Deputy Minister Prince Zolile Burns-Ncamashe: COGTA Dept Budget Vote 2025/26 NCOP

Honourable Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces
Honorable Members of the NCOP
Honorable Minister Hlabisa and Deputy Minister Masemola
Official from the COGTA Portfolio
Fellow South Africans
Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you Honorable Chairperson for granting us the opportunity to address this august House on this occasion of the 2025/26 Budget Vote debate of the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

It is indeed my humble privilege to contribute to the tabling of Budget Votes 3 and 15 on Cooperative and Traditional Affairs in the NCoP.

The devastation of the disaster in Eastern Cape and other provinces

I would like to start by echoing the words of the Honorable Minister and convey my condolences to the people of the Eastern Cape who were befallen by disastrous floods that caused deaths of young children and old people and also left a trail of massive damage to infrastructure. As a Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, we continue to hold hands with the provincial government of the Eastern Cape and other role players in addressing the aftermath of this disaster and in assisting the people of Eastern Cape to be back on their feet.

Interventions to address Customary Initiation Challenges

The Eastern Cape has been a hotspot province in terms of customary initiation deaths in the past years. From December 2024 to February 2025, together with the Eastern Cape MEC for COGTA and the Eastern Cape PICC, the COGTA Ministry held engagements with all levels of traditional leaders in the Province to mobilise traditional leadership to play an active role in customary initiation and to perform their statutory functions conferred to them by the Customary Initiation Act in their areas of jurisdiction to realise zero customary initiation casualties. 

These engagements included meetings with the Eastern Cape Kings, Senior Traditional Leaders, Headmen/Headwomen, CONTRALESA and ROLESA. The outcome of these engagements was the Eastern Cape PICC Customary Initiation Intervention Plan adopted by the Eastern Cape traditional leadership for implementation from the 2025 winter initiation season and beyond to achieve zero initiation casualties. Over the last few weeks I have been on the ground in the Eastern Cape as part of our ongoing monitoring of initiation plans and practices.. This builds on the work we have been doing during the previous financial year.

For instance, during the 2024/25 financial year, in addition to the Eastern Cape OR Tambo District, the Department identified other hotspot districts for customary initiation deaths, amputations and illegal schools which also required awareness campaigns,

Therefore, during the 2024/25 financial year, we conducted initiation awareness campaigns on the provisions of the Customary Initiation Act in the OR Tambo District of the Eastern Cape, Bojanala District in the Northwest Province and Sekhukhune District (Limpopo) focusing on clamping down on illegal initiation schools. The Department will in this financial year, working with all initiation role players, conduct further awareness campaigns in specific hotspot districts of the Free State and the Eastern Cape. Provincial Governments have been requested to adequately resource the PICCs to be able to conduct inspections and monitoring of initiation schools in the hotspot areas, and to support Traditional Leaders to take ownership of the practice and join hands with the PICCs to address initiation related challenges within their areas of jurisdiction.

There were also calls to the COGTA Ministry for the amendment of the Customary Initiation Act to strengthen the powers of NIOC, PICCs and roles of traditional leaders in dealing with the challenges of customary initiation schools, illegal schools and other anomalies within the customary initiation sector and to close the gaps identified in the Act in the past four years of implementation. From the 2025/2026 fiscal year, we will be consulting with the stakeholders for submission of their proposed amendments to the Act and we will use the proposed amendments to start reviewing the Act in the 2026/2027 fiscal year.

In the current administration, the COGTA Ministry will strengthen our cooperative governance mechanisms to fight this challenge by engaging the relevant National Ministries (Ministries of Health, Police, Justice and Constitutional Development, Basic Education, Social Development, Women, Youth and People with Disabilities and Sports, Arts and Culture) National Prosecuting Authority, SALGA as well as our provincial counterparts.

The Department will continue to collaborate with the South African Police Services and National Prosecuting Authority to support the National Initiation Oversight Committee and the Provincial Initiation Coordinating Committees to strengthen law enforcement and ensure that those contravening the law within the customary initiation sector are arrested and successfully prosecuted.

