Hansard: Debate on President's State Of The Nation Address
House: National Assembly
Date of Meeting: 13 Feb 2012
Summary
No summary available.
Minutes
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 3
START OF DAY
TUESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2012
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
_________________________________
The House met at 14:00.
The Speaker took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.
The SPEAKER
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 3
START OF DAY
NEW MEMBERS
(Announcement)
The Speaker announced that the vacancies which occurred in the National Assembly owing to the passing away of Mr L J Tolo, Ms M N Magazi and Ms N M Matladi had been filled by the nominations of Mr B M Bhanga with effect from 1 December 2011, Ms C Pilane-Majake with effect from 18 January 2012 and Mr I S Mfundisi with effect from 25 January 2012 respectively. The Speaker said that the House would, in due course, consider a condolence motion in respect of the late Ms Matladi, but that in the meantime he would like to convey the House's condolences.
The Speaker further announced that the vacancies which occurred owing to the resignations of Mr P J C Pretorius, Mr A M Figlan and Mr M J Ellis had been filled by the nominations of Mr S Esau, Mr E H Eloff and Mr M R Sayedali Shah respectively with effect from 1 February 2012.
The vacancy which occurred owing to the resignation of Mr D K Mataboge had been filled by the nomination of Mr J K Moepeng with effect from 6 February 2012.
The members had made and subscribed the oath or solemn affirmation in the Speaker's office.
DEBATE ON STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS: The CHIEF WHIP OF MAJORITY PARTY /// JN /// tfm
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Takes: 3A & B
The SPEAKer
DEBATE ON PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS
The SPEAKER: Hon members, I have received a copy of the President's address delivered at the Joint Sitting on 9 February 2012. The speech has been printed in the Minutes of the Joint Sitting. I now wish to invite the hon Chief Whip of the Majority Party. [Applause.]
The CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Hon Speaker, honourable President, hon Deputy President, and distinguished members of this House, I have chosen to speak on celebrating 100 years of selfless struggle and intensifying the fight against the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment.
Honourable President, we wish to commend you for yet another inspiring and visionary state of the nation address. Your speech, which was followed by millions of our people across the country, was characterised by clarity and conviction, and indeed gave South Africans a reason to believe, to hope, to be optimistic that a better life for all is possible. It raised confidence in the future of this country and gave an encouraging picture of a government that is sensitive and alive to the urgent needs of the people. It demonstrated a nation at work, holding hands to eradicate unemployment, inequality and poverty. Thank you, honourable President, for giving this nation a reason to believe that indeed a better future is possible, that a better South Africa is here. Your speech was indeed a fitting tribute to the 100 years of the glorious liberation struggle, which South Africans, united in their diversity, are celebrating this year. It made the transition from 100 years into another century palpable.
Honourable President, on Saturday South Africa and the world recalled and celebrated the release of our icon, Nelson Mandela, from prison, marking the beginning of a negotiated settlement that produced our constitutional democracy. We congratulate your government and the Reserve Bank on the honour bestowed upon the father of the nation, Nelson Mandela, on Saturday by using his face on all bank notes. [Applause.] As Parliament, we shall celebrate his release and that of other political prisoners, together with Media Monitoring Africa and other stakeholders when we celebrate our Constitution and declare 20 February to 25 February "Constitution Week". The release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners makes February a South African history month worthy of annual celebration. This will assist our youth and children not to forget where they come from and the sacrifices which were made to give us the freedom we enjoy today. We want to use this opportunity to once again assure the father of the nation that, in the ANC, our constitutional democracy continues to be in good hands.
The ANC is the author and guardian of this Constitution. We shall continue to safeguard the fundamental freedoms of all South Africans, both black and white. Constitutions the world over are dynamic and subject to review. It is in recognition of this fact that this Parliament established the Constitutional Review Committee. This does not derogate from the commitment of Parliament and the executive to uphold and enforce the Constitution. The ANC fully supports the foundation that Madiba laid for nation-building and social cohesion.
At the 10th anniversary of the Sowetan's nation-building initiative, Madiba awakened us to the challenges ahead in definite and emphatic terms, and I quote:
Our nation-building efforts must undo the effects of three centuries and more of colonialism and racism. Many years will be needed to achieve the equitable redistribution of wealth to which we aspire. But having made a good start, the challenge now is to increase the pace of delivery to further better the lives of the people. We can face that challenge with confidence ... [derived] from the fact that by joining hands, South Africans have overcome problems others thought would forever haunt us. As we destroyed apartheid, so too can we defeat poverty and discrimination if we are united. Our confidence derives from the fact that South Africa is a country rich not only in natural resources but, above all, in its people.
Since your inauguration in May 2009, honourable President, you have always had a clear vision and mission, informed by the wisdom of the founders of our democracy. Your 2012 state of the nation address provides the road map for the country and a comprehensive plan to address the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. This is the product of a disciplined mind, consistent work and adherence to revolutionary values and principles.
Regarding progress made, this journey began in 2009 when the ANC decided to focus on five priorities. These are education, health, rural development and agrarian reform, taking forward the fight against crime, and creating decent work. Although the ANC did well on these priorities, it remained concerned with poverty and unemployment; hence it declared 2011 a year of job creation through meaningful economic transformation and inclusive growth. Your administration introduced a New Growth Path that guided its work in achieving these goals. Working within the premise that the creation of decent jobs is at the centre of your economic policies, you directed government departments, including the provincial and local government spheres, to align their programmes with the job creation imperative. You also embraced research findings, in terms of which jobs could be created in six priority areas, including infrastructure development, agriculture, mining and beneficiation manufacturing, the green economy, and tourism.
From the outset, you recognised that colonial oppression and apartheid degraded and dehumanised black people in general and Africans in particular. Thus, in June 2009, you told this House that the recovery of the humanity of all people had been a guiding tenet of the ANC for the many decades of its existence. You went on to say:
It will be a central feature of our shared efforts over the term of this government, because we know that working together, we can do more to build a great South Africa. Decent work and a steadily improving quality of life are essential for the recovery of the humanity of all our people. So too is empowerment through access to quality education and skills development. Safe water, affordable energy, decent shelter, and cohesive, secure and vibrant communities are similarly all important for the recovery of this humanity ... Central to this recovery of our humanity is also the need for access to economic opportunities and to earn a living.
Your linkage of the recovery of the humanity of all people and the five priorities of government demonstrated that your administration is rooted in the revolutionary morality of the founders of our movement.
The 2009 decision to establish the National Planning Commission revealed a desire for a holistic approach to the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. The release of the National Development Plan coincides with and reinforces the National Infrastructure Development Plan, which is a road map for the country and the plans outlined in the state of the nation address. This provides further evidence of your vision and resolve to make this country work.
The ANC agrees with the President that despite progress made, the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment persists.
With regard to the roots of the triple challenge, the seeds of this triple challenge can be traced back to the forcible dispossession of land and its natural resources by colonialism and the introduction of racially discriminatory laws in both state and church institutions after the establishment of the racist, white supremacist Union of South Africa in 1910. The ANC was established by intellectuals, and traditional and religious leaders on 8 January 1912 to respond to this colonial onslaught against African people.
The dispossession of African people of their land was consolidated by the 1913 Land Act, which allocated 87% of the land to the white minority. The confinement of African people to native reserves under this law, the adulteration of the institution of traditional leadership and of Christianity, followed by the creation of Bantustans during the 1970s, entrenched the inequalities, poverty and structural unemployment that the ANC inherited in 1994.
Soon after your inauguration in 2009, Mr President, your government made the correct determination in that the challenges facing the country could not be overcome through piecemeal planning, and took a decision to establish the National Planning Commission that has just produced a National Development Plan informed by our Constitution.
The ANC welcomes this National Development Plan, which also singles out the triple challenge for consideration. Your determination, Mr President, that higher growth and job creation are the solutions is spot on.
Since your inauguration in 2009, you have adopted a holistic approach to the challenges inherited from the apartheid colonial system. This approach is consistent with the character of a developmental state that has a responsibility to lead and guide the economy, and to intervene in the interests of the poor.
Informed by this responsibility, your administration launched the New Growth Path framework and identified job drivers as infrastructure development, tourism, agriculture, mining, manufacturing and the green economy. Pursuant to this plan, you declared 2011 the year of job creation and transformation of the economy and mobilised social partners, including business, labour and the community sector, to work with in implementing the New Growth Path. This confirmed your commitment to the recovery of the humanity of all South Africans and the creation of a prosperous society.
The ANC fully agrees with you that by mainstreaming job creation and strengthening social dialogue and co-operation among government, business, labour and the community sector, you laid a sound basis for nation-building and social cohesion. The announcement of a massive infrastructure development plan and the invitation to the nation to partner government in this drive will effectively address the triple challenge of inequality, poverty and unemployment. The drive to develop a knowledge economy will enhance the efficiency of your infrastructure development plan by producing the skills necessary for government to work harder, faster and smarter.
With regard to co-ordination and implementation of programmes, the co-ordination and integration of plans inherent in the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordination Commission calls upon Parliament and political parties to ensure that it is driven as a national project worthy of support by all of us. This plan is a national issue that requires the co-ordination and integration of multiparty oversight work. In this regard, we are happy to announce that the parliamentary oversight authority has agreed to strengthen and resource the multiparty Chief Whips' Forum as an integral organ of Parliament.
This will enhance the oversight role of Parliament and ensure the successful implementation of the presidential infrastructure development plan. The multiparty Chief Whips' Forum will also establish an inter-parliamentary Chief Whips' Forum which will bring together provincial legislatures and councils to ensure co-ordinated and integrated oversight on government.
For our part, as the ANC we will capacitate our one-stop centre parliamentary constituency offices to enable them to drive regional and local people's assemblies. This new approach to constituency work will strengthen and entrench social dialogue and co-operation among government, business, labour and the community sector.
The presidential infrastructure plan, including its social infrastructure project, will benefit the poorest of the poor and bring them into the mainstream economy. In terms of this plan, government could renovate unutilised and underutilised buildings in towns and townships and make them available for skills development, cultural industries and cultural tourism. This local economic development initiative could be strengthened by government's support for the development of marginalised and diminished heritages, languages and indigenous knowledge systems, in order to unlock the full potential of historically disadvantaged communities. The plan could also enable cultural industrialists and small businesses to gain access to the markets.
In terms of the African cultural renaissance, the development of the African heritage and Indigenous Knowledge Systems, IKS, could position South Africa as one of the motivating forces of the African cultural renaissance. In this regard, the Mapungubwe cultural landscape, connecting South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and other Southern African Development Community countries, could contribute to the Nepad's - the New Partnership for Africa's Development - regional and infrastructure integration agenda through the proposed Mapungubwe heritage route connecting the SADC countries.
The intercultural regional integration through the Mapungubwe heritage route would combat tribalism, xenophobia and Afrophobia, as well as regionalism, and enhance African unity and co-operation. The improvement of the infrastructure at the Mapungubwe heritage site and support by SADC governments and parliaments of annual cultural festivals at Mapungubwe and related heritage sites are critical for the advancement of the African cultural renaissance and Nepad's regional integration agenda.
The ANC welcomes the convening of a presidential infrastructure summit and the proposed social pact and dialogue. We trust that the community sectors, especially organised interfaith bodies, the institution of traditional leadership and organised traditional health practitioners will be invited. The newly established National Interfaith Council Of SA, Nicsa, has already begun preparations for the desired national dialogue.
