Office on Status of Disabled Persons Annual Report 2006/7
Meeting Summary
A summary of this committee meeting is not yet available.
Meeting report
JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN, YOUTH AND PERSONS WITH DISABILITES9 November 2007
OFFICE ON STATUS OF DISABLED PERSONS ANNUAL REPORT 2006/7
Chairperson: Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC)
Relevant documents:
Office on the Status of Disabled Persons Annual Reports, 2005/06 Short Version [Part 1][Part 2]
Office on the Status of Disabled Persons Annual Reports, 2005/06 & 2006/07
Audio recording of meeting
SUMMARY
The Director of the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons, a special programme within the Presidency, gave a briefing on the Office's Annual Report 2006/7, which had been sent previously to Members.
The Committee had set the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons to achieve a target of 2% in the employment of persons with disabilities in the public service; regrettably, the overall proportion of such persons currently employed was only 0.09%. Only Limpopo province had reached the 2% target. Generally, the public service working environment, with some exceptions, was not accommodating to disabled persons, and disabled employees hardly remained in their posts more than 18 months before resigning. Managers in the public service generally were reluctant to address the issue.
However, performance assessments of directors-general in the public service now included an assessment of the extent to which they had succeeded in implementing the 2% target. If directors-general contacted the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons to ask about what they should do if they had not achieved the target, the Office would respond that the responsibility for implementation rested with the directors-general themselves.
There was lively interaction between Members and the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons. While Members stressed that much greater efforts needed to be made, especially in the public sector, to accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities, there was much appreciation expressed of the efforts of the Office to convince human resource managers in the public service to make due provision for employees with disabilities.
Members asked that more detail be given in the Annual Report about the budget. In response to a question about a court case against the South African Police Service, it was pointed out that SAPS was the only department in the country to have allocated a R20 million budget for a programme to accommodate persons with disabilities, and this was an example that other departments should follow. Moreover, it was the only department with a Wellness on Wheels Programme for disabled members of staff.
There was considerable discussion on the shortcomings of provision for the disabled. An overriding requirement was to ensure that the constitutional rights of the community at large should not be denied to persons with disabilities because of non-implementation of legislation that had been enacted to protect those rights.
MINUTES
Office on the Status of Disabled Persons presentation
The Director, Mr Benny Palime, accompanied by Ms Ria Mathivha, Deputy-Director: Monitoring & Evaluation, thanked the Chairperson and Members for their welcome. He said that the request that the Office on the Status of Disabled Persons had received had suggested that the Office should present the Annual Reports for 2005/2006 and 2006/2007. At the risk of boring Members, Mr Palime said that his presentation would include what he had presented to them the previous year. But what the Committee had then requested was to present the Office's work from April to mid-September, which the Office had done. He was not going to follow the same format, but he would include what he had said the previous year.
The classification of the report, 2005/2006 and 2006/2007, provided a continuum of events and activities, with the same objectives. The objectives of the OSDP were particularly based on a number of categories. Indeed, those objectives were part of the mandate of the Presidency, and they followed the same pattern. OSDP was obliged to follow the strategic objectives of the Presidency in that regard. OSDP was obliged to align itself with the strategic plan of the Presidency, which took place in November every year, after the mid-term review. The media review took place every year in September. After that review, the Presidency examined how much money had been spent. By that time each and every unit needed to have spent at least 50% of its budget. He had to confess, at the risk of being taken to task by the Committee, that in the past two years, the OSDP had under spent a little. However, he had sought to provide an explanation in the 10 November 2006 meeting.
The classification of the report as he had said was under specific objectives. The first one was the activities undertaken by OSDP under policy. The Cabinet had taken a decision, after the definition of disability had been confirmed in 2005, that OSDP review the research undertaken by the Cabinet regarding participation in community life by the disabled leading to employment. Therefore OSDP had to focus on social and economic aspects.
With regard to issues around advocacy, OSDP had been working with the different departments. OSDP had done media training for persons with disabilities.
OSDP had being doing work on the International Day of the Disabled in North West province in 2006 and in KwaZulu-Natal in 2007. The bulk of the Office's money went to those major activities. On average OSDP spent just over R1 million each year on those activities. National departments and provinces also contributed. With regard to planning and co-ordination, OSDP was still conducting the Inter-departmental Collaboration Committee. This was a main forum for mainstreaming disability issues within the departments. OSDP was running the inter-provincial forum quarterly with all nine provincial OSDPs throughout 2005 to 2007. OSDP was also co-ordinating work within the Policy Co-ordination and Advisory Services (PCAS) unit of the Presidency.
As to international obligations, OSDP had been performing a huge amount of work on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He had been leading the delegation to New York to do that work. He could report that he had finished that work on the 31 March 2007. He could give the latest update if required by the Honourable Members in the House.