Addressing Disputes in traditional leadership

Honorable, we continue to be worried by the rising trend of traditional leadership disputes in our communities. Not only does this destabilise the institution and its functioning, but it also brings it into disrepute. We have previously conveyed our commitment to encouraging and facilitating the development of genealogies and customary laws of succession. We believe that these laws will introduce a much needed element of certainty and predictability in leadership succession and thus minimize leadership disputes. We have therefore developed guidelines to assist royal families with the documentation of customary laws of succession and genealogies. In addition, the Department has a project to facilitate and support royal families for kingships/queenships to document and signing off the customary laws of succession and genealogies.

In the 2024/2025 Financial Year, the Department supported the two Principal Traditional Leaderships in the Free State as well as the AmaRharhabe and the AmaMpondomise Kingships in the Eastern Cape to document their customary laws of succession and genealogies. The Department further held capacity building workshop for members of the two Provincial Houses of Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership (Limpopo and Northwest Provincial Houses) on the documentation of customary laws of succession and genealogies.

In the current fiscal year 2025-2026, the Department will continue with the Project to extend it to other Kingships. Working with the Provinces, the project will be extended to senior traditional leadership royal families in the Free State and Limpopo in the current fiscal year and will also include local houses.. Our target for the 2024-2029 Medium Term Development Plan period is to support all the remaining kingships/queenship and principal traditional leadership willing to participate in the project to finalise and sign-off their documentation of customary laws of succession.

The challenge is that some royal families are hesitant to sign-off on the documented customary laws of succession because they are not legally binding and mandatory to be submitted to the President or Premiers for the recognition of an identified successor. The Ministry will explore the possibility of introducing enabling legislative provisions to make these mandatory and legally binding to each royal family through the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill process.

Training and capacity building

Honourable Chairperson and members, capacity building of traditional leaders continues to be a key project for the department. This is one of the projects that equips them with knowledge and skills to perform their duties as outlined in the legislation. In the previous financial year, traditional leaders were capacitated in the following: disaster management, Gender Based-Violence and Femicide, and the Customary Initiation Act (CIA).

The aim and objective of this training was to workshop traditional leaders in eight (8) houses of Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership to contribute to disaster prevention and relief in line with the Disaster Management Act, Act 53 of 2005. In addition, to ensure that traditional leaders participate in the disaster management inter-governmental structures and advisory forums at national, provincial and district levels. In this current year 2025-26, ten (10) Houses of Traditional and Khoi-San leadership will be capacitated on their roles in disaster management.

Gender Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) is the second pandemic in our country. The department will continue with its anti- GBVF training project to ensure that Traditional leaders promote awareness in their communities and assist in nation-building and social cohesion in the country. In this financial year, we are targeting to conduct GBVF awareness campaigns in North-West and Eastern Cape or Free State..

Honorable Members and Delegates, we are also targeting to workshop 15 Local Houses of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders on their participation in IDP and DDM. The provinces targeted for this training and workshop are KwaZulu Natal, Free State and Northern Cape. The training and workshop entails capacitating the Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders in being able to engage in IDP and DDM processes and in other government development programmes, thereby enhancing meaningful and active participation of the institution of traditional leadership in the IDP processes and DDM.

The other training project for this year is the development of a training manual on Traditional Courts Act 9 of 2022. The training manual will be used to capacitate traditional leaders or any other person delegated by a traditional leader to preside over a traditional court. In addition, it will serve as a source document in guiding traditional leaders to perform their duties in an effective and efficient manner.

Social Labour Plans’ (SLP’s) Socio-Economic Development

As part of our commitment to ensuring that development reaches our communities in meaningful ways, the Department has continued to play a critical role in monitoring the implementation of Social and Labour Plan (SLP) projects, in collaboration with the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources. These plans, developed by mining companies as part of their licensing conditions, are intended to contribute to the socioeconomic upliftment of mine-hosting communities.

Through site visits, stakeholder engagements, and support, we have worked to enhance accountability, improve alignment with community priorities, and fast-track delivery of SLP commitments. Importantly, we have also advocated for greater involvement of Traditional Councils in the planning and implementation phases of SLPs, ensuring that local voices shape the development agenda. We believe that this collaborative approach will yield positive results for our communities through improved access to infrastructure, skills development, and enterprise opportunities.

Since this was a pilot project, working with the Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources; the focus was on KwaZulu Natal Northern Cape; North-west and Limpopo.

Honourable Chairperson, I hereby join the Minister to table the budget vote of the Department of Traditional Affairs, under Vote 15 and call upon this House to support it.

I thank you

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