Regarding the recognition of wars of resistance and the role of women in them, the undertaking of heritage projects is critical for nation-building and social cohesion. Therefore, the prioritisation of memorial sites, including the Pondo Revolt, the sites of the frontier wars, the 1913 revolt by African women in the Free State and the 1957 antipass revolt by women in Zeerust, will reshape our history and correct the distortions of the past. Women and traditional leaders should indeed be recognised for their role in the context of our selfless struggle for equality, freedom and justice for all - both black and white South Africans.
The prioritisation of memorial sites in recognition of women, in particular, deals a deadly blow to the perspective in our society today that there has always been inequality between women and men, and that women have always been subjects and were led by men. This perspective, as you correctly observed, honourable President, is a product of the rise of a patriarchal society, which seeks to project women as subordinates of men.
In Southern Africa we have examples of the contrary. We have Queen Nzinga of Angola, Nehanda of Zimbabwe, Manthatisi and Modjadji of South Africa. The Modjadji dynasty ruled from 1800 to date and participated in the wars of resistance and the Anglo-Boer War, now known as the South African War, of 1899 to 1902.
Women like Charlotte Makgomo Manya played an active role in the formation of the ANC and attended the founding conference of the ANC. But, as you correctly observed, honourable President, little is said about these great women in the form of acknowledging their role and contribution in advancing the struggle of our people, in general, and the women's struggle, in particular. Charlotte and her husband established the Wilberforce Institute, named after Wilberforce University in the United States. The building built in 1892 remains neglected and dilapidated in Evaton.
We thank you for reawakening us to the value of our identity and heritage because a people without identity, history and heritage lose their self-knowledge, self-worth, self-esteem, a culture of self-help and self–reliance and the will for development and progress. The recovery of these values is what South Africa needs for character building of our youth and the creation of a productive and prosperous nation.
In conclusion, we welcome the initiative by our government to ensure that the Khoisan people and their indigenous knowledge are brought into the mainstream of this nation. I thank you very much. [Applause.]
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION / Mia & UNH / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Takes: 4 & 4A
The CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Mr Speaker, honourable President, distinguished guests, hon members, in our country today we often talk about two South Africas: the rich and the poor, the white and the black, the rural and the urban, and many more besides. These stories reflect divisions in our past, that until now we have been unable properly to bridge.
But, today, while we are reflecting on the state of our nation, I believe we should be talking about how the South Africa, we live in, differs from the South Africa we dream about.
In the South Africa we live in we face hard realities. Millions of our people lack the means to live lives of their own choosing, communities are brutalised by violent crime, the burden of disease robs our citizens of opportunities, and young people without education or employment wake up day after day to a gaping void of hopelessness. In the South Africa that we live in our problems are all too real and they grow bigger every day, their solutions moving further from our grasp.
But we do not have to accept this. I do not want to live in a South Africa in which you are locked into a particular kind of life forever, simply because you were born into it. And I believe there can be an alternative; another country of our making.
My fellow South Africans, our best years are ahead of us and the party that I lead in Parliament offers a vision to get us there. [Interjections.] [Applause.] People are wounded in postapartheid South Africa, and it is difficult to focus on the future when the pain of the past can still be felt today. But as much as the past has shaped us, we cannot keep living in it. We need avenues to the future. So, our vision is to heal us.
Our history does not just remain in the past; it speaks to us and informs our decisions. And so we must be guided by our history, but not imprisoned by it. Our vision is to free us.
Our inability to achieve real reconciliation through economic redress is at the heart of our national discontent. Our vision is to build that opportunity. To bring people together, we need to build a bridge across the divide between privilege and poverty that divides our people along racial lines. We have to help people where they need it and provide real opportunity that will break down these inequalities. When we do that, we will achieve a real and lasting reconciliation. But our vision will mean little if a DA government does not offer the means to reach the future. [Interjections.]
Mr Speaker, I stand here today as the proud new leader of an opposition which is also a government-in-waiting. [Interjections.] [Applause.] Over the coming months and years, we will exercise oversight ...
The SPEAKER: Order! Order, hon members!
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: ... draft legislation and hold the governing party accountable for its outcomes. We will speak for the millions of South Africans whose voices have gone unheard in Parliament, and we will sketch for every one of them a picture of a growing and prosperous South Africa under a DA national government.
IsiZulu:
Siyazi ukuthi sibhekene nezingqinamba eziningi eziqondene nobugebengu, ukungaphephi nezinye zokuhlukumezeka nodlame. Ngiyacabanga ukuthi ngezindlela eziningi lokhu kuhlupheka emphakathini kugxile ekuswelekeni kwamathuba emiphakathini yethu.
Yize noma kunjalo, siyazi ukuthi zikhona ezinye izimbangela zalezi zinkinga. Siyazi ukuthi ngubugebengu obenza imiphakathi yethu ihlalele ovalweni. Lokhu kwenziwa wukungaqini kwezinhlaka ezibekelwe ukusivikela.
English:
We cannot hope to keep our streets safe when the shadow of corruption stalks the highest levels of our Police Service. We cannot take the fights to the criminals that plague us when we lack experience management at all levels of our Police Service. And we cannot hope to have an effective service that complements an open and free democracy when our police are militarised in name and in their actions.
South Africans will not feel safe until they hear an honest discussion about crime at the highest levels of government, nor will they have confidence in our health system, let alone a National Health Insurance Scheme, until we face the fundamental problems that threaten it.
This is because the problem in health is not the principle of access. The problem in health in South Africa is that our existing network of care is not adequately managed. What we need are competent and professional hospital managers who are not accountable to a bureaucracy but to the hospitals themselves. Real accountability and professionalism will go a long way towards addressing the deficiencies in health care. If these capacity problems are not addressed, our health care system will deteriorate even further, with or without an NHI and it will be the poorest South Africans who suffer. So our vision is to address their plight.
To implement a real programme of redress that will build reconciliation and change our society, we must also have the tools of change at our disposal. To do that, a DA government will focus on the two things that can truly create opportunity: education and the economy. [Interjections.] These two are intertwined with each other, as there are with our failure or success as a country.
Since the consolidation of our democracy, much has been achieved in education. We have historic levels of access, a standardised curriculum for all our learners, regardless of race, and truly exceptional levels of budgetary investment year on year. But as much as we have invested, education is seldom the vehicle for opportunity that so many of our children need it to be. Too many of them become lost in a system that seems to have a measure of failure hardwired into it.
South Africans don't have to live in that country if they choose not to. I don't believe that we should just celebrate access. We should celebrate children completing their education. Over a million learners enrolled for Grade 1 in 2000, but only half that number wrote matric last year, and just over 348 000 passed. That means just 33% of the children who started school in Grade 1 finished matric. Why is this? In disadvantaged schools teachers work on average three and half hours a day, compared to six and a half hours in advantaged schools. In disadvantaged schools, a fifth of the teachers are absent on Fridays and almost 30% of students are taught maths by teachers with no maths qualifications. If we compromise on our children's education, we accept a two-tiered school system as an unchangeable fact of life.
Education is the only way out for most people who want to work to have a better life than the one they were born into. I do not believe that we should accept that there will always be schools that are terminally dysfunctional or that there will always be some teacher who will not or cannot teach. There should be no such thing as compromising a child's future. So our vision is not to compromise.
Because education is the foundation of an economic strategy that seeks to build opportunity, I believe that we should give schools that are performing more power to manage their own affairs. We will direct maximum resources to the first three years of schooling and ensure that there is compulsory testing of learners in Grades 3, 6 and 9. We will maximise resource spending on schools that have gone without for decades, supplying them with text-rich content and books, delivered on time, before using money on bloated administrative functions. And we won't just make schools a place where our children are evaluated. They need to be taught by people who demonstrate not only their capacity, but also their passion for education. We will give those with this calling that chance.
Mr Speaker, most teachers deserve our thanks for their dedication and the work that they do. But just as teachers have rights, so do children. Our government will pass legislation that will respect teachers' right to strike, but subject them to certain limitations. Before a strike can happen, there will need to be consultation and agreement between the government, the unions and the school governing bodies.
In education, we need partners who are truly willing to help our children, every step of the way. So we won't forget about the majority of teachers who want to be part of our pact for the future. But in the dream of our future, fixing schools is just one part. If we can ensure that our children get the best education they possibly can, then we must ensure that they can enter an economy where they can find a job.
In several ways South Africa's economy has flourished in the democratic era, free of the shackles of sanctions, restricted trade access and warped internal economic policies. But the country we live in today has some very harsh economic realities.
We applaud any gains in the fight against unemployment and real indicators that show victory in this struggle. However, an expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those that have given up looking for work, shows that more than 100 000 jobs were lost last year. Furthermore, the last decade has produced only 624 000 jobs, meaning that total employment has increased at a rate of just 0,5%. This means that the rate of job creation would need to rise by nearly 10 times in order to meet the most optimistic projections of job creation for the end of the decade.
In contrast, one of our fellow Brics countries, Brazil, has an unemployment rate five times lower than ours, while we continue to experience lukewarm economic growth. Last year we grew at 3,4%, while Africa, the continent we claim to lead, experienced a growth rate of 5,5%. Countries in our region, like Angola and Botswana, are growing at 9,4% and 7,8%.
I believe that South Africa's major challenge lies in its competitiveness. We are less efficient than many of our emerging market competitors. Turkey, for instance, withdraws more value out of every rand from taxation than we do. Other governments simply develop higher returns.
In addition, South African labour is uncompetitive. Labour productivity is much lower than the rest of the developing world. Our competitiveness has slipped in key sectors like mining, agriculture and manufacturing. In mining, especially, we are not as profitable or as desirable as elsewhere in Africa. So, in the midst of a commodity price boom, we saw investment in the mining sector drop. Expensive and highly regulated labour kills competitiveness and it kills jobs. And increased state intervention in the economy bloats the public sector and creates inefficiencies.
A commitment to intervention for intervention's sake means that we have too many voices saying too many things. If investors wanted to predict what South Africa's economic policy was going to look like in three years' time, they would have to consult the New Growth Path, the National Development Plan, the Industrial Policy Action 2 and the budgeting process, and try to understand the many contradictions between them.
I propose that we take our economy from being an average performer with massive potential to one that capitalises on our advantages to grow faster and assume the economic leadership role in Africa that we should have.
As part of our vision for South Africa, we will ease labour-market entry to include voluntary exemptions for designated economic areas. This will create a competitive niche entry point for first-time workers. Complementing that strategy, we would introduce a targeted youth wage subsidy for jobseekers between 18 and 29 years old earning below the personal tax income threshold.
Opportunity will also be spread to those wishing to start their own businesses. We will create a one-stop shop for business registrations where prospective entrepreneurs may register a company name, lodge their documentation with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission and register with the SA Revenue Service, Sars, and the Department of Labour.
Mr Speaker, opportunity must take stock of those who have been systemically and historically disadvantaged. One of the ways to do this is to ensure that there is true financial redress for those who were blocked from accessing economic opportunities in the past. That means making economic empowerment truly broad based. I think that our current model, which relies on arbitrary quotas, has done little more than expand the size of the financial elite by creating a special category of beneficiaries who can access economic opportunities again and again.
Our vision is to do more to help the average worker become an owner of capital. That means building into contracts the need for real partnerships between business and employees and incentivising share ownership across the economy.
Dr C P MULDER: Hon Speaker ...
The SPEAKER: What point are you rising on, sir?
Dr C P MULDER: I would like to know if the hon Leader of the Opposition will take a question. [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Will you take a question?
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: I will not.
The SPEAKER: She will not take a question. [Interjections.] Order, hon members! The question was not addressed to you. Please proceed.