The other aspect of OSDP's international work referred to the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities. OSDP had faced a challenge, because the chief executive officer had been seconded from the Presidency. Henceforth, he resigned. Mr Palime had had to appoint a new chief executive officer. The new chief executive officer was appointed in January 2007. In 2005/2006 OSDP had hosted board meetings of the African Decade in Cape Town and Pretoria. OSDP had also hosted the chairperson of the board who had had meetings with the minister and other dignitaries in South Africa. OSDP also did work in assisting the secretariat to really run its office, because there had been a problem in that they (OSDP) had been starting something completely new. OSDP had had no choice but to assist in that regard to get the secretariat's office started. When OSDP had appointed the new chief executive officer in January, OSDP had had to visit Cape Town in order to carry out the orientation of the new chief executive officer. However, OSDP was now making good progress in that regard.
Mr Palime would not report on the work of the secretariat itself. Suffice it to say, the secretariat had been doing work in 20 African countries since the inception of the secretariat. Next year OSDP would be joining the secretariat on visits to other African countries, including countries as far north possibly as Algeria. OSDP would work with the secretariat directly because of the effects of the convention. It had been agreed with the Presidency that that was the kind of work that OSDP could and should do.
The other international work that OSDP had done included hosting the international rapporteur on disability in 2005 when she came to visit South Africa under the auspices of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Also in that regard OSDP had been able to write an informal, unofficial report to the United Nations.
Mr Palime then moved on to strategic issues. As to special projects, OSDP had been running since 2005 the Economic Empowerment Project through the funding from Denmark that OSDP had received. OSDP had been finalising the project of the Finnish International Development Agency. That R30 million programme had been concluded.
OSDP had been assisting the South African Federal Council on Disability, which had had to wind up its operations because the money that OSDP had given it had run out. OSDP had assisted that body to wind up its affairs and reconstitute itself in a new structure.
OSDP had been doing work around capacity building and mainstreaming. In that regard OSDP had been consulting with departments involved in the mainstreaming part of OSDP's work, including the departments of labour, health, social development, education, communications, and with GCIS. All in all the work that OSDP had been doing with them was to mainstream disability into their activities.
With regard to capacity building, OSDP had being doing a programme with the South African management development institute (SAMDI) to build capacity of officials in all three spheres of government. OSDP had worked at national level with such departments as the Presidency, with the Department of Health, Department of Social Development, Department of Education, about five departments altogether to train them in the national integrated disabilities strategy. It was a training of trainers programme.
With regard to provinces, OSDP had done work in three provinces with regard to the SAMDI programme, and in the local government sphere OSDP had done work in three districts in training disabled councillors and also officials who worked in municipalities.
OSDP had also done work in the local government sphere with the Office of Rights of the Child (OFRC) to provide training programmes at the local government level. In 2006 OSDP had held three meetings in a cluster of three provinces with the Minister in the Presidency to assist local government to understand the programmes of the OFRC and OSDP and all the GDC programmes. OSDP also included youth in that cluster.
With regard to human resources, OSDP had been able to employ two deputy-directors, an administration officer, project staff, project managers and project administrator, and a deputy director who had started on the 21 August 2006.
Challenges remained in that OSDP had not met the target set by the Committee (and required by the Equity Act) that a proportion of 2% of persons with disabilities be employed. In fact the proportion had gone down to 0.09%. Whereas the previous year OSDP had said that the intake of the disabled into the public service had increased, this year it had to admit that it had decreased. This indicated, Mr Palime admitted, that something in OSDP's strategy had gone wrong.
But all the while OSDP had been doing work with the Department of Public Service and Administration on the job access programme. It was hoped to launch it in December. OSDP also developed a book, Handbook on Reasonable Accommodation, in co-operation with the Department of Public Service and Administration to assist HR managers in government to understand reasonable accommodation and it was launched in Durban three weeks previously. This book would be available for members if they needed it. It could be obtained from OSDP's office, or from the Government Printer, or from the Department of Public Service and Administration.
That was basically the summary of the two reports. Some of the activities that OSDP did in 2005/2006 complemented those done in 2006/2007. OSDP had been obliged to implement projects that had been funded by donors from elsewhere and also projects that had been funded by government. With regard to projects funded by Medium Term Expenditure Funding (MTEF), OSDP had focused on work internally.
With projects that had been funded by donors from outside, OSDP's focus had been external. OSDP had been assisting organisations; it had been building capacity in schools; it had been building capacity in DPOs; in those, OSDP had taken an external focus. If one looked at the objectives of the economic empowerment programme in OSDP's report, one could see that they focussed mainly on the transformation of sheltered workshops into viable businesses, but also creation of jobs for persons with disabilities. These initiatives included websites and learnerships; these were among the work that OSDP had been doing.
OSDP hoped to continue on the same wavelength with its 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 activities with special focus on the work that OSDP now had to do around the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That would be OSDP's specific focus on 01 April 2008. However, OSDP would consider a retake with the programmes that it had been doing, particularly those with an external focus, those that had been funded by external donors. OSDP had been obliged to close those programmes because it had run out of funds. These funds had been donated by countries from Europe. So OSDP had to close those programmes, but OSDP wanted to retake them and reopen them and see if it could give a new focus to the MTEF expenditure in the OSDP. One of the programmes that OSDP would like to add in the coming year was the one on HIV and AIDS. OSDP had not previously had a special focus on that. OSDP was working with SADC in that regard. OSDP now had a strategic plan on HIV and AIDS and how people with disabilities were affected. OSDP had put together a reference book on that subject. From 01 April 2008 OSDP would be spending money on that project. OSDP would aim for a gradual introduction of the programme rather than a 'kick-start'. OSDP would phase such programmes in gradually but would certainly report to the Joint Monitoring Committee.
