Cape Town - The rights of South Africans must come first when debating whether to limit the sale and advertising of alcohol, the Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini said on Monday.
Providing feedback on progress made in the government's social protection cluster, including new legislation on the cards, Dlamini said the draft Bill on restricting alcohol advertising and marketing would be submitted to Cabinet before the end of this year.
There has been concern that the introduction of the Bill into law will result in job losses.
Dlamini said government had been in talks with various players in the liquor industries, but pointed out that government could not sacrifice the rights of South Africans.
"One question which has been coming up is 'do we want to sacrifice our people to jobs, do we want to destroy other people, while we are having our jobs' - which is better between the two?
"You have to think about those things and do what is best for South Africa," she said.
Dlamini said related to the alcohol advertising Bill, other draft bills would also come before the Cabinet this year. These propose to raise the purchasing age of alcohol from 18 to 21 years, provide for zero tolerance to drunk driving and manage the geographic spread and licensing of shebeens.
The Deputy Minister Maria Ntuli said the Departments of Trade and Industry and Basic Education were also involved in the drafting of the Bill.
Another Bill before Parliament is the Road Accident Fund (Transitional Provisions) Bill.
Dlamini said the Bill seeks to provide for transitional measures in respect of certain categories of third parties whose claims were limited to R25 000 under the Road Accident Fund Act before 1 August 2008.
She said should the Bill be promulgated, a victim who wishes to be subject to the current Act, after this date will be entitled to all the benefits of the new Act.
"These benefits include entitlement to claim up to R25 000 in general damages, even if they are not seriously injured. This is in addition to claims for medical expenses, loss of income and support and, if the claimant is seriously injured, general damages."
She said the Bill would make it clear that a victim obtaining the benefits of the new Act cannot claim double compensation from the fund when it came to car accidents.
A Bill is also being considered to get those in the public sector to purchase a certain percentage of their food from small holder farmers.
Dlamini said between January and March this year the Food Banks programme, which is part of the government's Zero Hunger Campaign, distributed about 3.8 million meals to 320 000 people a month.
The meals were distributed to beneficiaries through a network of 1 600 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations.
The government has also assisted 4 776 households to set up food gardens to produce their own food.
The SA Social Security Agency (Saasa) this month began the roll out of its new biometric card for social grant beneficiaries.
The card, as well as the new registration process, will help to cut fraud and corruption, which the Director General of Social Development Vusi Madonsela said is estimated at about R2 billion.
Madonsela said the new Saasa system would help the department to put an end to those foreigners who had been entering the country to claim South African social grant payments.
He said since the beginning of this month, Saasa had stopped 111 people who had been entering the country and then leaving again, from obtaining grants.
Turning to social benefits, Dlamini said since February a further 22 834 children up to the age of five, have been given access to early childhood development programmes.
This brings the number of 870 834 children now have access these programmes - 412 of which now comply with norms and standards with a further 407 partial care facilities.
In creating more jobs, Dlamini said 164 662 work opportunities were created in the last financial year in the social sector under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) - exceeding the target by over 32 000 work opportunities.
She said government was on the way to meeting its target of creating 750 000 work opportunities between 2009 and 2014 through the social sector plan of the EPWP.
Government has already created 500 000 such work opportunities - ahead of its cumulative target for the 2011/12 year of 450 000 work opportunities.
Dlamini said government was on track to delivering more housing and water connections.
Between January and March, over 21 000 rural households were given access to running water and 2 235 water tanks distributed during this period.
An average of 89% of rural households now have access to drinking water - up from 85% in December last year, according to a report by Department of Water Affairs.
However, Dlamini said government still faced challenges of poor quality of water and a lack of water sources in some municipalities.
She said the Department of Water Affairs had identified those municipal areas where the management and quality of water could impact on the health of communities.
Turning to housing, Dlamini said government had delivered just under a third of the 400 000 upgraded informal settlements sites it plans to deliver by 2014, having rolled out 114 000 serviced sites in the last financial year under the Informal Settlements Upgrading Programme.
In all, 19 of the targeted 45 prioritised towns and cities had set up programmes to upgrade informal settlements.
Added to this, government had delivered 22 000 rental units (or 28% of its 2014 target) under its social housing programme.
Dlamini said a total number of 115 177 housing loans were issued during the last two financial years through the National Housing Finance Corporation, Nurcha and Rural Housing Loan Fund.