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Our vision is to do more to help the average worker become an owner of capital. That means building into contracts the need for real partnerships between business and employees and incentivising share ownership across the economy. And we will invest in infrastructure. This investment, when coupled with a sound financial strategy and real capacity in implementing agents, is the best way that the state can create the economic enabling environment for growth.
But I think that we should also realise that the state cannot be the final determinant in the economy and that as much as we invest in infrastructure, the state cannot have a holistic plan for every sector, especially when it is marred by incapacity. As such, a DA government would replace the current Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 with a streamlined industrial development and growth strategy that would focus on specific activities rather than on whole sectors, create targeted financial incentives for new enterprises and develop a dedicated venture capital fund.
We will address one of the most divisive legacies of our past: the legacy of the 1913 Land Act. We know that people who once made their living off the land were driven from it and forced into an economy for which the compounding sin of Bantu education deliberately provided limited skills. But land reform in our country is not working because of the incompetence and incapacity of the very institutions that are supposed to drive it. Our vision is to make right that wrong.
We will use the mechanisms at our disposal to create truly diverse rural ownership. And that diversity, again, is not about empowering a segment of society that is already empowered. It is about giving new opportunities to those who are without resources and who want to farm.
IsiZulu:
Somlomo, lo mbono omuhle uzonyamalala uma sizicabangela thina sodwa singasebenzeli umphakathi nezwe lethu. [Ubuwelewele.]
English:
The SPEAKER: Hon members, order!
IsiZulu:
UMHOLI WEQEMBU ELIPHIKISAYO: Umbono wethu uzobuyisa isithunzi ekusebenzeleni kwethu imiphakathi. Isithunzi esizokwakhiwa wukuthi sibe nomdlandla wokusebenzela umphakathi, hhayi ukuzibonelela thina. [Ubuwelewele.]
English:
As the custodians of the state, we will ensure that we limit opportunities for corruption. As public servants we should be an embodiment of what is best about those among us who want to work towards the future, faithfully and honestly. That doesn't mean having the courage of our convictions only for the television cameras; it means working every day with integrity.
Key to our vision will be bigger penalties and better enforcement of punitive clauses in the Public Finance Management Act. We will introduce a National Business Interests of Employees Act to ensure that the partnership between the state and business is not through the businesses of those who work for the state.
The South Africa that we want is not born of false promises. Our vision will end the expectation that some generations will be lost. We will only be satisfied when we know that our children will have more tomorrow than we do today. The government must empower, not prohibit. It must provide opportunity, not encumbrance. We do not have to resign ourselves to this country that we live in today.
When we start accepting that we have the means to realise our deepest hopes and ambitions, we can make the country of our dreams a reality. That is the vision we offer South Africa today. We demand the future that we dreamed of in 1994 and, in our future, we will make it together. I thank you. [Applause.]
Ms L JACOBUS: Hon Speaker, on a point of order, please!
The SPEAKER: What point are you rising on?
Ms L JACOBUS: I am rising on a point of order that the reference to the hon Mazibuko as the Leader of the Opposition. The hon Mazibuko and all the other ...
The SPEAKER: Hon member, that is not a point of order. [Interjections.]
Ms L JACOBUS: No, it is a point of order, Speaker? [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Take your seat, hon member. [Interjections.] It's not a point of order. Please proceed, Mr Lekota.
Mr M G P LEKOTA: Mr Speaker, I hope that you'll remember that minute that she took from my time. Thank you, Sir.
Mr M G P LEKOTA / LIM & GG//GM(ed) / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 5
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Mr M G P LEKOTA: Honourable President, Deputy President and hon members, the National Development Plan identified a number of key problems that our country needs to deal with if it is to advance.
We are particularly attracted to the identification of the question of poor education as impacting negatively on skills development in the country. Our own approach is that unless South Africa can transform its human resource element, unless we can transform the lives of many of the citizens of our country who are not only unemployed but unemployable, we will not be able to tackle effectively the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Mr President, we had hoped that a major part of the government's approach on this question would focus effectively on dealing with this question of training and education. For very many centuries, African people in this country have been denied opportunities of access to education and training, therefore making them less effective and less productive than what the country required them to be.
This is a singular issue that we need to address more that any other, because unless we indeed address it, we will not be able to expand the economy, we will not be able to make our people capable of dragging themselves out of the poverty trap, the backwardness and the squalor in which they find themselves. It is important that we return to this issue.
This is not to say, Mr President, that the issue you raised on infrastructure development is not of any significance. It is important. All it can do at the moment is arrest, for a certain period of time, the deterioration and perhaps assist in keeping stability, but it does not eliminate the fact that we continue to go deeper into a crisis of the unemployable and unemployability, which, at one stage or another, will simply not be controllable by us as a country. So, I would like to say that it is important that we should return to and revisit this issue from time to time.
This issue of unemployability, Mr President, is vital. A number of the social tensions that we are faced with in our country today have to do with unemployability. Many people that come to this country from other countries, especially from our continent, come armed with abilities and skills that our citizens don't have. When, therefore, they are taken in by the market, this leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of our own citizens who feel that their African brothers and sisters coming into this country are taking their jobs, because it is not immediately clear to them that this happens simply because we have not dealt with this incapacity to be able to take advantage of the opportunities which our country presents them with.
I would also like to say, Mr President, that you announced a very interesting and attractive programme of infrastructure development. Indeed, you spoke to the issues of the development of dams, roads and so on. These are vital investments and areas of work, because not only do you invest, but you are also able to realise returns in the years that lie ahead from such investments. At this time, when South Africa's deficit has grown to more than 3,5% already, we need investment that will give us returns because the money we have borrowed we have to pay back tomorrow. If we invest in investment that will give us returns, we place ourselves in a position in which we can meet the challenges of paying those monies plus the interest on it.
But there is a category of the investment you announced that I am not sure exactly how we are going to deal with. Is that also going to come from the expenditure for this year? You announced the investment in celebrating our history, building statues and graves and so on. These are very important elements of our history because, like all nations, we must do something about these issues.
Nevertheless, the question that I would like to pose is this: At a time when our deficit has grown and is growing at the rate at which it is, is the timing right? This is because, if we are borrowing money and investing it in those enterprises that are consuming and not giving returns, this has the effect of deepening our deficit. Is this the right timing? Our study and our look at some of the expenditure patterns of various other countries is that they tend to prioritise these issues in years in which their economies are performing very well and when there is surplus after national expenditure for year after year. Then you will have a surplus that you can apply to these consumptives or projects. It seems that we may perhaps get more light shed on this from the Minister of Finance when he indicates how much of our expenditure will go towards infrastructure that gives returns afterwards, as opposed to infrastructure that will not.
One of the issues we think needs a clear explanation from the President when he responds to our speeches, of course, relates to the issue of the Youth Subsidy Scheme. You announced an amount of R5 billion to subsidise youth employment. The whole nation is now aware that as things stand, there is a problem because organised labour is concerned that such subsidisation will encourage employers to go for subsidised youth.
On the other hand, there is the problem of organised labour that may find that it is neglected and even dismissed. This tension seems to be the issue that has raised objections from organised labour and the leaders of organised labour in that this scheme should not be implemented. I thought that you would be able to say something to us, Mr President, on this issue. Will we see the expenditure of this R5 billion in a manner in which it will answer this problem and ensure that we are able to benefit from the R5 billion?
Again, from the point of view of Cope, we would think that this money would have been best spent in investment and on training. Freedom, after all, must not be understood and should never have been understood as a season of gifts. It should be understood as an opportunity in which those who were denied opportunities of training and education are now rid of the chains that prevented them from getting this education; that therefore freedom means expanding to the fullest your talents, our children's talents. This is so that our children can leave if they can't get employment in this country and get employment elsewhere. If they are no businesses to employ them, they can start their own businesses. They would then be able to build homes and take their mothers and fathers out of the shacks and let them grow old in proper homes built by their own children. [Applause.]
We must give to the children of this country, with this R5 billion - the children who are poor and who have nothing - training and education, something nobody can take away from them, something which even if they went to other countries they could use to earn an income and to send this income back to their motherland. This is so that here in this country, like all other countries ... Many are exporting their skilled labour into this country. When they earn their money here, they send it back to their own countries. But we are not preparing our children ...
The SPEAKER: Hon member, your time has expired.
Mr M G P LEKOTA: Oh! Mr Speaker, Sir. [Applause.]
The SPEAKER: Hon member, your time has expired!
Mr M G P LEKOTA: I am going to buy the hour glass so that I'm ...
The SPEAKER: Hon member, your time has expired! [Applause.]
Prince M G BUTHELEZI / VM / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Takes: 6,6A & 6B
Mr M G P LEKOTA
Prince M G BUTHELEZI: Hon Speaker, Xhamela, the Honourable His Excellency the President, Msholozi, hon Deputy President, Mkhuluwa, hon Ministers of state, hon Deputy Ministers, hon Leader of the Opposition, hon leaders of political parties, hon Members of Parliament, I address the head of state and all of us in this way because I am asking that today we should be introspective as a nation. As I point out certain things, I am pointing out facts of the matter. I am not trying to apportion blame for the sake of apportioning blame.
From this podium I have said before that the failure of government is the failure of South Africa, and the failure of all of us. What I have to say today, I say for the love of my country. When I speak, I do so to be constructive.
Mr President, we have heard your speech, your hopes and your plans, and we desire nothing more than to be able to have confidence in them. Yet, too much prevents us from doing so. How can we embrace hope when our leadership refuses to acknowledge the many problems confronting our country, or the causes that lie at their roots? Year after year, the state of the nation address shifts focus, without ever addressing previous failures.
Your Excellency, in this debate we must analyse all that you said last Thursday. But, increasingly, I feel that the measure of your leadership can be taken less by what you say than by what you do not say. Understandably, the state of the nation address will touch on the high notes of government, leaving much unsaid. But this year, we have been left with the impression that our attention is being redirected away from the elephant in the room. There is a danger in that for elephants can be unpredictable and extremely destructive.
It is therefore good and well – through you, Mr Speaker, to His Excellency - to say that our government is working with various provinces to improve governance, systems and administration. But the unspoken fact remains that two of our nine provinces have all but collapsed. Limpopo has been rendered bankrupt through corrupt activities and five of its departments have been taken over by national government. And when you, Your Excellency, and your government do the right thing by intervening, even members of your government say that you are doing that for political reasons. The administration of the state is in shambles.
It is fine to say that we are doing well with regard to the treatment of HIV and Aids. But the unspoken fact remains that South Africa has lost some 5 million people to HIV and Aids because of our slow and hesitant response to the pandemic.
One can say that we are expanding access to tertiary education by assisting students - which is plausible - to pay off their debts. But the unspoken fact remains that students are so desperate to secure admission that they are stampeding universities, causing injury and loss of life. For instance, a parent this year in Johannesburg lost their life as a result of a stampede.
In the Eastern Cape, the education system has completely collapsed due to maladministration and corruption, forcing our national government to intervene.
It is fine, Your Excellency, to say we will improve the movement of goods through a Durban-Free State-Gauteng logistics and industrial corridor. But the unspoken fact is that the KwaZulu-Natal department of transport has had to halt all major road infrastructure projects, while Durban has notched up R1,3 billion in bad spending. The Free State has sought assistance from National Treasury after identifying financial mismanagement and noncompliance in supply-chain management processes in its Department of Police, Roads and Transport.
