May 2011

Thohoyandou - Primary school children living in Hathukutha village near Thohoyandou no longer need to travel to a neighbouring village to attend school.

Limpopo Education MEC Dickson Masemola officially opened the R15 million Muratho Primary School this week as part of a conscious effort by government to improve the quality of primary school education.

"We have a mandate as a department to prepare young minds for the future," he said.

He said the standard of education at primary school was a source of concern and, in the long run, had a negative effect on Grade 12 results.

Pretoria - A media report alleging that government has sent back a National Treasury report on municipalities for "repackaging" is untrue, says Cabinet spokesperson Jimmy Manyi.

In a statement on Wednesday, Manyi said that an article in the Afrikaans Daily Beeld on Wednesday claiming that Cabinet has sent back the report supposedly to Treasury for repackaging was inaccurate.

Cabinet as part of its routine business of performance monitoring and evaluation from time to time receives reports on the performance of government across all three spheres namely national, provincial and local.

Some of the reports are compiled by government departments and entities.
"Other reports, like the one referred to in the article, are compiled by Chapter 9 institutions such as the Office of the Auditor-General. These reports are meant to give Cabinet updates on the state of service delivery and introduce necessary interventions where required."

Manyi said the purported report referred to in the article was presented to Cabinet in mid-March in 2011 by the Auditor -General and not Treasury as claimed in the newspaper report.

Pretoria - Government is still on track to meeting the target of installing electricity to all households by 2014, says President Jacob Zuma.

President Zuma and Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters officially launched a multimillion electricity project in the rural area of Engcobo in the Eastern Cape on Saturday. Addressing about 10 000 people from surrounding areas in Engcobo, President Zuma reiterated government's commitment to ensure that all communities, including households, clinics and schools have electricity by the year 2014.

"One of the challenges in electrification projects over the last few years was that, only municipalities which were licensed to distribute electricity were allocated electrification funding.

"However, in order to increase the roll-out process, the Department of Energy initiated the "Turnkey" projects with the municipalities that are not licensed," Zuma said.

The "Turnkey" approach is a recommended alternative to in-house electrification done by the Municipalities or Eskom in the light of the pressures and limitations that these entities have.

Pretoria- A two day land restitution consultative conference began on Sunday to evaluate the impact of the Land Restitution Programme.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti acknowledged that government has not moved fast enough in addressing challenges facing the programme, but has assured claimants that government's shortcomings would be addressed swiftly.

"I acknowledge that we have not done well in managing the restitution programme, as government, causing strain, pain and frustration.

"Some of the people who were expected to have benefited from the restitution programme have even passed on. On behalf of government, I apologise," he said.

The objective of the consultative conference, according to the minister was to evaluate the impact of the Land Restitution Programme in terms of its intended objective and the restitution of land rights on people who lodged claims.

"The key word is equitable redress. We must therefore look at what have been our successes, our shortcomings as well as what is to be done. We must stay focused on this task throughout these two days," he said.