ADDRESS TO THE KWAZULU-NATAL LEGISLATURE BY MEC FOR TRANSPORT,
S'BU NDEBELE, 12 September 2000
 

Mr Speaker
Honourable Members
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

Non-sexism faces the same problem facing non-racism. Those opposed to it argue that it has gone too far when they are in fact afraid of its arrival.

Our South African Constitution guarantees gender equality. Government has accordingly institutionalised mechanisms such as the Commission on Gender Equality to both promote and protect women's rights. Since 1994 legislation such as the Employment Equity Act, the Domestic Violence Act and the Maintenance Act have all contributed to enhance women's rights as guaranteed by our Constitution.

Further, our electoral system coupled with the gender sensitive policies of some - regrettably not all - political parties have ensured a high level of women's representation in our National Assembly, Cabinet and Provincial Governments. Never before in South Africa's history have women been in such a strong position within Government to promote policies and programmes that enhance women's freedoms.

We have made real progress since 1994 in moving towards gender equality in South Africa.

We still have much to do.

In 1995 South Africa, along with 188 other governments, adopted the Beijing Platform for Action to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women throughout the world. The Beijing Platform for Action called upon governments to take action to remove identified barriers to women's social and economic empowerment. Many participating countries at the Beijing conference produced statistical booklets on "women and men" as part of their contribution to enhancing our world knowledge on gender inequalities. Our contribution to Beijing was a narrative report. We were unable then to provide a statistical overview of "women and men" in South Africa. I am therefore pleased to note that this situation has now been corrected and that in 1998 our Central Statistics published "Women and Men in South Africa". It is a sobering read!

KZN DEPT OF TRANSPORT AND GENDER REPRESENTATIVITY

Eighty-five percent of the transport budget goes to road construction, road maintenance, traffic control and traffic policing. The branch of science that dominates Transport is engineering. To appreciate the nature of the problem let me illustrate:

REGISTERED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS

YEAR: 1996

• Indian Males 83
• African Males 130
• Coloured Males 23
• White Males 14679
• Females 159

YEAR: 1998

• Indian Males 145
• African Males 205
• Coloured Males 29
• White Males 14941
• Females 216

In an age that still argues that a prayer said by a woman priest can hardly be expected to reach heaven even though close to 70% of churchgoers are women transforming Transport from a citadel of maledom has been no easy task. While it is natural enough to think of women as educators and health workers, social workers and caterers it bordered on the absurd to envision women as engineers let alone as people to be trusted with government contracts to construct roads and bridges as well as maintenance. This is the mindset that we had to confront in 1994.

Similarly conventional wisdom had it that traffic policing was a man's world. Accordingly no woman could be trained or employed as a traffic officer in the province. It followed also that the management core of the Department would unashamedly be a white male.

The creation of a non-racial, non-sexist and representative department was grudgingly accepted but was seen as something that could not happen overnight. That was fair enough. Except that they were looking at a night that was longer than a decade. It was clear that this non-racial, non-sexist child was not going to have a natural birth. We were dealing with prejudice that had acquired the force of habit. But if a non-sexist department was not going to have a natural birth we had to resort to a caesarean section. A non-sexist department had to be.

In 1996 I ordered the removal of barriers to the admission of women as traffic officers. It came to pass that the first women trainees entered the Traffic College for the first time since the establishment of RTI in 1938.

But for thoroughgoing transformation the first task was to get a head of department in tune with the non-negotiable objective of non-racialism and non-sexism. Jenny Gray, an engineer, bus driver and an MBA was appointed. Since 1910 there had never been a woman head of department in what is now known as KwaZulu Natal. I am not aware of any now.

In 1997 only four women were employed in the DOT at salary level 8 (Senior Administrative Officer) or higher. Today we have 49 women employed at salary level 8 and higher.

Despite the fact that there is a general shortage of women engineers and technicians in South Africa we none the less have:

• 2 women Deputy Chief Engineers,
• 1 woman Engineer,
• 2 women Assistant Engineers; and
• 2 women Chief Industrial Technicians.

This of course is not enough.

But it is a South African "gender in engineering" issue and not one arising from a KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport bias.

Similarly the Road Traffic Inspectorate, which is 61 years of age, has historically been a male dominated profession. There are now 44 female Provincial Inspectors and I am happy to report that each years new intake shows an increasing ratio of women officers.

Ms Jenny Gray was recruited by Air Link and had to leave at the end of 1999. Mr Kwazi Mbanjwa was appointed as the first African head of the Department of Transport. Since then he has embarked on an ambitious and revolutionary restructuring process of senior management and women now occupy 3 of the most senior position in the Department of Transport. I am certain that when we implement our One-Stop-Shops there will be a conscious attempt to recruit women into middle management positions.