Gauteng has also sought assistance from National Treasury to address the challenges in its health department, which is on the verge of collapse. It faces 101 legal claims amounting to R235 million, owing to negligence. The IFP in Gauteng called for an urgent commission of inquiry to investigate this debacle because we, like every South African, want to know why this is happening, Mr President.
Twenty years ago there were many people in this country who felt that we black people were not capable enough to rule a country and administer a democratic government. That was one of the major fears during the negotiation process. That is why some people went to Perth. Some people felt that it was in the DNA of us Africans to be inefficient, inept and corrupt. I refuse to believe that.
Yet how do we explain the many nurses in our public hospitals who just do not feel the inner duty to respond to the needs of suffering patients? And what are we to say about teachers who do not feel the calling to spare no energy and to double their dedication to teach our children so that, through better education, they may finally be emancipated from all that oppressed my generation and your generation, Your Excellency?
If the call of duty is not felt in these two fields, it should be no wonder, whatsoever, that throughout the public service productivity and commitment are so low that they translate into poor delivery. What has disrupted the moral fibre and discipline of our people? What has happened? We know the answer, but we refuse to acknowledge it.
How, Mr President, do we explain the contamination of public service and commercial interests? It is fatal, and yet it is pursued relentlessly, from the lowest to the highest levels of government. Too many - and I dare say, the overwhelming majority - are trying to make money on account of holding public office, being in politics or exercising public power.
Corruption is the bane of our country, Your Excellency. It is a fundamental threat to our constitutional democracy. As former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, said:
Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government's ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice and discouraging foreign aid and investment. Corruption is a key element in economic underperformance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development.
Yet, sir, you shy away from this issue. The unspoken fact is that corruption has seen the axing by you, Sir, of two of your Ministers, Mr Sicelo Shiceka and Ms Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, for which we all applauded your decisiveness. The National Police Commissioner, Mr Bheki Cele, is still suspended pending an investigation into corruption. His predecessor is in jail. The Speaker of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, Ms Peggy Nkonyeni, and MEC Mr Mike Mabuyakhulu are facing corruption charges in court. The head of treasury in KwaZulu-Natal is facing charges of corruption in court.
Remember, Your Excellency, that you took over the Department of Economic Affairs which I ran in the erstwhile KwaZulu government. You will also remember that I founded a bank there called Ithala Bank and you would remember that after you left, it was pillaged by MECs who gave loans to their wives to buy you farms. [Interjections.]
The recently released Manase report uncovers widespread and rampant corruption within the eThekwini Municipality. High-ranking eThekwini municipal officials and politicians, including the former municipal manager Mr Mike Sutcliffe, and former mayor Mr Obed Mlaba, have been fingered in a damning forensic investigation into financial irregularities, fraud and corruption.
Last year, the former head of the Special Investigating Unit, Mr Willie Hofmeyr, told the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development that 20% of South Africa's procurement budget, between R25 billion and R30 billion, is lost to corruption every year. According to Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, South Africa is perceived to be becoming more corrupt with each passing year. That perception is rooted in reality. On a scale of 0 being highly corrupt, to 10 being very clean, we have fallen from a ranking of 5,1 in 2007 to 4,1 in 2011. The unspoken fact is that we are on the verge of joining the ranks of dysfunctional states, as the effects of corruption debilitate all spheres of life.
Mr President, during the weekend I saw this cartoon and I thought it summarised what I am trying to say, with all these pigs running for the trough. I hope that Hansard will print it as part of my speech. [Laughter.]
Then I ask the question, Your Excellency Mr President, how do we fix this? Surely not with more rhetoric, empty words and never-ending declarations of policy? I think we must have the courage to go to the root cause because it was you, Your Excellency, who on 30 December 2000, acting as chairperson of a committee of the South African government, signed a formal agreement with traditional leaders in terms of which the local government powers and functions of traditional authorities would be preserved. This was actually a promise which had been made before by then President Mbeki that there would be no obliteration of the powers and functions of traditional leaders and, if they were obliterated, you promised to make amendments. In terms of that agreement, it was agreed that chapters 7 and 12 of the Constitution would be amended.
It was you, your Excellency, who did not bring that agreement to Cabinet for ratification, and it is you, sir, who bears the final responsibility for it having been breached and for the powers, functions, respectability, moral authority and social guidance of traditional leadership having finally been obliterated.
The question can be asked: What does this have to do with it? It is relevant because the core problem of maladministration, inefficiency and corruption is the disintegration of social cohesiveness, social values, rectitude, integrity, discipline and dedication to duty, which traditional leadership has been entrusted to promote and inculcate within our communities. Once that disintegrates, as it unfortunately has, what ends up in our government offices, hospitals and schools bears the hallmark of no one willing to pay a personal price to make this country a better place.
It was you, your Excellency, who was charged by President Mbeki to champion and pilot the campaign for the moral regeneration of South Africa. I need not comment on that. It was also you, Your Excellency, who was equally charged by President Mbeki to bring about the reform of our labour legislation to increase the flexibility in the labour market. That, too, ended in nought.
Why is that relevant, the question may be asked? It is relevant because our labour legislation and the lack of flexibility in our labour market have not only been identified by your government, Sir - even when I was in government - as one of the major impediments to real economic growth and real employment generation, and also a cause of the ongoing degeneration of a sense of duty and commitment in the workplace. Empowering trade unions the way you have been instrumental in doing, Mr President, has eroded the culture of hard work, discipline, productivity, dignity and self-respect which people like me have promoted and instilled in our communities for more than 60 years. This has compounded problems with problems.
It was your party, sir, which for 20 years made it its main political policy in South Africa to undermine social cohesion within our communities. Your party embraced and promoted the strategy of making our communities ungovernable – even townships ungovernable - spreading a culture of lawlessness and rebellion and destroying the black education system. The black education system was far from perfect, but its destruction replaced it with the roots of a phenomenon which is the common denominator of most of our problems. It brings together our irresponsible nurses, our indolent teachers, our ineffective civil servants and all the youth with narrow-minded vision, distorted values and the wrong hopes, who were falsely lured into supporting the president of the youth league of your party, who said that I was an ANC factory fault. [Laughter.]
Mr President, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Every government has faults and shortcomings. None of us is perfect. The wise acknowledge that and correct them, but the unwise ignore them.
You correctly identify our sky-rocketing electricity prices as one of the factors which are thwarting all our efforts to develop an industrial basis and produce real growth in our economy. Yet, we did tell you that funding the build programme of Eskom through tariffs was a mistake. We did tell you, Your Excellency, that it should have been funded by means of an international competition which would have brought into South Africa as much as R400 billion of direct foreign investment, while creating a much-needed and healthy competition amongst producers and distributors of electricity. We were ignored.
We said further that, if funded domestically, the build programme had to be funded through the national budget and not through tariffs, so that the rich would pay more than the poor. The way it has been done is to force industries and the productive middle class to bear a much greater burden for the investments than warranted by their actual taxable income. I am just giving this example as part of the same problem. That is the problem of doing things for the wrong reasons, including political reasons, and not for commitment to our country's and our people's best interests. I will add two more examples because the magnitude of the mistakes there shows what happens when political thinking overrides national interest.
Under your leadership, Mr President, our country jumped into the Brics: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, group. Yet, to develop an industrial basis, we must manufacture export products which, in the final analysis, can mainly only be sold outside of the Brics countries and mainly in the regions which have been our traditional trade partners, namely Europe and North America. This shows how our priorities become confused and contradictory. Our priorities should be to ensure that the African Growth and Opportunity Act of the United States is renewed and expanded so that we can export our products there without duties and quotas, and that similar agreements are entered into with other markets where we can sell our products.
Another major policy mistake is maintaining the four retail bank policy and tolerating the collusion and other constraints of trade openly practised by our banks. Because of lack of real competition, our banks are not forced to take risks they don't want to take, and force all the risky business onto the Industrial Development Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. This means that they choose to live only by the business which makes money with no risk, and the government, the taxpayers and our communities must bear the risk associated with promoting economic growth. It would seem as if your government, Your Excellency, has a greater commitment to serving the banks than the people we represent.
Mr President, you praise the trade unions and Sadtu as if they should be thanked for doing less than the full measure of their destructive capabilities. Praising the South African Democratic Teachers Union for its diligent teachers was a step too far, I thought, Mr President, on Thursday, in placating the unions. [Applause.] The members of Sadtu often abandon students nationwide to drive their own agendas. The ANC-aligned union continues to act like an organisation hellbent on destroying the future of our children. Sadtu should be rebuked, in fact, not praised for their actions. [Applause.] Their actions have aggravated and deepened the crisis in our education system. Instead of acting like responsible educators, some members of Sadtu have, on numerous occasions, proven themselves irresponsible, unprofessional and unfit to educate South Africa's learners. The recent go-slow in the Eastern Cape, where education came to a complete halt, is a case in point.
Mr President, you mentioned that employment generation never recovered from the terrible knockout it received at the end of the seventies, but you failed to explain why that happened. You do not wish to remember that employment generation collapsed because of the call for sanctions against our country and for foreign disinvestment, which your party, Mr President, foisted onto South Africa and which I so vehemently opposed.
This was because nothing destroys economic growth more than sanctions. Strangely, your government and the ruling party, the ANC, have adopted the correct policy against sanctions being imposed on Zimbabwe for the same reasons that they destroy the lives of the poorest of the poor.
History has proven me right and your party wrong. You admit that we have yet to recover from that self-inflicted injury, the same way as we have yet to recover from the self-inflicted injury of having disrupted the moral fibre and discipline of our communities.
But too much remains unsaid, sir. You make no mention of small businesses and how they will be assisted by government to help grow the economy and create jobs. You make no mention of the fact that the two sectors that should be booming right now owing to international demand, namely agriculture and mining, are in reverse, owing to government's many policy failures.
The unspoken fact is that the latest Global Competitiveness Rankings of the World Economic Forum highlight how increasingly corruption, wasteful expenditure and government red tape are hindering business development, SMMEs and investment in our country.
I want to have hope in our future. No one can fault what you have said. But how do you know that every cent of that money will be used to do what you said it should do, with this corruption? I want to have confidence in you, Mr President. I want to be able to believe that there is more than just words to your declaration of intent. But how much of what has been set aside by the state to achieve such lofty goals will actually fulfil its intended purpose? We know that when resources are made available, corrupt officials are already salivating. [Laughter.] One is completely galled by the conspicuous consumption of state resources by these people.
I fear there is a disconnect between government and the reality of everyday life for South Africans. It is impossible to have hope while the ANC refuses to recognise, acknowledge and mend the error of its ways. We must start by correcting the terrible injuries inflicted by ourselves, not by apartheid, not by the colonialists, not by foreign powers, but by ourselves on the minds, strength and discipline of our own people.
We need to rebuild pride in our work. We need to build a sense of dignity in abiding by the discipline necessary to improve our conditions. We need to terminate the culture of dependency. We need to create a culture of real growth, which must range from what young people do to build their futures, to how our enterprises understand that they have to compete and survive without relying on government crutches.
We need to re-establish the important role of traditional leadership throughout the country. We need to exact from each civil servant the full measure of dedication that one would expect from a
soldier in a war in which we are engaged for progress and development.
We must have a complete separation between public office and commercial venture and change our mindset in this respect completely. And, most of all, we must fire all those who do not comply with these imperatives, ranging from lazy civil servants to corrupt officials, to nurses who do not nurse and teachers who do not teach. If we fail to attend to this basic aspect of our country's reconstruction and development, everything else is bound not to achieve its intended purpose.
