IN QUOTES | From health care to land reform: 5 important responses from David Mabuza's Q&A

Deputy President David Mabuza says the government will improve its service delivery across public institutions from law enforcement to the health-care system.

Clinics and hospitals will be improved to prepare the health-care system for the National Health Insurance (NHI), while law enforcement will also be “revitalised” to ensure that victims of crime and gender-based violence do not fall victim to an ineffective system, said Mabuza.

The deputy president, responding to questions from MPs on Thursday, addressed a number of issues including corruption, Eskom and land reform.

Here are five responses from Mabuza:

Corruption

“We are going to support law enforcement agencies so that we deal with corruption. We cannot allow corruption to reign supreme, otherwise it is going to destroy our young democracy. Corruption cannot just be in the public sector, it is there in our society. So we must stand up and uproot corruption in our society. It is the responsibility of all leaders elected in this parliament.”

No political meddling in SOEs

“We want to establish a new way of working that will allow these public entities to function because we have appointed the board, we have the CEO and want to avoid political meddling with the day-to-day running of those utilities ... so that we move away from the past where politicians were fingered to be interfering in the running of these SOEs.”

Land reform 

“The ball is in our court as parliament. There are those who are saying expropriation of land without compensation is not necessary. There are those who are saying it is necessary. We will debate it as parliament and find a solution, finally. But we are also amending the bill which seeks to clarify the spirit of the constitution, to say when is expropriation without compensation going to happen and under what circumstances.”

Health-care system

“We will get our health system ready for NHI. We need to ensure that our clinics and hospitals meet the required standard of service, especially when it comes to cleanliness and servicing of people. People must not wait for hours to be attended to. We are looking at that as the department of monitoring and evaluation. We are going to respond to all these weaknesses, not only in the department of health.”

Law enforcement and GBV

“Our criminal justice system must improve to ensure that the victims of gender-based violence (GBV) are speedily assisted and saved from the trauma of not seeing justice served against their perpetrators.”

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