Susan Shabangu must answer for the mess at the Ministry of Women

05 November 2014

The Ministry of Women is not able to perform and meet its obligations. Yesterday, Minister Shabangu skipped the Portfolio Committee meeting and failed to report her department's second quarter report on time. Only 18 out of 30 targets were achieved in the first quarter of 2014/15 and there are still outstanding targets from the previous year.

I will submit a series of Parliamentary questions to get to the bottom of what is going on at the department. 

At the beginning of her leadership, Minister Shabungu made bold statements that we would see action in the Ministry and that the time for words was over. 

However, we have not seen any progress, nor plans. This ultimately means that the plight of women, the most affected by poverty, gender discrimination, abuse and violence, has shown little improvement.

The 16 days of activism against abuse of women is fast approaching at the end of November, yet the Ministry meant to improve the conditions of women, is in an abysmal state. One has to question whether government is serious about the plight of women. 

In the 2013/14 year there were 171 sexual offences committed every day and because of the lack of commitment shown by the Minister, it does not seem likely that this will change.

We condemn the lack of performance in the strongest terms and insist that the Minister answers for her lack of commitment.

Statement issued by Denise Robinson, DA Shadow Minister of Women in the Presidency, November 5 2014

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