The Chairperson had referred to the International Day for Disabled Persons 2007. OSDP would be hosting that event in the Western Cape. It was, however, not a Western Cape event, but a national event. This event would be held at the Newlands cricket ground. It was hoped to have either the President or the Deputy-President to officiate, and the Minister in the Presidency, and the Premier of the Western Cape. It would be a normal state function. It was usual at state functions to have a national address by one of the political principals. It was planned also to have entertainment and to have exhibitions in the stadium by different departments on bringing services to the people. Such departments would include Home Affairs, and Health, and Social Development, for example. It was hoped to attract a good deal of public attention, but it was not intended that the event should been seen as an event concerned only with disability. It was intended that it should be seen as a public event with a special focus on International Day for Disabled Persons.
Mr Palime said that he was ready to receive questions.
Discussion
The Chairperson said that she was ready to open the floor to Members' questions, but said that she would like to ask how people with disabilities benefited from OSDP's job access programme. Secondly, she asked about the chief executive officer that OSDP had employed for the African Decade. She asked if that mean that OSDP was funding the office. There were only two or three more years left for that decade. She asked if the Committee should ask the officials of the African Decade to give a presentation to the Committee on the African Decade.
Mr Palime replied that OSDP did not fund the African Decade secretariat. But because OSDP was hosting the secretariat in South Africa, he was thereby under some obligation to supervise their work. On the other hand, he was a member of the board of the African Decade. There were two board meetings annually. The work of the Decade secretariat was funded by donors. He would recommend calling the African Decade secretariat to appear before the Committee to explain its work. In the 2005/2006 Annual Report of OSDP it could be seen that OSDP had factored their work into its programme. Secondly, the first chief executive officer had been seconded by the Presidency and his salary paid by the Presidency. That was no longer the case. In 2005/2006 'we were funding the salary of the chief executive officer only'. In January 2007 OSDP had to stop that practice. The secretariat was doing very good work regarding HIV and AIDS, regarding education, and EVC. The secretariat was doing much work regarding the intercontinental plan of action published in December 2004. So most of their work was centred on that plan.
With regard to the job access programme, it was a government programme, in which the OSDP was in partnership with the Department of Public Service and Administration to implement the programme. It was a programme to open up opportunities for persons with disabilities in the public service. It could be in terms of learnership programme, it could be in terms of internship programme, it could be in terms of permanent or contract employment. The purpose of that programme was to reach the target that OSDP had set itself, the target of 2% by 2009. One of the objects of the programme was to create reasonable accommodations within the workplace and to promote health and wellness in persons with disabilities in the workplace. It was to make it easy for persons with disabilities to cope within the workplace. This included labour rights and basic conditions of employment. It was a flexible programme, not a binding programme. It was not a law, it was a programme. All the public service acts, regulations, and white papers and so forth had been taken into consideration. When OSDP drafted the programme, all the instruments in the public service had been taken into consideration. The Department of Public Service and Administration had been doing work in the provinces. They had been educating the public concerning the programme and running workshops for public servants, such as human resource managers, as well. So far OSDP had had two major conferences, in Durban and in Cape Town, to popularise the programme. Mr Palime sensed that it had been well received by most human resource managers and by directors-general.
Mr Madella said that the report was difficult to follow, because in front of Members were two documents, relating to 2006 and 2007 respectively. Some matters were repeated, and others were not in the two documents. It would have been much easier if OSDP had produced a comprehensive document detailing all aspects of its activities for 2006/07. That would have been much easier for one to follow. Much of what Mr Palime had said was expanding upon matters that were not raised as such in the Report itself, but he had expanded in more detail in his presentation, which was nonetheless welcome.
Mr Madella said that one had to express shock and extreme concern with regard to the decrease in the levels of employment of people with disabilities in the public service. It was really alarming that instead of increasing, it was going down. He asked why there was that decrease, in spite of all the other work that OSDP was doing including the workshops for human resource managers throughout the public service and which were a very important activity, to sensitise human resource managers. Reasonable accommodation within the workplace for persons with disabilities was one of the conditions of the Employment Equity Act. In the light of the above, one would assume that human resource managers would have a comprehensive understanding of the Employment Equity Act.
He said that it would be a good idea for the Joint Monitoring Committee to receive a copy of the book that the Director had referred to. It was an important enabling tool and it would assist Members in their oversight role.
Returning to job access and employment levels, one was not sure if the issue of access to education and training was not a stumbling block and one wondered if OSDP had conducted bilateral talks with the Department of Education and the committee of university principals and vice-chancellors to find ways of making tertiary education more accessible for disabled students, both in terms of bursaries and reasonable accommodation.
Lastly, with regard to the International Day for Disabled Persons festivities, the Committee had received an invitation that indicated that the event was hosted by provincial government. There was no indication that it was a national event. It was essential to attend as a Committee and not as individuals. More importantly, the last time Mr Palime had attended the Committee, he had briefed the Members briefly about an extravaganza, a musical festival at which he himself would perform.
