PARLIAMENT, February 9 (ANA) – President Jacob Zuma on Thursday said he had ordered Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to speedily implement the health ombudsman’s recommendations following the death of 94 psychiatric patients in Gauteng.
“I’ve instructed the minister of health to ensure that the health ombudsperson’s recommendations are wholly and speedily implemented without any reservations,” Zuma said while delivering his state of the nation address (Sona).
“We welcomed the recommendation…that there is an urgent need to review the National Health Act of 2003 and the Mental Health Act of 2002 with a view that certain powers and functions revert back to the national minister of health.”
Zuma said government was intent on providing support to the families of the deceased.
President Zuma also vowed that the fight against crime was an apex priority of his government.
“The fight against crime is an apex priority. The police will increase visible policing, building on the successful pattern of deployments utilised during the safer festive season campaign,” Zuma said while delivering his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“They (police) will also utilise certain specialised capabilities, such as the tactical response team and the national intervention unit, to assist in addressing problematic high-crime areas. We received a message from Soshanguve last week that crime is rife in Block L and that hijackings and robberies are high. It is such communities that need to build stronger partnerships with the police to ensure that criminals do not prey on residents.”
Zuma said other measures to fight crime nationally will include the establishment of specialised units, focusing on drug-related crime, taxi violence and firearms. He also punted the enhanced utilisation of investigative aids such as forensic leads.
“The police will also enhance the utilisation of the DNA Database in the identification of suspects. We urge the public to work with the police to ensure safer communities,” said Zuma.
“We welcome the decline in rhino poaching incidents since October 2015 which is for the first time in a decade. This arises from intensive joint operations by law enforcement agencies. One of the strategies of fighting crime is to ensure that those who are released from prison do not commit crime again.”
The president said the correctional services department is working continuously to turn South Africa prisons into correctional centres through offering various services and skills.
“As a result, compliance levels with parole and probation conditions have improved to reach a historic mark of 98 percent. The country has also made good progress in reducing the numbers of children in correctional centres,” said Zuma.
After calling for greater black business ownership, President Jacob Zuma set out the transfer of more land to black South Africans as another key priority in his state of the nation address.
“We will not achieve true reconciliation until the land issue is resolved,” Zuma said in his address, after the Economic Freedom Fighters MPs were dragged out of the National Assembly in the worst violence seen since the party began challenging his legitimacy.
Zuma quoted known figures confirming that only eight million hectares of the country’s 82 million hectares of arable land had been transferred to black owners.
He urged beneficiaries to retain land instead of opting for financial compensation, saying it was regrettable that black involvement in farming had declined sharply last year, with their retreat from the land conceivably hastened by the drought afflicting the country.
“We appeal to land claimants to accept land instead of financial compensation. This is very important,” he stressed.
“If you accept finance you use it in short time, it is gone, it is important that you remain with the land, not the money.”
He added that perhaps it was a failure when the post-democratic government initiated land reform, to give claimants the option to choose compensation.
Zuma added that he had referred the Expropriation Bill, passed by the National Assembly last year, back to Parliament, saying it would not pass constitutional muster.
“This is due to inadequate public participation during its processing.
We trust that Parliament will be able to move with speed in meeting the requirements so that the law can be finalised to effect transformation.
The President also expressed unhappiness at the pace of transformation in the workplace, saying that government wanted to open up the economy to new players.
During the State of the Nation Address, Zuma said it was now time for black people to begin owning and playing a meaningful role in the country’s big industries instead of benefiting from empowerment schemes.
“Radical economic transformation should move beyond share economic schemes only. We would like to see black people involved directly in business, owning factories. The development of the Black Industrialists programme is thus critical,” Zuma said.
“Only 10 percent of Top 100 companies on the JSE are black-owned. The pace of transformation in the workplace remains slow.”
Zuma said government was trying to quicken the pace of transformation in the economy through various programmes aimed at benefiting small, micro, and medium enterprises (SMMEs), especially black-owned and female-owned enterprises.
He said government was actively involved in the R7 trillion property sector, adding that this year government would address increasing delays and backlogs in issuing of title deeds.
Zuma also said this year, the Department of Public Works would invest R100m on critical programmes to modernise harbours and continue generating revenue from letting state-owned harbours and coastlines properties, which would benefit black owned SMMEs.
Zuma said government would also continue to pursue policies that seek to broaden the participation of black people and SMMEs, including those owned by women and the youth, in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector.