Gender equality like racial equality requires a strategic and systematic approach. If you want an affirmative department then you must be prepared to invest in the skilling of staff and you must be prepared to provide people who show potential with the necessary bursaries to study and realise their potential. In 1998/1999 we gave 2 bursaries to women staff to study a Management Development Diploma at the University of Durban-Westville, in 1999/2000, five women joined this course. Of the six women who have passed the course thus far, one is a Chief Director, one is a Director, two are Deputy Directors and one is an Assistant Director. There are currently seven women from the Department going through the Management Development Diploma.

Indeed I have instructed my newly appointed Chief Director of Corporate Services, Ms Vicky Cunliffe, that she must ensure a gender and race balance in all bursary allocations and in all staff development programmes. I should also report to you that Ms Cunliffe is chairperson of the Department Tender Award Committee.

I can assure you that she is on top of current procurement policies, which have a point's preference for companies whose ownership, and management are gender affirmative. This, of course, is part and parcel of all government procurement programmes, which are designed to level the playing fields and to build social and economic justice in our society.

In the Department of Transport we build and maintain roads both by hand labour and by machine. This creates a wide spectrum of opportunities from the least technically skilled to the most highly professional.

In our emerging contractor program we are acutely mindful of the fact that the administrative requirements in labour intensive programmes can open up opportunities for women who have administrative or management skills. Thus far this financial year we have let more than R14, 5 million stage 1 contracts, and women owners have been awarded almost 40% of all level 1 contract values, approximately R6 million. We have also let more than R8, 5 million stage 2 contracts with women owners being awarded 18,5% or more than R1, 6 million worth of work. We intend making a much higher investment in labour intensive road construction programmes and this will undoubtedly create new management opportunities for women in the road construction industry.

Although the issue of race and economic empowerment has been our prevailing concern in establishing the Emerging Contractor Programme, we are now well placed to introduce a points preference system for gender and disability. Women are increasingly becoming involved in the road construction industry and we anticipate that a point's preference for gender will increase their involvement and result in more and more women headed construction companies joining Emerging Contractor associations.

Mr Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The statistics compiled by Central Statistics Services and published as "Women and Men in South Africa" makes very disturbing reading particularly for political leaders in those provinces that host large numbers of South Africa's poor and especially rural poor. There is no need for me to remind this House that KwaZulu-Natal hosts 21% of South Africa's poor and that 75% of our poor live in rural areas.

The majority gender in KwaZulu-Natal is women. Women make up 53% of our total population. What is very clear from the "Women and Men in South Africa" report is the extent to which the Black African mother and particularly the rural Black African mother has become marginalised in South African society.

I have always appreciated that women headed households are a growing characteristic of South African society and that they can be counted among the poorest of the poor. Until I read "Women and Men in South Africa" I had not realised how prevalent and desperate this social condition is. I had not realised that 46% of all Black African children in South Africa live only with their mothers.

Their mothers are often ill equipped to meet the challenges of an industrial economy and globalisation, both of which open up opportunities predominantly for the already skilled and wealthy.

Unequal access to education during the apartheid years disadvantaged some sectors of our society who grew up during this period. No sector in South African society has been more disadvantaged; more marginalised than rural Black African women and, of course, their children. So much so that in many of our deep rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal less than 40% of the population are functionally literate. Even today a third of all children in South Africa between the ages of 6 and 14, who currently do not attend school, live in KwaZulu-Natal.

There is, of course, a direct correlation between education, the ability to find employment and the salary and individual is able to earn.

It is shocking to note that while only 1% of White households are found in the bottom income quintile, 37% of Black African women headed rural households are found in this category. Significantly a further 28% of Black African women headed rural households are found in the second lowest quintile. In other words, when we talk about deep poverty in South Africa we must appreciate that rural women head 65% of the poorest of the poor households. We must also realise that these percentages, shocking as they are, would sharpen considerably if per capita income rather household income were used to measure poverty. This is because the households headed by rural Black African women tend to be large, often embracing several generations all living in one hut.

There can be no doubt then that the rural Black African mother has become marginalised in South African society. Centuries of underdevelopment, first through colonial rule and then through apartheid, resulted in a massive drain of skilled people from rural areas to industrial urban areas. For the most part the industrial labour market in South Africa favoured the employment of males and this resulted in a situation where women far outnumbered men in rural areas. A growing dependence on women headed households created a social and economic crisis within rural communities, particularly since land was held and distributed by men. In KwaZulu-Natal this crises was dramatically deepened through decades of civil and political violence that saw thousands upon thousands of women widowed and children orphaned. We can safely conclude therefore that the social and economic plight of our rural KwaZulu-Natal mothers is worse than the national condition.