Mr Palime said that what he had presented was the detailed report for 2005/2006 and the framework for 2006/2007 as a summary. They were concurrent and actually complemented each other. He had not in the presentation followed the structure of the report but rather explained its overall content given further details. However, when OSDP next met the Committee, it would double check on what Members had received. It was possible that Members had received duplicate copies of some of the reports. Mr Palime would check with the Chairperson to see exactly what she had received, for Members should have received the same documentation that she had received.
Mr Palime said that on his previous visit to the Committee he had reported on the target of 2%. He admitted that OSDP was experiencing a very difficult problem. At the risk of speaking off the record, he was not convinced that they would reach the target by 2009. The chief reason was that the public service working environment was not necessarily friendly to persons with disabilities. This was a fact that had to be faced. Secondly, there were still departments that informed OSDP that they could not ferry people with disabilities to and from work. If somebody was in a wheelchair, such a person could hardly reach his work. It was a massive problem. Secondly, OSDP experienced departments that reported their alleged inability to find persons with disabilities offering themselves for employment. Thirdly, there were departments who complained that it was difficult to provide reasonable accommodations. It was becoming very difficult for OSDP to assist that kind of human resource manager who gave those reasons. The reason for the decrease in the employment of persons with disabilities in the public service was that the retention strategy was wrong. OSDP had been trying to assist departments to increase their human resources capacity to employ persons with disabilities. OSDP strove to change the mindsets of human resources managers towards employing persons with disabilities only at the lower end of the employment spectrum, for example the blind as telephone operators or those in wheelchairs as secretaries.
These factors were why persons with disabilities did not stay longer than 18 months as showed by research conduced by OSDP. They left because the environment was unfriendly to them. Even with the Basic Conditions of Employment there needed to be special sick leave for persons with disabilities; for example if a person with a disability were in a wheelchair they would need to rest from time to time. So for example, instead of starting work at 08h00 they needed to be allowed to start at 09h00 because for them to get ready for work it took them two hours or more. Therefore Mr Palime had been saying to the Department of Public Service and Administration Durban that if persons with disabilities needed to rest, they should be allowed to do so and factor in the time so taken within their lunch hour or after 16h30. Typically human resource managers would say that they wanted all the staff to begin work by 08h00 and that they must leave at 16h30 with no negotiation. So OSDP had been encouraging persons with disabilities to establish forums within the public service departments to assist human resource departments to develop policies that were consistent with disability legislation. Within OSDP the deputy directors were now going into departments every Tuesday unannounced to check on the development of human resource practices, reasonable accommodation, and on statistics. The only province that had reached the 2% target and beyond was Limpopo. Mr Palime asked himself why other departments could not do the same. He said that it was an ongoing struggle and that OSDP and the Joint Monitoring Committee would have to pull together to address the issue. OSDP could not educate 900 000 officials. OSDP did not have the capacity, but the Department of Public Service and Administration did have that capacity and it should be their job and duty to implement that programme.
Mr N Gcwabaza (ANC) said that he was further confused by Mr Palime’s response to Mr Madella's question, since there existed an enabling legislation for the employment of people with disabilities. It seemed to him that the managers in the public service were simply reluctant to implement the legislation. The report that Mr Palime had given contradicted what the Department of Public Service and administration had said a week or two before - that they were well within reach of the two per cent target. Quite clearly, that did not seem to be true. The Joint Monitoring Committee should have a meeting with the Department of Public Service and Administration to find out why its managers were reluctant to implement the legislation. If the employment environment discouraged disabled employees from staying longer than 18 months in the employ of the public service, it seemed to be a simple matter of reluctance, and all one needed to do was to provide an enabling environment. It was the responsibility of the employers to do that. If they were not doing it, it was something that the Joint Monitoring Committee should take up very seriously. With regard to skills development which was part of the challenge perhaps it would be necessary to go to SAMDI and make the point that it was necessary to target persons with disabilities in terms of their training to ensure that the 2% target was reached or exceeded.
The Chairperson asked further about SAMDI.
Mr Palime said that he could not lay the blame squarely with the Department of Public Service and Administration. What he was saying was that the problem was the reluctance of managers within the public service, not within the Department of Public Service and Administration. The reluctance of managers within the public service to employ persons with disabilities was the major problem. OSDP was working closely with the Department of Public Service and Administration, with, for example, the job access programme, as he had said in the Report, and with the development of the handbook. The management in the DPSA was working hard in co-operation with OSDP. The work with SAMDI was a training programme to help senior management understand the integrated disabled employment strategy. OSDP had been targeting senior management only. OSDP had not gone below that level. The programme had been successfully implemented at national, provincial, and local government levels. OSDP hoped to continue with the same programme. With the implementation of the Convention now coming up, it was necessary to upgrade the standard of OSDP's material. OSDP would be working together with SAMDI to do that.