Mr President, your address was good, but it lacked accountability on the crisis in health, the crisis in education and the crisis of corruption. What you said looks good on paper. But what you have not said can, in fact, prevent the fulfilment of the best-laid plans. I wonder where my brother the hon Andrew Mlangeni is. We both did matric in 1947. Do you remember that poem by Robert Burns "To a Mouse"?
But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!
Msholozi. [Applause.]
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION / tfm / A N N / /TH//nvs / TAKE ENDS AT 15:13:36.
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 7
Prince M G BUTHELEZI
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: Mr Speaker, Mr President, Deputy President, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, on subjects of mice and men, happy Valentine's Day to all of you! [Interjections.] [Applause.]
I think that it is very important that we listen to what the three leaders who have spoken before me have said. In broad measure, I think that we have to take this as a measure that there is very little disagreement with the content of the state of the nation address, and that is a positive that we must take from it, because that is the platform on which we must build in this country. [Applause.]
Early on in the speech last week, the President framed a reference to the draft National Development Plan, NDP, which we released on 11 November last year. To better understand the context in which the NDP fits into the state of the nation address, I am going to share a few more details of this plan today. Indeed, the plan sets out the kind of country we want to build by 2030. The vision statement contained in the plan envisages that – and it sounded like the hon Leader of the Opposition has read this, which is very good -
In 2030, we live in a country which we have remade. We have created a home where everybody feels free yet bounded to others; where everyone embraces their full potential ... a community that is proud to be a community that cares.
It speaks of a country that is capable of transforming itself and that is fundamentally important. So, clearly, what we want by 2030 is to have created a country in which we value one another, in which we value life and in which we value our communities. We value doing the right thing. We want to have created a home where everybody feels free yet bound to others. This plan is about what binds us together.
What binds us is a new story, a story for a better South Africa for all of its people, a story to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality, a story that changes the life chances of our people, particularly young people and women; a story that draws on our history, our experience and our traditions. And so, the plan sets out the high-level objectives of where we want to get to by 2030, as well as how the commission believes that we can remake our country in the vision of our Constitution between now and that date – not on that date, but between now and that date. So, the plan also provides a great deal of detail on, for example, where we think a railway should be built, how to finance it and how to ensure that it functions optimally. We believe that these are critical end points to improve the life chances of our people.
When the commission was inaugurated in May 2010, the President gave it a licence to be bold, honest and critical. He explicitly stated that he did not want a commission that merely slapped his back. His faith was tested when the commission released a diagnostic document in June last year, which presented a sharply honest and critical appraisal of our performance since 1994 and our failure to overcome poverty and inequality.
The draft plan that we unveiled in November is similarly bold and honest. If we do not strike out bravely, the cleavages in our society will simply deepen. The two main objectives we arrived at in the plan are that we want to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. Consistent with the diagnostic report and the views of thousands of people who were consulted, increasing employment and improving the quality of education form our highest priorities in the plan.
In summary, the plan is as follows: a united country, where all citizens are active participants in their own development; a capable state that drives development, promotes ethics and serves the citizenry; a dynamic and growing economy that is more labour absorbing, providing opportunities for all, and supported by adequate infrastructure; an education, skills and innovation system that can develop the capabilities of our people and our country; and leaders who work together to confront and overcome our problems.
These five key themes run through the 13 chapters in the plan that covers: the economy and employment, the economic infrastructure, a transition to a low-carbon economy, the rural economy, South Africa in the region and the world, spatial settlement planning, education, skills and innovation, health, social protection, citizen safety, a capable state, and fighting corruption, and then: social cohesion, nation-building and transformation.
In crafting the plan, we also took into account a number of other factors, such as demographic and global trends that are profoundly changing our world.
Our Constitution provides a basis for our policies. It states that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and that all are equal before the law. How do we make the Constitution a reality for South Africans? This should be the first question we ask ourselves every single day. How do we ensure that opportunities for each person are not determined by who they are or where they were born, but by their hard work, effort, skill, talents and opportunities that are open to them?
Afrikaans:
Ek wil maar net vir die agb lid, mnr Lekota sê, u het mooi gepraat. U kan maar nou vir Dexter terug huistoe volg. Dit is reg. [Gelag.]
English:
In all our encounters with thousands of people across the country, the message has been clear: South Africans love our country. They are proud of our achievements since 1994, have faith in our democratic institutions and want to see greater success for our country. They are prepared to commit themselves to building a better South Africa. Our challenge is to make it possible for them to contribute to the South Africa that they want by 2030.
This plan is not a sermon from the mount. It is about identifying how people can be empowered to enable change. We need to reshape the expectations we have of government. We need to forge an active citizenry that takes ownership of the solutions to our problems.
I want to say to the hon Leader of the Opposition that it is not just about dreams, it is about living out those dreams. It is about making sacrifices. [Interjections.] There is a great philosopher named Peter Tosh who once said, "Everybody wants to get to heaven, but nobody wants to die." [Laughter.] [Applause.] You have to be prepared to make the sacrifices.
The plan is about achieving this shift – I have done it, and I will do it again. [Interjections.]
An HON MEMBER: Let's stop the corruption! [Interjections.]
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: The plan is about achieving this shift in perspectives and relationships. [Interjections.] Excuse me. Excuse me.
The SPEAKER: Order, hon members!
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: The plan is about achieving this shift in perspectives and relationships. It also contains very specific recommendations. For example, in the chapter on an integrated and rural economy, we focus on support systems that will give life to land redistribution. We need to put land to productive use. We estimate that agriculture has the potential to create close to a million jobs almost immediately if these plans are implemented effectively. To achieve this, we need to do a few things urgently.
We must expand irrigated agriculture by substantially investing in water resource and irrigation infrastructure. We must create security of tenure for communal farmers. This is vital if we are to secure incomes for existing farmers and new entrants. We must investigate flexible systems of land use for different kinds of farming on communal lands. We need also to invest substantially in providing innovative market linkages for small-scale farmers in the communal and land reform areas, with provision to link these farmers to markets in South Africa and further afield on the subcontinent. We must put in place preferential procurement mechanisms to ensure that new entrants into agriculture can access the "food away from home" market, including school feeding schemes and other forms of institutionalised catering. We must give greater support to public-private partnerships to develop underexploited opportunities. Examples of regions with untapped potential include the Makatini Flats and the Umzimvubu Basin in the Eastern Cape.
Next year, as the President reminded us, marks the centenary of the 1913 Land Act. This Act reshaped the political geography of South Africa in dramatic ways. It transformed spatial settlement patterns in both rural and urban areas, effectively cutting off the vast majority of South Africans from places of economic opportunity. The chapter on the rural economy makes detailed proposals on how land reform can be unblocked and implemented in a collaborative manner, with clear roles for district municipalities, communities and farmers.
The chapter on transforming urban and rural spaces spells out why and how we can unravel the spatial patterns of apartheid that still plague us. There are parts of this country that still look as though they are still dominated by the Group Areas Act. Transforming human settlements is a large and complex agenda requiring far-reaching policy changes. Most state investment goes into household services. Over time, the state should shift its role from a direct housing provider to a housing facilitator, developing public goods through investment in public transport, economic and social infrastructure and quality public spaces.
The plan addresses how we can transform where people live; how we can break the pattern of government building soulless little boxes and, instead, facilitate the development of communities. We want to link where people sleep, pray and play with where they work. We want to develop communities, understanding that the quality of life for many is undermined by the fact that they must travel great distances to get to and from work.
Our proposals on urban areas include developing a more coherent and inclusive approach to land. All municipalities should be encouraged to formulate specific land policies showing how vacant and underused land will be developed and managed to achieve wider socioeconomic objectives. Our plans include radically revising the housing finance regime by shifting funding away from building single houses to supporting the development of a wide variety of housing types with different tenure arrangements, including affordable rental and social housing. They include the strengthening of the link between public transport and land use management with the introduction of incentives and regulations to support compact mixed-use developments. They also include enhancing the existing national programme for informal settlements by developing a range of tailored responses to their upgrade, including minimum health and safety standards.
We need strong and mature leadership both in government and from communities to achieve the unity and common purpose required to see the plan through. Leadership is about problem-solving. We need initiative. We need voice. We need to test ideas. We can and should all be leaders in our society. We can all implement the solutions that we have collectively identified.
This requires us to change the way we approach challenges. It requires a paradigm shift. This is what we propose in the plan. In coming up with the solutions, the commission has drawn strongly from definitions of development that focus on creating the conditions, the opportunities, and the capabilities that enable people to lead the lives that they desire. Development is a process of raising the capabilities of all citizens, particularly those who were previously disadvantaged.
The development of capabilities is critical to enable our youth to grasp the opportunities that we develop. Education and skills development are critical capabilities, but there are others too. Better public transport, a well-designed social safety net, a healthy population, better located housing settlements and safer communities are critical to enable people to improve their own lives.
The plan therefore charts a new course. This new course is one where communities, in partnership with government, develop the capabilities to improve their own lives through education, employment, health care, transport, social security and safer communities. At the same time, we have to broaden the economic opportunities available to citizens. This requires faster economic growth, a more labour-absorbing economy, higher levels of investment, inclusive and integrated rural economies, and better located human settlements. While we build these capabilities for both individuals and for the country, we must do so mindful of the impact on our environment, which is an endowment we cannot destroy.
The shift from a delivery model to a capabilities one requires three complementary enablers. Firstly, it speaks of an active citizenry, where people are involved in their own development and in the development of their community.
The second enabler is a capable and effective state, able to understand when and where it needs to act, what its limitations are, and how to partner with other forces in society to achieve complex objectives. The third enabler is strong and mature leadership from all institutions in society.
An active citizenry, working in partnership with government, business and civil society is critical to this new development paradigm. While the state can build schools, we need communities to work with the schools to ensure that these schools function properly and that the children study hard. Our paradigm becomes one where communities are active in their own development.
The challenge we face in our education sector illustrates this point well. There is universal acknowledgement that our education system fails the poor. Members may have seen the short animated story that the commission produced about a young girl named Thandi - it is available on YouTube - to illustrate the impact of circumstances on the life of a young school-leaver. Our plan is about improving the life chances of people like Thandi. This covers improving the education system to making sure that more school-leavers get jobs. Achieving this requires a collective effort. We have to talk to one another and draw on the energy of those who are committed to finding solutions. And, yes, we will leave the naysayers behind. We hope that the proposals in the plan will be taken in the spirit in which they were designed: an honest and open-handed attempt to tackle the deep-seated problems that bedevil our society.
This process has been a unique one. It was a bold and brave step by the President to appoint a commission of people from outside of government, South Africans who care deeply about their country, to help develop a national plan. He has shown remarkable confidence in our institutions of democracy to embark on such a process. I would like to say to the President that we are still engaging with South Africans on the proposals in the plan. This is both a heartening and a humbling experience. It is heartening because so many of our fellow citizens share our broad approach, support the values of our Constitution and agree with the key priorities that we have outlined; humbling because we, the commission, know so little about so many of the issues. Our discussions have been hugely enriched by the considered and often detailed views of ordinary South Africans on how to solve some of our most critical challenges.
We look forward to engaging with Parliament and for Parliament to facilitate further engagement on the proposed plan. In June or perhaps July, we will take the refined document back to Cabinet for discussion and, hopefully, adoption.
The work of the National Planning Commission does not end this year. After the plan is presented to Cabinet in a few months' time, the commission will begin detailed work on perhaps two or four areas a year, so that we can complete the detailed ...
The SPEAKER: Hon Minister!
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: ... work within the next three and a half years.
Allow me to end with a little quote from the vision statement:
South Africa belongs to all its peoples.
