken masses of the Eastern Cape who live with the hope that every time we gather like this we have their interests at heart. 
Their message is very simple; "people first, abantu kuqala, batho pele". It’s not about us but the people. Therefore, Chairperson, this is 
the gathering of people who are tasked with putting the poor people of the Eastern Cape province first when they allocate resource. This is 
the Budget Indaba 2000. It is the second after the &#145;99 general election. Hence I want to call it the Budget Indaba for consolidation.

We are consolidating the work we started doing last year. This consolidation process must of necessity evaluate the manner in which we are 
currently doing things. It must also re-confirm the priorities we identified last year, which are a mandate for this government. We 
certainly need to look at how we can do things better in this province.

Let me start by saying that we need to meet a systematic attack on poverty in the Eastern Cape. UNDP’s Poverty Report 2000 isolate several 
fronts for a systematic attack on poverty and these are:

* Commitment to poverty reduction with government as a key player
* Development of anti-poverty plans
* Linking poverty to national policies with an emphasis on pro-poor growth
* Linking Countries’ international policies to poverty
* Better governance with increased people’s power
* Pro-poor local governance through well functioning local government
* Self-organisation of the poor
* Focusing resources on the poor
* Integrating key issues such as health care, environmental preservation and others into poverty programmes and
* Monitoring progress against poverty

Chairperson, I want us to adopt a similar approach as this Indaba. We should identify those key pillars that will constitute our strategy 
for the next financial year. The first pillar for then become the consolidation of the budget process.

We have been participating in the budget process for some time now with no reflection of how it is performing as a system of allocating 
resources. The budgeting process is not seen by many as a mechanism of looking back at the effect of the expenditure that government does 
but rather as just another process of allocating resources. Generally we don’t even say this is the expected outcome if we allocate 
resources in this manner. All in all we have a budgeting process that is not a process of costing the interventions which government will 
make to eradicate poverty. This is a gross weakness of our system. If the definition of budgeting as a financial planning process for 
allocating limited resources to unlimited needs stands then we are doing an injustice. The budgeting process must improve for us to 
effective in targeting poverty.

The fight against poverty cannot be won if we do not identify battles to be fought at each turn. In our case these battles constitute 
priorities we set for each budget year. For this year and the next financial year our strategic priorities remain:
* Integrated rural development that focuses on infrastructure development, food production and security as well as local government
* Social security with an emphases on improving pension payment, systems and management capacity
* Public Service transformation and
* HIV-AIDS

We must do a quick analysis of the work we’ve been doing in these areas and identify means of improving our performance. These priorities 
should, if the consolidation is effective, roll back poverty especially in rural areas. In addition to that this government must as a 
caring government send a message out there that it is going to continue spending more for its rural people, the elderly, people affected by 
HIV and AIDS. We must also say boldly that we are going to address our management problems that continue to undermine the good work and 
intentions we have.

Chairperson, these budget priorities require a better integration of budgeting and planning. We must, beyond this point, go back to our 
departments and plan according to these priorities. This calls for a better co-operation between my office and the department of finance 
and provincial expenditure. This challenge has dogged us ever since we started this provincial government. Now is the time to change this 
situation because there can be no effective targeting of poverty without integrated budgeting and planning. I suggest that a task team be 
constituted that focuses on this task from this Indaba. This task team must develop a clear budget and planning system for the province 
that has an easy to understand language. This system must allow for participation by the beneficiaries of our interventions. It must be 
able to monitor and evaluate the implementation process feed it back to the budgeting and planning cycle. Next year Chairperson we should 
call this gathering the Planning and Budgeting Indaba 2001 which will mainly be about planning for planning. The demand, therefore, will be 
improving the qualitative input into such a gathering where we will get statistics and reports about the impact of our efforts and other 
relevant areas.

This strategic approach to poverty eradication calls for a new cadre of managers and politicians. We have to move with the same sense of 
urgency. We must put in more hours to our work. We must be creative. We must create departments that have a vibrant working culture. We 
must move out of our offices to see the real fruits of our hard work. Our credo "development through unity" must be nourish us all the 
time. From the cleaner to the head of department there must an exciting reason why we wake up to work. History has bestowed us with a 
surmountable task of ridding the Eastern Cape of poverty. This is the challenge of this generation of leaders, administrators and above all 
developmental activists.

Thank you!!!

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