Ms Chalmers said that it was really disgraceful. Although 'naming and shaming' was not necessarily productive, it had to be asked how one could insist the public service managers co-operated. It seemed that there was something very wrong with people's level of compassion if conditions were so bad that people who were desperate for jobs felt driven to leave their employment after only 18 months because of such unsatisfactory working conditions. This violated the whole concept of what civil society should be. It was appalling that people who were in most need were unable to remain within the service. One wondered how one could change that state of affairs. The Joint Monitoring Committee should have a meeting with some of the top officials within the public service, nationally and in the provinces, and ask them what was going on and ask them, in the light of reports received that persons with disabilities were unable to remain in employment, whether it was too much trouble to employ such people or too expensive. As regards skills development, there were children in schools with disabilities. She asked whether there was any programme on the part of the department of education or from the OSDP to send out a general message to schools with grades 11 and 12 to find out how many children each school had with disabilities, be it a physical disability or perhaps a learning disability. Such learners could be selected for learning programmes to enable them to compete with able-bodied learners, and gain in confidence and contribute to a working environment. Also she asked what was happening in the private sector. She asked if there was any way to pressurise industry to employ persons with disabilities. If they did employ such persons, she asked if they did do so begrudgingly or because they saw it as a contribution to the broader aims of civil society. In terms of mainstreaming and accessibility it was hugely important that police stations were accessible. She asked if OSDP had any information on whether the South African Police Service (SAPS) was complying with an equality court decision mandating it to make police stations accessible to persons with disabilities.
Mr Palime said that Ms Judy Chalmers’ question was very important. The South African Police Service was the one and only department in the country that had allocated R20 million for a programme for persons with disabilities. Mr Palime kept asking himself: if the SAPS could achieve such a programme, surely other departments could do the same. Moreover the SAPS was the only department in the country in which the employment of persons with disabilities was growing very fast. At a recent seminar they brought officials from all nine provinces, disabled officials; it was the only department that was providing Wellness on Wheels for the officials. It was the only department that was fully implementing the standards that OSDP had given them to make police stations and their offices fully accessible. If SAPS could make such progress, surely other departments could do likewise.
With regard to work with the Department of Education on skills development for learners with disabilities OSDP had been working with a number of private companies to increase learnerships for persons with disabilities. OSDP had been doing well with that programme. OSDP was getting feedback from different SETAs on the pilot programme that was telling OSDP that there was progress in that regard. Although it was a pilot, it was working little by little, Mr Palime thought that it was a programme that could work very well.
With regard to work with the Department of Education on skills development for learners with disabilities, OSDP had been working with them on the inclusion programme. The Department of Labour worked with them closely on skills development. This programme sought to identify learners who had the potential to be developed in terms of their skills and provide them with bursaries to enter universities. In the University of Venda there had been a meeting, as Mr Andrew Madella would remember, in which OSDP had been able to talk to different students within the disability machinery and the problem managers in the universities. OSDP ran that programme this year already. OSDP was encouraging staff at universities to have disabilities programmes and most universities had disabilities programmes now because of the work that OSDP had been doing with them, including UNISA, the University of Pretoria, the University of Cape Town, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of Stellenbosch. Thus the OSDP had a fully fledged programme to work closely with the universities and to identify necessary skills that needed to be imparted to the students.
Ms Chalmers said that it would be great to get some further details regarding the progress in the SAPS so that a Member could make a statement in the House. It was good to hear something positive about the SAPS.
Mr Moss said that two years previously he had been invited by the SAPS to an award ceremony in Bellville for disabled police. SAPS was indeed a department that did a great deal for its disabled members. In the light of all the negative publicity about the police, Ms Chalmers’ suggestion to gather more material and prepare a statement to be made in the House, was a good one.
Mr Moss thought that the Joint Monitoring Committee needed to have a much closer relationship with OSDP in its oversight role. That role should extend beyond calling Mr Palime to appear before the Committee. The reason for this was that many departments reported to them and they would say that they did liaise with OSDP. Mr Moss served on the Portfolio Committee on Transport. The Department of Transport's annual report for 2006/2007 made mention of a transport indaba in October 2006. He would like to know what happened there for disabled persons. The Joint Monitoring Committee needed that kind of information to be sure that, for example, the Department of Transport was actually doing what it said that it was doing. Even the Inter-department Co-ordinating Committee that was a committee that the Joint Monitoring Committee should try to be part of. Finally he asked for a report on the status of the United Nations Convention on the Status of Persons with Disabilities and advise if there was going to be an advertising programme to popularize it.
The Chairperson pointed out that Parliament had ratified the Convention already on 05 June 2007. However, it had not been registered with the United Nations as yet. Seven countries' ratifications of the Convention had already been registered at the United Nations Office, but not South Africa's. So she asked for an update on the progress of the Convention at the United Nations Office.
Mr Palime began his responses with the relationship between the OSDP and the Joint Monitoring Committee. He felt very concerned about the departments that misled the Committee. Ms Ria Mathivha, the Deputy Director for Monitoring and Evaluation, did not get the co-operation that she deserved. Responses from departments often did not comply with OSDP's guidelines as to the kind of information and mode of presentation required. What was seen by OSDP in the Presidency was different from what was seen in the responses of department's to the Committee.