Little wonder then that in our rich and bountiful province of KwaZulu-Natal, living with hunger has become a way of life for more than 21/2 million people, so much so that, nutritional inadequacies result in the stunting of 40,6% of Black African children in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Stunting retards their physical and mental growth and, given the massive surplus supply of labour over demand, disadvantages them and their children for life. Currently 46% of the economically active rural population is unemployed. The vast majority of unemployed are young adults with young families who now depend on someone else to finance their every need.

Women headed households, the majority of which are destitute, are an increasing social condition in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

I am referring to destitute families without income, without men, without husbands, with children from multiple fathers often living with daughters who too have children from multiple fathers, none of whom acknowledge any maintenance responsibilities.

For these women and their dependants their Constitutional rights seem very far away.

We in Government have the responsibility to ensure that our Constitution becomes a living reality for all South Africans.

We must therefore ask ourselves how we as Government are impacting on the economic and social crises that confront women in rural society.

In the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport we have responded to the needs of the ultra poor, but particularly women headed households, by introducing our programme known as "Zibambele".

Zibambele, which means "doing it for ourselves", is a form of routine road maintenance using labour intensive methods in which a family or a household is contracted by the Department of Transport to maintain a specific length of road.

The length of road allocated to a family depends on the difficulty of the terrain but should take a maximum of 60 hours of labour input a month.

Some 98% of Zibambele contracts thus far awarded by the Department of Transport have gone to women headed households.

To date some 4 000 Zibambele contracts have been awarded.

The Zibambele programme is very much a community owned initiative in that it is the community and not the Department of Transport that identifies and selects those households that are most destitute for contracts.

The selection process is a traumatic one because it brings the ultra poor out into the open to discuss their plight and to be evaluated by their neighbours as the poorest of the poor. This has unearthed levels of grinding poverty that truly shock. Just who the poorest of the poor are is best answered by describing the social condition of those who are undoubtedly ultra poor but still do not qualify as the poorest of the poor. Thus, for example, in one instance five people were nominated but only three could be selected as contractors. One of the women not selected, on the basis that she was slightly better off than the successful candidates, publicly bemoaned the fact that her son had recently hanged himself because he couldn't live with hunger any longer. This, regrettably, is not an isolated case.

The persuasiveness of rural poverty and the almost total lack of job opportunities are overwhelming. Hundreds of people, desperate for work apply to become Zibambele contractors at any one-selection meeting at which only a few contracts can be awarded.

Many households have no identity documents of any nature and respond that they are too impoverished to afford them. They therefore have no access to any support programmes that are dependent on registration through proof of identity. They could not even vote in our democratic elections because they had no identity documents. The poorest of the poor have no public voice.

Zibambele then is a social development programme through which our rural road network is maintained. It is an emancipation programme because women who share in the maintenance of a road are assisted to organise collectively around their poverty and solutions to their poverty.

Routine road maintenance provides ongoing work opportunities that are sustainable. The fact that the work is ongoing provides a fertile environment in which to introduce training programmes that are designed to assist poor people in acquiring the life skills and organisational capacity that are essential if their children are to have a better future. The Department of Transport will provide a packaged service to Zibambele households not only on labour intensive methods in road maintenance but also life skills training on how to organise collectively through credit unions and to assist them to invest savings in other productive activities.

The Department of Transport has targeted 40 000 Zibambele contracts to stabilise the poverty of more than 500 000 family members with a view to assisting them to break their poverty cycles in the medium to long term. By going to scale the Zibambele Contract system could fill a gap in South Africa's social security net by creating meaningful and sustainable job opportunities for the long-term unemployed and indeed for those who increasingly are seen as unemployable.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport is mindful of its constitutional responsibilities to women and has actively challenged concepts of male dominance both within its department bureaucracy and in society. We have ensured that women have a de facto constitutional presence in all committees, entrepreneurial and training programmes sponsored by the Department. Indeed, seats are reserved for women on both our Rural Road Transport Forums and our Community Road Safety Councils. These committees are the backbone of our consultation process with rural communities on all matters pertaining to road construction and maintenance as well as road safety programmes. Women and their organisations therefore contribute on an ongoing basis to our policies and programmes in the Department of Transport.

In the Taxi industry one of the most callous and violent practice has been the denial of ranking facilities for widows who inherit the estates of their deceased husbands. Appeals to ubuntu of taxi operators consistently fell on deaf ears. A well to do family would thus be reduced to penury overnight. To address this inhuman practice and as part of the formalisation of the taxi industry we passed the KwaZulu Natal Interim Taxi Act that made the conversion of the taxi permit to the surviving spouse automatic.

In conclusion the creation of opportunities for women has made for a more humane department conventionally men are taught to apologise for their weaknesses while women are taught to apologise for their strengths. This is not applicable in the Department. We agree with Eleanore Roseveldt that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

Thank you.

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