Now, in 2030, our story keeps growing as if spring is always with us.
Once, we uttered the dream of a rainbow.
Now we see it, living it. It does not curve over the sky.
It is refracted in each one of us at home, in the community, in the city, and across the land, in an abundance of colour.
When we see it in the faces of our children, we know:
there will always be, for us, a worthy future.
Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
The SPEAKER: That was a very long poem, Minister.
Mr J J McGLUWA /Robyn/ END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 8
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION
Mr J J McGLUWA: Hon Speaker, in his state of the nation address the President gave the nation a glimmer of hope. We welcome, in particular, the President's endorsement of the National Development Plan, NDP. The challenge for the President's vision, plans and strategies for this country continues to lie in their implementation and in real delivery. We do love this country and, together with the President, we want it to work.
Afrikaans:
Ons is lief vir hierdie land en, saam met die President, wil ons hê dat dit moet werk.
English:
We would like to assure you that we support all efforts made by government to construct a clear plan for our country's future. We therefore place much hope in you, Mr President, to make this plan a reality for us.
At the inaugural meeting of the National Planning Commission, on 11 May 2010, the President stated, and I quote:
The establishment of the National Planning Commission is our promise to the people of South Africa that we are building a state that will grow the economy, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of our citizens.
As we are concerned as Members of Parliament about the funding of these projects, we will use our oversight role to ensure that no one will use your announcement, Mr President, as a platform to loot state funds from the poor.
The state must play a leading role in economic growth in partnership with the private sector. When we speak, we speak about jobs, jobs, jobs; poverty, poverty, poverty; and opportunities for all. What then is the role of the state? We call upon the ruling party to stop undermining our new democracy, simply because our previous hopes were dashed by this government's willingness to sacrifice development on the altar of patronage.
Mr President, we also note with interest that many of the infrastructure plans you proposed are actually old, repackaged proposals. We are glad that you have finally agreed to implement them.
The government has constructed a number of large macroeconomic plans, which now lie scattered across our 18-year-old democracy. In 1994 we witnessed the birth of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the RDP. By 1996, as a means of reducing our debt burden, the RDP was succeeded by Gear: the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy. These have been succeeded by the New Growth Path and the National Development Plan respectively.
However, defining the success of these plans is a thorn in our nation's flesh. The unholy wedlock between the ruling party and the labour unions also highlights the irreconcilable and ideological paralysis that constrains government's ability to get serious about implementation. It appears to us that government is perhaps better at building plans than building a nation.
Afrikaans:
Dit wil voorkom dat u regering miskien beter is met die bou van planne as met die bou van 'n nasie.
English:
It is also critical that government stick to its core function of creating an enabling environment for us in the private sector. This will allow South Africans to take hold of their own economic future.
Finally, we would like to invite the President to make a choice today. Does his allegiance lie with factions inside the ruling alliance or does it lie with the people of South Africa? Today we appeal to the President to choose in favour of the people who commissioned him to lead our country. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr B H HOLOMISA /TH//nvs /END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 9
Mr J J McGLUWA
IsiXhosa:
Mnu B H HOLOMISA: Kuthiwa khetha Mongameli.
English:
Mr Speaker, honourable President and Deputy President, hon members, for many years resource allocation in South Africa was determined on the basis of race and ethnicity. The deleterious effects and the scars of the policy of segregation are still clearly visible almost two decades into our democracy. Since we ushered in our new democratic dispensation in 1994, the majority of citizens have pinned their hopes for a better life on the new political franchise.
Sadly, the level of inequality between the haves and the have-nots has increased rapidly. The solutions on the best way to close this gap and integrate the previously disadvantaged communities into the economic mainstream appear elusive. Apologists of this current economic regime claim that the macroeconomic fundamentals are in place and, thus, see no need to deviate from the status quo. They militate against any form of government intervention in the economy to transform it.
We question the validity of this line of argument, since the majority of citizens continue to occupy the margins of economic activity. In contrast to the minority group which controls the South African economy, the majority of citizens are victims of the ultraconservative credit policies of financial institutions because they do not own land.
The fight for economic freedom has been a bone of contention for many years and, at times, resulted in an unnecessary loss of life. You and your Deputy President spent many years on Robben Island in pursuit of precisely this economic emancipation objective, among other objectives. As students of the former University of Transkei in 1979, in the Faculty of Management and Economic Sciences, we used to grapple with the difficult challenge of finding a suitable mechanism to deliver economic freedom to Africans. Even today, the solutions to this challenge are still proving more difficult to find.
We acknowledge the statement made by the Minister of Finance in the 2011 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement on the need to transform the economy. However, the question remains: by whom and when?
The 2012 state of the nation address clearly demonstrates that government has finally woken up to the reality that the fate of South Africans could no longer be left to the free-market system alone. Government has a duty to invest in its economy through projects like infrastructure development. The private sector seems to have no willingness to invest in the development of the infrastructure of previously disadvantaged communities.
Even companies that have the capacity to do so, like Anglo American, delisted from our stock exchange in favour of foreign ones without any prospect of the funds coming back to the South African economy.
Perhaps, in line with your statement during the ANC centenary celebrations in Mangaung at which you called for a national dialogue on the country's pressing issues, as leaders of political parties represented in Parliament we should meet with you and the Deputy President at your offices to map out a clear strategy to deal with what you aptly described as the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment. These problems are bigger than one political party.
In the event of a consensus emerging from such a meeting, we should expand the dialogue to other stakeholders in society as well. The historical legacy of severe imbalances and backlogs cannot be adequately addressed by Nedlac, the National Economic Development and Labour Council, partners alone.
The people care less about frivolous fights to augment political power through attempts to change the powers of the Constitutional Court, the building of a veil of secrecy between the state and its people through the Secrecy Bill and attempts to erode media freedom; and more about wanting to see us prioritising their bread-and-butter issues.
Many South Africans often argue that a review of the Codesa agreements – Codesa being the Convention for a Democratic South Africa - should not be done selectively, as they believe that there are other more important matters for discussion, like the sunset clauses that robbed them of an opportunity to participate meaningfully in the economy and own land. Black South Africans are still residing in the so-called reserves that were allocated to us by previous regimes, with no land ownership.
Yes, Mr President, I have yet to see a day when people protest to change the powers of the Constitutional Court. But I have seen many legitimate protests about service delivery which do not seem to receive the same attention. We have noted government's intervention in a number of provinces to rescue them from administrative collapse. This sphere of government seems to be saddled with problems.
Provinces have become centres of self-enrichment and rampant corruption for some comrades. We have seen a regression in the standard and quality of education our children receive under the watch of provincial governments. In the past, for instance, it was common for students from all over the country to go to places like the Transkei to access quality education. Regrettably, that fountain seems to have dried up.
Perhaps it is time to publish the study government instituted under former Minister Mufamadi into the efficacy of provinces. The truth of the matter is that these glorified homelands were a compromise intended to accommodate one political party. We must now assess the extent to which they facilitate or impede service delivery.
Nevertheless, Mr President, your announcements last week reinforced programmes that were announced earlier by Transnet and the Minister of Transport, which we regarded as pie-in-the-sky projects when they announced them. Both Transnet and the Minister were cagey at the time of the announcements about how they would finance these projects. We wondered whether a thorough feasibility study had been undertaken.
Mr President, you will recall that when the news about these projects surfaced, the media alleged that they would be done by Chinese companies and politically connected individuals in South Africa. However, the government flatly denied this.
We look forward to receiving more details about the government's overall implementation strategy. We would do well to adopt as stringent a monitoring mechanism as Fifa's close monitoring of South Africa's implementation of the 2010 Fifa World Cup project. Otherwise, these announcements run the risk of going down as just another laundry list of unfulfilled promises.
It is gratifying to see that you have heeded our call to link KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape Corridor. Planned properly, this would ease the congestion and reduce road fatalities on the N2, especially if a railway line could be built between East London and Kokstad.
With respect to the Umzimvubu Water Scheme, the former Transkei government and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Maohludi Associates and academics from the former University of Transkei conducted and concluded a R13-million study into the possibility of using the Umzimvubu Water Scheme to provide clean water for household consumption and water supply for irrigation and hydroelectric schemes. The study showed that major rivers passing through the Transkei areas constituted 28% of the water supply of the entire Southern Africa.
We urge your government to guard against wasting taxpayers' money on hiring consultants to redo the study. Rather, we should source the services of an auditing firm to carry out a thorough cost-benefit analysis of reviving the project, taking into account cost escalations over the years. This exercise should also evaluate the effects of silting caused by soil erosion. Therefore, there is no need for a two-year or more study.
The Umzimvubu Water Scheme project failed to get off the ground due to the refusal by the former F W de Klerk government to release funds for capital projects to the Transkei government because of its close relationship with the liberation movements.
IsiXhosa:
Senditshilo. [Kwaqhwatywa.]
Mrs I C DITSHETELO / Nb / Robyn – ed Eng/ END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 10
Mr B H HOLOMISA
Mrs I C DITSHETELO: Hon Deputy Speaker, the commitment towards infrastructural development is most welcome. We certainly hope that its spin-offs shall enhance many other areas of concern, like job creation. The amount of R300 billion is a significant amount to commit to infrastructure. It is sure to excite South Africans.
We earnestly hope that this huge commitment of money will not excite the minority tenderpreneurs who will see an opportunity to make more millions, while the rural poor are condemned to extreme poverty. We hope this amount will not perpetuate the gross economic inequalities that we are already experiencing. It would have been comforting if the President had briefly outlined how the infrastructure development commitment would impact on, and improve, the standard of living for the rural poor.
In and prior to 2010, there was a buzz of infrastructure developments. Of course, we now have world-class stadia, hotels and beautiful bridges. We welcome the improvement, but the rural communities in which the majority of our citizens reside are still without roads and their living conditions have not improved.
It appears that government has taken significant strides in addressing the energy crisis in our country. It is impressive that thus far 220 000 solar geysers have been installed, and the targets set are encouraging. However, those of us who represent the rural constituencies know that even before you speak of energy-efficient tools, there are people who still do not have electricity and therefore energy efficiency becomes meaningless to them. This must be heard and treated with equal urgency as energy saving and efficiency.
South Africans had reason to be excited last year with the introduction of the Presidential Hotline to which they could lodge complaints and forward their grievances. There are allegations in the media that nothing is ever done about the cases reported. We expected the President to take the opportunity of the state of the nation address to cite cases that had been investigated since the commencement of the hotline. His failure to update us on this makes us think that perhaps we have been taken for a ride in that nothing will come of the hotline, and that it was another populist stance.
The President rightfully commended the increase in the matric pass rate. Of course, many of us are happy to see this improvement. He further acknowledged the problems in our education departments, which, in the Eastern Cape, had led to the intervention and to the takeover by the national government.
This is, indeed, a crisis, and our education system has been in crisis mode for a long time now. We do not expect the President to go into the details of problems encountered by government departments, but seeing that education is one of the priorities, we expect that he should touch on the root causes of the many problems in education. His failure is disheartening. We have, for a long time now ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mr I O DAVIDSON
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 10
Mrs I C DITSHETELO
Mr I O DAVIDSON: Madam Deputy Speaker, while the specific focus on job-creating economic growth is welcomed, it is unfortunate that another priority issue for South Africans received scant recognition in the state of the nation address.
The World Bank's Second Investment Climate Assessment found that South Africa has attracted considerably less foreign direct investment than comparable economies in East Asia because the country is seen as a riskier location for investment. Among the factors feeding this view is the perception that crime is more prevalent in South Africa than elsewhere.