There had been the Transport Indaba in 2006. OSDP had also gone to the Northern Cape to extend that Indaba to discuss taxi recapitalisation, accessibility of trains and buses. The Department started to ensure that buses and taxis that were purchased should be accessible. What was of concern to OSDP was that the Department had said that it would require that one in fifteen taxis that were purchased as part of the recapitalisation programme should be accessible. So that was what they had been consulting OSDP about. However, whilst it might be agreed that the programme would begin gradually, it could be argued that it should be unfolded faster. It was necessary that every vehicle should be accessible. Metrorail had consulted OSDP on the accessibility of railway stations. They would be hosting a huge consultation workshop. The status of the Convention was that OSDP had ratified the Convention in the country on 27 October 2007. The President signed and the Convention had been sealed. The Convention had now gone to New York. South Africa was the eighth country to ratify. Fortunately South Africa was within the first 20; this gave South Africa a very good image. The OSDP was now developing a programme of popularising the Convention starting on the 01 April 2008. OSDP could not start the programme until South Africa had ratified the Convention as a country. It did not have a budget until then for that programme. But what it had done, in October 2007, was to have a workshop with the National Council for the Blind to popularise the Convention. This was a pilot and it was well-received. OSDP was going to start on 01 April 2008 at the beginning of the new financial year. When OSDP received its new budget it would be factored into the budget and it would certainly be a sizeable percentage of the budget.
Mr Moss, as a follow up question, said that since he had served on the Portfolio committee on Transport, he asked if Mr Palime were aware that on Tuesday, the Director-General of Transport had given the Transport Committee a report which led Mr Moss to ask the question as to what the Department of Transport was doing for persons with disabilities. The Director General for example would say that the trains and the railways stations belonged to the government and therefore they had no choice but to do it. However, Mr Moss had asked the Minister that taxis should also be accessible to disabled persons. The Minister said one in twenty taxis. Mr Palime spoke of one in fifteen. Maybe this was not a big difference but the discrepancy was significant. It was the same when it came to buses. Buses got subsidies but taxis got none. The taxis went to the closest of our communities where there were many disabled people, such as the squatter camps, but the buses did not go to such communities. However, the buses got subsidies. Even for 2010 there would be a thousand buses that would come to South Africa. His question was how many of these buses would be accessible to disabled persons. Mr Moss asked how far OSDP and the Joint Monitoring Committee succeeded in monitoring departments to see that they were telling the truth.
Mr Madella said that there had been a conference on the 19 October 2007 on public transport; its theme was accessible transport for all highlighting the right of disabled people to have access to all forms of public transport. Representatives from the taxi and bus operators as well as from Metrorail were present. Metrorail did indeed have a programme to make certain railway stations accessible. However, as in the case of the taxi recapitalisation, it was not all stations that would be made accessible but only a percentage of them over the next ten years. It was a milestone but it was not enough, because what you were saying to disabled persons was that if they were residing in a particular area, then certainly they would not have access to certain forms of transport whereas the principle should be that all railway stations should be made universally accessible. That was the challenge that was presented. It was the same with taxis. This meant, whether the proportion of accessible taxis was to be one in fifteen or one in twenty, that if you lived in a certain area, a disabled person would not be able to board the first taxi available. He or she would have to wait for a special taxi that was accessible. So the disabled person would have to send his family or companions in a separate taxi whilst he waited for a special taxi to come around. This disadvantage would perpetuate the situation of disabled people's being unable to have access to job and learning opportunities precisely because of this situation.
Mr Madella said that Mr Palime had attended the NCOP programme of taking Parliament to the People. Some of the issues raised there concerned the unsuitability for disabled persons of housing offered by the government. Building regulations stipulated that housing for disabled persons should be more accessible, with wider doorways and bathrooms among other requirements. Mr Madella had met persons with disabilities who were almost reduced to tears by the frustrations they had experienced with their government provided housing, in which they had to get out of their wheelchairs and crawl into their homes or could not make themselves cups of tea because they could not get into their kitchens in their wheelchairs. Those were real challenges on the ground.
Mr Madella said that elsewhere children had to be withdrawn from school because there was no bus that could transport them. There was a clinic that was inaccessible to disabled people. Accessibility of housing for disabled persons was indeed an enormous challenge. A disabled person living in a squatter camp with no roads would almost certainly be a prisoner in a shack, and when the shack burned down, as some shacks had burned down a few days previously in Khayelitsha, where four disabled people burned to death because they were unable to escape from the burning shack. A similar tragedy had happened in an old people's home in KwaZulu-Natal.
Ms Makasi asked that she was new to the Committee and perhaps for that reason did not understand the report very well. It was important to take full note of all the challenges, because if these challenges were not fully noted they could not be addressed. Also she said that Mr Palime's presentation had not addressed fully the subject of OSDP's budget so that the Committee could understand in terms of OSDP's programme what was budgeted for and what was not. It was not clear if OSDP was running at a loss or not. It was important to know the implications of OSDP's lack of a budget for certain programmes.
