Feedback on Mbeki's Poverty Plan

from All Africa

South Africa is responding to President Mbeki's war on poverty plan. Mbeki announced the effort last weekend. The plan has it's fair share of critics. - Kale

by Amy Musgrave and Karima Brown

Johannesburg - CIVIL society and organised labour have cautiously welcomed the government's planned anti poverty campaign, saying it is scant on detail and that they were not consulted.

The campaign, announced by President Thabo Mbeki at the weekend, following the cabinet lekgotla, will be headed by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and launched next month.

Yesterday, lobby groups welcomed the campaign but said it was difficult to ascertain how it was different from existing anti poverty measures.

Mbeki told reporters that the campaign would identify deprived wards and households.

A team of professionals and community workers would identify their needs and accelerate access to government services and " provision of safety nets".

The long-term goal was that the poorest households should receive assistance and support in a co-ordinated and sustained way.

The campaign comes as the government stalled on an antipoverty strategy supposed to have been signed off by the lekgotla for public comment.

Talks around defining a poverty line (to measure poverty) have also not gone anywhere as stakeholders have failed to agree on key aspects of both the strategy and line.

The question of defining poverty and quantifying poor people remains unresolved and is the cause for the delay in defining a poverty index.

Jan Mahlangu, Congress of South African Trade Unions head of policy, said yesterday that it was difficult to understand what the campaign would entail.

"What is this programme when government doesn't have a clear measurement?

"One would have expected the lekgotla to embark on this process. Postponing issues on the poor is a problem because it shows that there is no urgency," he said.

The national economic development and labour council has still not heard from the government on when the poverty line and strategy will be made available for comment.

"On the poverty line there was internal disagreement within government.

"We had two views; one from the treasury and one from social development. The government promised to come back last month , but we are still waiting," Mahlangu said.

Glenn Farred, programme manager at the Studies on Poverty and Inequality Institute, was equally sceptical, questioning how the campaign was different from the existing interventions.

"I think they (the government) didn't get the response they wanted on the strategy. Now they won't engage in a formal process.

Mbeki announces launch of a "war" on poverty.

from AFP via Google

After visits to poor areas last week, the president of South Africa announces a new scheme to fight poverty in the country. - Kale

PRETORIA — South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse, will next month launch a nationwide campaign against poverty, President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday.

"The war on poverty campaign will be launched in all the (nine) provinces during August. The most deprived wards and households have been identified and will be visited ... to identify needs," he said at a media briefing on the outcome of a cabinet meeting last week.

"A war-room on poverty has also been established," and the campaign is coordinated by the office of the vice president, he said.

More than four million South Africans live below the poverty line, according to government figures.

The government has also set a target to reduce the country's crime rate by between seven and 10 percent for the remainder of the tenure of this administration, in a related strand.

The targeted "priority" crimes are murder, rape, violent assault and robbery, he said.

South Africa has one of the world's highest crime rates with some 50 people murdered a day.

A review of the criminal justice system and tackling of crimes among children are also underway in the country, he added.

There are 3,478 children in detention, 820 of them sentenced and kept in correctional facilities, he said.

Finally, Mbeki, who leaves office next year after serving two terms, said that all the venues for hosting the 2009 Confederations Cup and the 2010 World Cup will be ready to meet the deadline set by FIFA.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

S.Africa's Mbeki vows war on crime, poverty

from Reuters

By Paul Simao

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki pledged to tackle poverty and crime, speed up land redistribution to blacks and fight AIDS in a speech on Friday that focused on the country's most glaring social ills.

Mbeki, halfway through his second and final term as president, acknowledged the government needed to do more to help millions of unemployed, poor and landless South Africans living on the sidelines of the country's fast-growing economy.

He outlined programs to spur employment through expanded public works projects, increase subsidized housing for the poor and implement a broad social security system designed mainly to help low-income workers.

"All these economic and social programs form part of our strategies to reduce and eradicate the poverty that continues to afflict many of our people," Mbeki said in a State of the Nation speech marking the opening of parliament in Cape Town.

The 64-year-old leader has been under pressure from powerful trade unions and his own divided African National Congress to improve life for ordinary South Africans, many of whom lack electricity, water and other basic services.

Improving social amenities has become a major demand on Mbeki's government, underlined by violent protests that erupted over the issue in mostly black townships last year.

Mbeki said the use of buckets to collect water and sewage, a common practice in townships and remote areas, was an "ugly and repulsive" fact that needed to be eradicated. Nearly a fifth of South Africa's 45 million people still have no clean water.

LAND FOR BLACKS

In one of his strongest statements yet on the controversial, racially tinged land reform issue, Mbeki said too many claims remained unresolved for those dispossessed under apartheid and colonial rule and that redistribution should be sped up.

Land redistribution is seen by the ruling ANC and its largely black constituency as a cornerstone of black majority rule, but for whites it evokes the specter of Zimbabwe-style land seizures and a collapse of the agriculture sector.

Analysts reacted quickly to his comments on the issue.

"Mbeki's comments that land reform needs to be speeded up are unlikely to be well-received by investors, although we don't believe there is any implication of the Zimbabwe-style land grabbing in his comments at all," Tania Kotsos of the Royal Bank of Canada said.

In his speech, Mbeki bowed to growing public pressure to tackle crime, amid widespread perceptions that the problem was spiraling out of control, especially in the country's economic hub Johannesburg, and charges Mbeki was in denial about the gravity of the problem.

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime and has been jarred by a series of sensational crimes, including the murder of a prominent South African historian.

Business leaders have expressed fears that violent crime, if left unchecked, could deter foreign investment and tourism in Africa's biggest economy and ruin the country's chances of successfully hosting the 2010 soccer World Cup.

Mbeki said the country had made progress in combating crime, though he acknowledged many people still lived in fear, "closeted behind walls and barbed wire".

"Decisive action will be taken to eradicate lawlessness, drug trafficking, gun running, crime and especially the abuse of women and children," Mbeki said.

Mbeki also said the government was committed to expanding programs to fight HIV and AIDS, which affects about 5 million South Africans.

(Additional reporting by Wendell Roelf)