Yet in a 5 000-word address, the safety and security of South Africans and their communities received a mere 65 words. Yes, the slow decrease in incidents of serious crimes is commendable and the efforts in this regard must be applauded. However, the number of serious crimes committed annually remains above the two million mark, where it has been for 17 years. This is unacceptable, more particularly as it is the poorest of the poor that feel the impact of crime the most.
The wellbeing of our citizens and communities is not a matter of statistics, but speaks to the very fabric of our society and the efforts to accelerate economic development to address unemployment, poverty and inequality. We require a bold new vision to ensure the safety, security and stability of our society, as well as the creation of an environment in which economic growth and development can continue unhindered. This is our common struggle.
Instead, we are veering towards a security state marked by this government's increasing obsession with a traditionally defined concept of national security. The vehement defence of the Secrecy Bill, controlling the courts and legislative attempts at granting the intelligence services even greater powers are symptomatic of this obsession.
A radical and conceptual policy shift is required to focus our collective efforts on the human security of South Africans, where the proper emphasis for safety, security and stability is on the individual and communities, rather than the state.
We need to empower citizens and the citizenry to take back their communities and their societies. We need a caring and responsive government that will adopt and implement programmes rooted in this people-centred view of making South Africans safe.
It requires government to create a climate that empowers local people and communities to take charge of a collective civil responsibility to protect themselves and one another. It speaks of shared efforts of all South Africans to bring about a unified and safe society, where personal safety and the absence of fear from violence allow for our citizens to flourish.
The sustainable safety and security of our society and the prevention of crime require close co-operation between government, the police and communities to share resources and information and develop specific initiatives for local circumstances.
South Africa boasts a strong civil society and active communities, yet their involvement in taking ownership of their own safety and security receives little official encouragement. Citizens, businesses and institutions in the private sector should be encouraged to involve themselves in the war on crime and their contributions should be acknowledged and harnessed. The DA believes that this can be done in a concrete and sustainable manner.
Government should actively encourage community involvement by empowering communities to set up and manage their own community safety initiatives, such as neighbourhood watches and patrols. Many farming communities have risen to the challenge in this regard, but they do not receive adequate state support through funding, training and equipment.
Local police services should be provided for where local councils have the means and desire to establish these, in co-operation, obviously, with the SA Police Service. We need less centralisation and a more diffused, distributed, personalised set of interactions and engagements that allow local services to give dedicated attention to particular problems in specified areas.
We need to empower community policing forums with more oversight over their local police stations and give them greater independence by enabling them to access funds to set aside for safety and security initiatives at the local level.
Creating meaningful and effective partnerships is pivotal in ensuring collaborative initiatives and actively facilitating private sponsorships. Regulatory frameworks, such as the SAPS Act, should enable public-private partnerships, and local governments and communities should be permitted and encouraged to collaborate with the police to solve problems at the local level. A prime example of how effective this can be is Crime Line, a Primedia Group initiative that empowers individuals and communities to advance their safety and security through anonymously reporting crime and suspicious activities.
Our society and interpersonal relationships are being eroded by drug abuse and threats to personal bodily integrity and dignity. We need to see a commitment from this government to re-establish the highly effective disbanded specialised units to fight drug abuse and related crimes, as well as family violence, child abuse and sexual offences.
Government must also bring citizens in rural South Africa on board in the fight against crime and the threats to the security of their communities by creating a new specialised rural safety unit. Every farmer or farm worker that is murdered impacts directly on the rural economy, compounding the decay of rural communities.
Finally, the regular sharing of official information on crime and community safety is necessary to adequately empower communities to locally address crime and challenges to safety in their communities. This can and must be facilitated by implementing communication sharing systems, including by SMS and other electronic communication devices.
South Africa, Mr President, stands firm and ready to heed the call made in the state of the nation address to join hands and deal decisively with the challenges our society faces. Government must, similarly, extend its hand and provide meaningful opportunities for South Africans and communities to proactively take charge of their own destiny, safety, security and wellbeing.
The President set out in his speech steps to enhance growth through an infrastructural investment programme. It is time for him now to set out a similar strategy to ensure the safety and security of our citizens. If he fails in this regard, the desired economic growth will not occur. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr L DIALE / Mpho/UNH (Checked)/END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 12
Mr I O DAVIDSON
Mr L N DIALE: Hon Deputy Speaker, His Excellency the President, the Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members and guests, sanibonani, siyabulisa, dumelang, sthokoze, goeie middag [greetings] [good afternoon]. Through you, Speaker, to the honourable President, I joined the ANC in 1956 at twenty years of age. I joined because I believed that the struggle for our liberation needed each one of us. It was not a difficult decision because the values and nobleness of the movement, and its campaign to liberate the nation from oppression and discrimination, were things I believed in.
This year, we are celebrating 100 years of the ANC, a milestone few liberation movements achieve. We owe the progress, development and survival of this glorious movement to the core values and principles on which it was founded. Frustrated by the massive oppression of the African people in the land of their birth and by the draconian regime which sought to enforce separateness as a way of life by denying the majority of the people their basic human rights, the ANC took up the fight for our freedom. Chief Albert Luthuli, when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1961, characterised the inhumanity as such:
There can be no peace until the forces of oppression are overthrown. Our continent has been carved up by the great powers; alien governments have been forced upon the African people by military conquest and by economic domination; strivings for nationhood and national dignity have been beaten down by force; traditional economics and ancient customs have been disrupted, and human skills and energy have been harnessed for the advantage of our conquerors. In these times there has been no peace; there could be no brotherhood between men.
Look how far we have come.
Our progressive and widely lauded Constitution and Bill of Rights inspires hope and pride. But with every year that we celebrate our freedom, it seems ever more apparent that from some quarters we are urged to forget the past. Those who bemoan our remembering the past, forget that when we remember, we also acknowledge our past. Tracing the history of how we came to have the finest
Constitution and Bill of Rights in the world cannot be separated from the significant role the ANC played in the creation of these documents. [Applause.]
Since the formation of the ANC, its central focus has always been the fight for equality and human rights for all. The vision of creating a better life for all began in May 1923, when the ANC conference in Bloemfontein adopted, inter alia, a resolution on a bill of rights. It called for equal treatment of all people, much like many of the constitutions of countries today in which an equality clause is included. It demanded access to land, equality before the law and for participatory voting rights.
In 1943, in response to the Atlantic Charter, the Africans' Claims - Bill of Rights - was drawn up to reflect the post-war demands of the African people. The document, which was rejected by Jan Smuts, demanded, amongst other things, full citizenship rights for the African people. It also called for the abolition of political discrimination based on race; universal adult suffrage; equality before the law; freedom of residence; the right to education, freedom of trade and occupation; the provision of adequate medical and health facilities for all people; and the repeal of all discriminatory legislation. These demands found expression in the 1955 Freedom Charter of the ANC, which addressed fundamental human rights.
I am tracing these important and landmark documents not only to remind us but also to highlight the fact that these documents and their contents influenced and shaped the country's own Bill of Rights and Constitution. During our multiparty negotiations, it was the ANC that pioneered and campaigned for the Bill of Rights. This fact is contained in our historical documents and cannot be willed away, no matter how loud the calls for us to forget.
For the longest time the majority of the country's population were victims of crimes against humanity. We were a tortured, traumatised and violent country. Gross human rights violations were a daily occurrence and, when we emerged into the light of freedom, our therapy came in the form of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We debated whether to speak out or forget. Our collective morality ruled and we tried to heal by telling our stories. We tried to make over our souls, an "RDP of the soul" as it was called.
We have travelled a very painful and divided path. Celebrating the birth of a movement - which led the way for us to celebrate our humanity - should be an inclusive path. The protection of our fundamental and comprehensive human rights, as enshrined in the Constitution, cannot be taken for granted nor lull us into complacency. Building a caring society in which citizens respect the rule of law and one another, where the basic needs of our people are taken care of and necessary services delivered, is paramount. We are a diverse nation, and it is our strength. And by uniting in our diversity by celebrating our differences, we grow as a people.
We said then, as we do now, that such human rights violations will never be tolerated. Our laws and institutions today stand ready to protect and defend our humanity. The values, which underpinned the formation and development of the movement must constantly serve as a reminder that only when these values are shared, do we become formidable.
We take comfort from the state of the nation address, wherein the President set out his plan and vision for the coming year. He outlined the massive infrastructure programme, geographically focused programmes, projects focusing on health and basic education, information and communications technology and regional integration. All of these work to further our social and human rights in terms of addressing the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
And if we waver from our objectives for whatever reason, let us remember the words of one of our foremost leaders of the ANC, Nelson Mandela:
The justness of our cause had to be matched by the methods and morality of our organisation. And we can today in all humility claim that our liberation movement had throughout its existence sought to have its conduct informed by those enduring values of humanity. As in all human undertakings, there were failings, but it was the overall adherence to those informing values that ensured our liberation movement its place in history.
Honourable President, Deputy President, Speaker and hon members, I would like to say ...
Sepedi:
... šikiša dira le molapo, mphago wa dira ke meetse. Phala tša mona marula di a tloga. [Legoswi.]
BUSINESS SUSPENDED AT 16:17 AND RESUMED AT 16:34.
The MINISTER OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 14
Mr L N DIALE
The MINISTER OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Hon Speaker, honourable President and Deputy President, hon members and members of the public, on Thursday, Mr President, you outlined an infrastructure plan that represents a bold, strategic and integrated platform to mobilise the state, private investors and the South African public behind a clearly articulated storyline of South Africa's opportunities. It is the first step towards creating a 10- to 20-year infrastructure project pipeline. Our job in government is to ensure focused, purposeful implementation.
Over the past four months, the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission, PICC, identified what the key challenges are to effective implementation, and what we can do about them. We drew on the infrastructure driver of the New Growth Path, the detailed work of the National Planning Commission, the import of all three spheres of government, and the needs of the private sector and communities. We took account of the lessons of the 2010 World Cup infrastructure and of the growing experience in the build programmes of the Gautrain, the Medupi and Kusile power stations, the Freeway Improvement Programme, and the major airport revamps.
We identified what worked well, such as the 2010 World Cup special law to fast-track regulatory issues, and what did not work well, such as cost overruns. Above all, the lessons are to have a clear project scope, with binding timeframes and clearly identified responsibilities: who does what, by when, with what resources?, and to solve problems expeditiously when they occur. We know we can do it. But we temper that confidence by acknowledging that it will be hard work, that there are challenges and that we must honestly and frankly address them.
Hon members, we recognise and will address the skills challenge. We completed an audit of scarce skills in public institutions. The challenge is particularly in engineering, project management, finance, and procurement, and in technical skills such as artisans, technologists and technicians.
To address this, we developed responses such as a shared pool for utilising scarce skills across and between public entities; rapidly increasing apprenticeships and practical training, as Eskom and Transnet are doing now; in the private sector using the National Skills Accord; a skills plan setting out the human resource requirements for every infrastructure project; attracting back South Africans with high-level engineering and project management skills who are working on projects elsewhere in the world; easing immigration rules in infrastructure-linked scarce skills categories; and developing partnerships with universities and other institutions in the built environment to produce the short- and long-term skills needs of the infrastructure programme. For example, Minister Nzimande and the Department of Higher Education and Training, DHET, are launching a new R160-million programme to increase engineering capacity at the University of Johannesburg. The two new universities planned as part of the PICC infrastructure roll-out will further accelerate capacity.
We see infrastructure, however, not only as a consumer or user of skills but also as a training space, and so we will set skills and apprenticeship targets in the project specifications.