Mr Palime said that OSDP normally presented its budget during the Presidency budget presentation in June of each year. That was when the OSDP would come to the Committee to present its strategic plan and budget and so forth. But what the Honourable Chairperson would also do was to call OSDP to appear in February or March just after the State of the Nation address to present a strategic plan for the next financial year. Those documents were available in the Office of the secretariat here; also the website of the Presidency would show how much was budgeted for each sector. The issue here was that the externally focussed programmes were not budgeted for in the Presidency such as those programmes that had been highlighted like economic empowerment and so forth. OSDP had always to raise money for those programmes. He was not sure why those programmes were not budgeted – he would have to ask his chief financial officer. The internally focused programmes within government – capacity building, mainstreaming, those were budgeted for in the Presidency. That was the bulk of OSDP's money in terms of expenditure. Mr Palime said that he would consult the Director-General of Transport and work with her towards the end of ensuring accessibility of all modes of public transport to persons with disabilities and he would hope to give a report to the Committee when he next met with the Committee early in 2008. In answer to Mr Moss, he referred to the budget vote of the Minister (in the Presidency). He specifically referred to accessibility in transport. OSDP was encouraging Government to work more closely with the disabled people’s organisations. The dial-a-ride system had been working in Cape Town for quite some time on a stop start basis. For the future, it was planned to involve disabled persons' organisations to participate in providing that service but not to confine their services to their own members alone.
Mr Madella had highlighted the need for inter-departmental synergy. It was unfortunate that departments worked in silos. OSDP had been going to clusters, in particular the social cluster. OSDP would endeavour to resolve the matter through the Inter-departmental Co-ordinating Committee to address the concerns that Mr Madella had raised.
Mr V Gore (ID) noted that at the hearings of the Committee in 2006, it heard that only three court cases had been taken to the Equality Court. There was a dramatic need for persons with disabilities and their families to start enforcing their rights through the Equality Court. The OSDP as well as the Committee should start championing that. The Constitution enshrined various rights, including those to education, to freedom of movement and to freedom of association, but many of those rights had been infringed upon by the lack of implementation of policies. Mr Gore congratulated the Department of Transport for being progressive and making sure that a certain percentage of transport facilities was accessible. However, Mr Gore said that partial accessibility was nonetheless unacceptable. All railway stations, trains, buses and taxis should be accessible irrespective of disability because that was what was enshrined in the Constitution. For example freedom of movement would not be achieved unless all transport facilities were accessible. So he requested Mr Palime to emphasis in OSDP's work the Constitution's viewpoint on rights to give effect to disabled persons rights to equal rights and to stress that in engagement with departments. As a Committee the Committee should stress that heavily as well. The OSDP did not have a large budget or resources to implement its policies. He asked Mr Palime to elaborate on those challenges in terms of budget and resources. Disability was not a vertical structure in government like education or health; it was a cross-cutting thing that cut across all departments. One had to congratulate OSDP on the efforts that it had made to overcome that. However, he asked if OSDP had been completely successful in achieving that goal. He asked if the Department of Defence had implemented disability policies.
Mr Palime reminded the Chairperson's interpreter that he (Mr Palime) was not a Member of Parliament. The matters of housing and transport and access to clinics had been raised at Stellenbosch the previous week. OSDP was working with the Department of Housing on building standards and the National Council for Persons with Disabilities in South Africa. Also OSDP was working with the South African Bureau of Standards. It would also offer the Department of Health the opportunity to look at those standards and use them to build accessible housing. There was a project in Gauteng somewhere in De Vaal area where the Gauteng Department had built many houses and put disabled persons in one huge block. These people had now become a scorn to the society. Somebody had been trying to do it out of the goodness of their heart, but they had done a wrong thing. He wanted Members to visit that area. Mr Gore was right regarding the issue of constitutionality. OSDP was raising that in the clusters and at other levels. There could be improvements through the use of equality courts. There could be improvements through the decided cases. However, the problem remained that departments would not implement these court judgements immediately. They would still have to budget for them, get approval and so forth. OSDP was certainly going to write down all its challenges and send them to the office of the Chairperson. In their next meeting when OSDP would report on its strategic plan. There were four meetings annually of the Inter-Department Co-ordinating Committee but its reports were not released promptly. The Presidency allocated funds for the programmes of gender, disabilities and children. OSDP had to share in these three programmes including the office of the chief director. So it was not just three programmes but the office of the chief director in the Presidency as well. It was not really shared quite equally. However, the chief financial officer in the Presidency examined how much money each programme had even in its donor kitty. It was likely that there would always be more money in the donor kitties that in the internally funded kitty. OSDP had to live with that. However, that money in the donor kitty ran out. So in answer to Mr Gore's question, the challenge of the budget was not one that OSDP would be able to change very quickly.
Ms P Bengu (ANC) asked if OSDP had a report on employment by municipalities of persons with disabilities. The Joint Monitoring Committee had noted on its oversight visit to the Free State that disabled people were living in 'terrible conditions'. Disabled people did not get assistance in that province. The Free State provincial OSDP did not employ persons with disabilities and moreover the office was not sensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities.
The Chairperson said that the staff of the provincial OSDPs had no direct link to the Premier, unlike the Director of the national OSDP who had a direct link to the Minister in the Presidency.
Mr Palime said that Ms Bengu was correct. OSDP worked closely with the Free State OSDP and would certainly try to assist. With regard to the chain of command in the provincial OSDPs, this was very difficult as the heads of provincial OSDPs did not report directly to the Premiers of the provinces. They reported to a deputy-director general who reported to a director-general and so forth.
OSDP was doing much work in local government but did not have statistics yet. However, local government was not yet part of the public service. Limpopo had more disability units than any other province. It was mentioned in the Report that OSDP was working closely with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) to make the municipalities aware of the needs of the disabled and implementation of disability policies. Training was now being started in selected municipalities in the provinces. This was the first phase of the programme.
Mr Madella asked if it would not be more conducive to the employment of disabled people if in the office of each director-general an official could be appointed to see that persons with disabilities were employed in that department. That would open a direct line either to the director-general or to the minister concerned. It would also make human resource managers more mindful of their responsibilities to implement policies. That person could be the link between the deputy-director in Mr Palime's office and a particular department to ensure mainstreaming. Also there had to be a public commitment to the employment of persons with disabilities. Otherwise the challenge would remain.
Mr Palime said that the difficulties with human resource practices in the public service were that human resource managers were not properly trained in issues related to disabilities. Moreover, some of the human resource managers treated disability issues as an add-on to their normal work. Instead, OSDP was encouraging them to view disability issues as part of their work, not as something added on. Also departments typically located disability issues within their employee assistance programmes. This had to be changed. Departments had to be convinced of the need to make provision for persons with disabilities part of their work and service delivery. Even some departments would send an employee assistance programme social worker to Joint Monitoring committee meetings instead of a senior official. It was very hard to get such persons to make commitments because they would have to go away and consult some other directors. Directors-general in the public service how had to be assessed, in their annual performance assessments, on the extent to which they had implemented the 2% target. OSDP had succeeded in that. All directors-general now faced loss of marks in their assessments if they failed to achieve implementation. If they called the OSDP to ask, they would be told that failure to implement was their responsibility and their problem.
The Public Service Commission had made a report was available on the public service commission website and Mr Palime wished to encourage Members to read it, Some departments said that they could not find disabled people as if they did not exist, in spite of the fact that OSDP had developed a data base and a website for them. If they looked for disabled people on the data base they would find them there. Maybe they would say that they did not have computers and internet.
The Chairperson thanked Mr Palime for his presentation and for his responses to Members' questions. There were some documents that the Committee needed, in particular on the definition of disability; she suggested that perhaps the Members look at the website themselves. Secondly The Committee had heard much about the review of the INDF it and would welcome draft copies of the document concerned. The researcher should give the Committee the DG's report that Mr Palime was speaking about and follow that up so that the Committee could obtain that document. The Committee needed a copy of the book, Handbook on Reasonable Accommodation, that Mr Palime had mentioned.
Mr Palime said that it was called Handbook on Reasonable Accommodation. He said that he would make sure that the Committee received a copy.
The Chairperson said that insufficient time remained for further discussion because some of the Members had to leave, but she requested further information on the National Disability Machinery. She apologised that the Joint Monitoring Committee had not been there the previous day. She requested observer status for the Committee rather than membership since the National Disability Machinery would be reporting to the Committee. She would consult with OSDP to obtain clarity. The Committee was looking forward to learning how the Disability Convention would be implemented. The Committee was aware that the OSDP had much work ahead of it. She wished them good luck with their work and efforts to overcome the many challenges that faced them. The Committee was disappointed that its public hearings on transport had not taken place, but had been postponed, because they wanted the ordinary disabled person in the street to be able to come to Parliament and tell the Department what problems they were facing. The Committee wanted people who were affected by lack of access to transport to attend those hearings.
Mr Palime expressed his thanks to the Committee for its support. The Joint Monitoring Committee needed to sit on the co-ordinating committee for the National Disability Machinery. The event mentioned earlier had been postponed to 17 January 2008 in Johannesburg but still included Stevie Wonder and others. OSDP was using it to raise awareness about disability in the country and also to bring famous artists living with disabilities to encourage disabled people in the country. OSDP would send the requested documents to the Committee Clerk.
Committee business
The Chairperson said that the Committee had received an invitation from the Western Cape OSDP to attend an event on 03 December 2007, International Day for Disabled Persons. She suggested that the Committee attend officially as a committee. The event would start with a march from Claremont to Newlands Stadium at which there would be an event. The Committee Clerk would circulate the information about the 3 December 2007 event so that Members could attend as a Committee.
The Committee considered and adopted its programme for the fourth term.
The Committee considered the Minutes of its 24 August, 07 September, 14 September and 21 September 2007 meetings and decided to postpone adoption until grammatical errors and queries concerning the contents had been resolved to the satisfaction of Members.
Ms Chalmers requested that Members receive the minutes one week after each meeting, so they could follow up promptly on any matters arising from that meeting. Issues were liable 'to get lost' if consideration of minutes was delayed for as much as two months. The Committee agreed to this.
The Committee considered the OR Tambo Airport Oversight Report and decided to postpone adoption until all grammatical mistakes had been corrected to the satisfaction of Members.
The meeting was adjourned.