We will address the project management and regulatory delay challenges. The infrastructure programme requires co-ordinated issuing of permits and licences, environmental impact assessments and resolution of land servitudes. It requires tight co-ordination between the three spheres of government and with public entities. We will therefore place legislation before Parliament during 2012 to address this in the form of an Infrastructure Development Bill.
In addition, we seek to improve co-operative governance. The PICC includes the premiers, the metro mayors, the SA Local Government Association, Salga, and a number of Cabinet Ministers led by the President and the Deputy President. It is therefore a forum able to take decisions to unblock delays across the three spheres. We are developing focused project-management systems and clear performance dashboards to identify the state of progress with build programmes to enable the three spheres to intervene early and decisively.
We acknowledge and will address the funding challenges. We need to think smarter as we plan our infrastructure programmes. Simply throwing money at a challenge will not do. At the same time as we increase spending on infrastructure as a percentage of GDP, we must get more value for money. A number of the components of the Infrastructure Plan have funding committed through the national Budget or the balance sheet of state-owned enterprises. The Infrastructure Plan, however, requires reprioritisation across government with a clear shift of spending from consumption to investment, so that we lay the basis for our long-term prosperity – a matter taken up by Minister Gordhan in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, MTBPS.
The Industrial Development Corporation, IDC, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DBSA, working with the main state-owned enterprises and Minister Gigaba, will provide financial support within their mandate areas, creating a public-public partnership model to drive infrastructure development. The Presidential Infrastructure Summit will highlight opportunities open to the private sector. We will work with retirement funds on opportunities for long-term infrastructure investment that match their long-term pension liabilities to members. We will collaborate with international partners, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the Gulf Co-operation Council, GCC, countries to tap capital from sovereign wealth funds and private investors.
We acknowledge and will address the challenge of containing costs of the build programme and combating corruption. Our experience in past programmes showed high levels of collusion between contractors which drove up prices of supplies and services. We faced avoidable industrial action on some of the projects. We are therefore in discussion with the private sector and organised labour to conclude an integrity pact as part of a broader accord to address the need for competitive pricing, firm action against public- and private-sector corruption, and co-operative industrial relations. The competition authorities are ready to crack down on collusion and price fixing. Combating corruption will also ensure that the hard-earned monies that South Africans pay in taxes do, in fact, go to rebuilding infrastructure and supporting service delivery. And, specific anticorruption measures will be identified and built into all processes.
We will ensure that the Infrastructure Plan spurs job creation, industrialisation and economic and social development. Jobs are our key economic goal, and infrastructure can contribute in a number of ways, such as using labour-based construction methods, creating permanent jobs in operating infrastructure, and maintaining existing and new infrastructure. Jobs are also created in the supply of components for infrastructure and, critically, jobs are created by this programme across the economy in mining, agriculture, manufacturing, the green economy, tourism and the creative sectors.
In this context, I am pleased to inform hon members that, working with Minister Oliphant, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, UIF, has committed R2 billion for a development bond issued by the IDC, which supplies funding at prime less 3% for projects with high employment absorption bringing the total UIF commitments since 2010 to R4 billion. [Applause.] The IDC approved funding of R12,6 billion for the whole year as a whole, unlocking a total of R26 billion of local and foreign investment. Of the R10 billion IDC jobs programme announced in last year's state of the nation address, the projects approved to date will create 8 000 new jobs, mainly in manufacturing, agroprocessing, textiles, mining and the services sector. [Applause.]
At the start of last year, there were 13,13 million workers in South Africa. By the end of last year, there were 13,49 million workers in South Africa. However one interprets the statistics, the economy created 365 000 new jobs for the year, which is about 1 000 new jobs a day. [Applause.] A total of 179 000 jobs were created for the last three months of the year. However, our economy remains vulnerable to global economic performance and we need to increase domestic and regional demand, and infrastructure-led growth can assist to insulate us from global economic uncertainty.
We intend to include development targets in the project and tender specifications covering jobs, skills, industrialisation and local content and also small business development and greening the economy. With this infrastructure, we must get more than simply the outcomes of the build programme. Industry must invest to build a strong industrial presence in selected infrastructure supplies and use this as a platform to increase exports.
Mr President, yesterday morning the editor of the Cape Times welcomed the state of the nation address under the heading, "Local is lekker", but added that, and I quote –
The PICC has an even more important task to make sure that most, if not all, the tenders go to South African companies so that the billions of rand set aside do not leak out of the economy. Only then will the multiplier effect come into play, boosting jobs, consumption and investment and, thus, economic growth.
The selection of key projects must focus on rural development and strengthening the economic performance of the poorest provinces. As we roll out the revamped S'hamba Sonke road maintenance programmes in rural areas, we will look at ways to integrate them with nationally co-ordinated provision of water and sanitation, school-build programmes and health clinics. This will initially be done on a pilot basis in the 23 poorest rural districts.
By promoting development in the five economic nodes announced by the President in the state of the nation address, we intend to ensure that we do not rely only on growth in the two major metros. To support a dynamic small business sector and bring more South Africans into the economic mainstream, government will specify support for the small, medium and micro enterprise, SMME, role in infrastructure projects.
Mr President, you announced the new small business funding agency that will be set up this year that incorporates Khula, the SA Microfinance Apex Fund, Samaf, and the IDC's small business lending book. It will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the IDC with a distinct public identity. We plan to launch the agency in the first week of April 2012. Following an injection of funds from the IDC, as well as Treasury allocations, the entity will have over R2 billion available for lending over the next three years.
We will address the challenge to integrate what we do across government and with the private sector. President Zuma announced key strategic projects on Thursday, not a list of standalone activities, but a coherent integrated package. For example, the Limpopo infrastructure development project will be connected with urban planning to create the first postapartheid new city with potential for green technologies in housing, community facilities and workplaces. The Durban-Free-State-Gauteng industrial and logistics corridor will not simply go through the Free State, but is planned to be a major stimulus for Free State industrial and agricultural development. The Umzimvubu Dam will be accompanied by the building of the N2 Wildcoast Highway to connect rural communities, to link farms to markets and to reduce transport times between East London and Durban by about two hours. The rail line from the Northern Cape is connected to a new private-sector manganese sinter plant in the province, due to be completed by June this year.
Hon members, infrastructure can unlock Africa's consumer base of 1 billion people in terms of Africa's enormous reserves of oil, gas and minerals; the large agricultural land and major rivers; a climate that can drive solar energy; a very long coastline that can facilitate trade; and very high projected growth rates over the next decade.
Finally, we will address the need to build a common vision behind the Infrastructure Plan. Partnerships are at the centre of this programme. The President referred to four social accords concluded during 2011: on skills, basic education, local procurement and the green economy. They help with the successful implementation of the Infrastructure Plan. These are the real partnerships we need.
The hon Mazibuko calls for partnerships at the workplace, on the one hand, but, at the other hand, lays out a programme that will simply invite us back to the age of industrial conflict and shop-floor tensions, diverting us from the real partnership-building that we need to do, a partnership around productivity, around skills, and around service delivery. [Applause.]
We have, therefore, commenced discussions with social partners on a broader accord that addresses both infrastructure and jobs, and hope to make progress during the first half of 2012. In short, we are seeking greater coherence, co-ordination, and integration of our efforts, and the vision outlined in the state of the nation address provides the framework. Thank you. [Applause.]
The SPEAKER: Order! Hon members, the next speaker is the hon Steenhuisen who will be making his maiden speech. You have the floor, sir. [Applause.]
Mr J H STEENHUISEN /MS // nvs / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 15
The MINISTER OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Mr J H STEENHUISEN: Mr Speaker, on 9 February the President shared with us at great length what he feels is required to take us forward. There is much that is laudable about what was presented, but, sadly, the President did not deal with many of the systemic problems which are in fact holding us back as a country.
He paid little regard to the hundreds of local government municipalities and the number of provinces collapsing under the oppressive weight of cronyism and corruption. This must surely be one of the biggest challenges holding us back from achieving all we can as a nation? It is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributing factors to failed service delivery. And it has been proved time and time again that the effects of corruption hit the poorest in our country disproportionately harder.
The President also conveniently failed to mention the entire meltdown of governance in Limpopo. Unless the administration heeds the stark and obvious lessons from its almost total collapse under the burden of cronyism and corruption, the problem will only spread and place South Africa on the fast track to a failed state.
It is crony networks and circles of corruption which have ultimately brought Limpopo to its knees. No government business is concluded or decisions made unless it feeds into a nefarious network of connected ANC comrades where mutually reinforcing relationships are forged by politicians and tenderpreneurs. [Interjections.]
Adv T M MASUTHA: Speaker, on a point of order: It is established convention ...
The SPEAKER: I haven't given you the floor yet.
Adv T M MASHUTHA: Oh, sorry.
The SPEAKER: Okay. Proceed.
Adv T M MASUTHA: It is established convention that a speaker who is giving a maiden speech is not provocative in order to avoid retaliation. [Interjections.] So, we encourage the hon speaker to be considerate in the way in which he addresses the ruling party. Thank you. [Applause.]
The SPEAKER: Order! Order, hon members! That certainly is a tradition. Hon member, please proceed, bearing that in mind.
Mr J H STEENHUISEN: Good officials who placed the interests of the province first were moved aside to be replaced by more compliant cadres. Like proverbial vampires, the members of this network have sucked the very lifeblood out of the province and grown fabulously wealthy at the expense of the marginalised. [Interjections.] Obviously, the truth hurts, hon Manuel. [Interjections.] As a result, service delivery in key departments such as Health, Education and Transport has groundto a halt – and the poorest and most vulnerable have been left to suffer the consequences.
This is the real tragedy in this matter, because as the connected cadres of the crony circle get fat on the profits of their misdeeds, the poor slip further into hunger and poverty every day, because as politicians and their friends quaff French champagne, the poor are forced to share drinking water with cattle, and because as tenderpreneurs and politiciansflash around in their luxury blue-light convoys, the poor and the marginalised are pushed further and further off the road of opportunity. [Applause.]
Instead of decisive action over the last three years this administration has sat on its hands, while at least three multimillion-rand bridges built by crony companySGL Engineering were washed away within weeks of their completion. An amount of R400 million was squandered on irregularly procured goods and services. Most schools did not receive textbooks and learning material or any of their allocated funding, bringing education to a grinding halt. The province dished out a tender of R14 million for photocopiers to an ANC benefactor and connected crony of Premier Cassel Mathale. The price was a full R10 million higher than the next tenderer.
Premier Mathale has run his province into the ground and despite presiding over the greatest crisis of governance in South Africa, the man and his team remain in power. [Interjections.] Now the President can fiddle around the edges amending this regulation, reworking that agency, tweaking another rule, but unless we take a hard line against the politicians and officials at the top who do wrong, our nation will continue to be dragged below the surface by the weight of their corruption and greed.
But, Mr Speaker ...
Adv T M MASUTHA: Speaker, I rise on another point of order.
The SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
Adv T M MASHUTHA: Is it parliamentary for an hon member to say the things he is saying about a premier of one of our provinces, given the fact that ... [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Order, hon members!
Adv T M MASHUTHA: ... given the fact that he is a member of a legislature? I don't think it is appropriate for members of this House to attack hon members of other legislatures. Could you make a ruling on that matter?
The SPEAKER: I will study the Hansard and come back with a ruling. Proceed, hon member.
Mrs S V KALYAN: Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
Mrs S V KALYAN: Speaker, is it parliamentary for the hon Manuel to say "shut up" when the member is at the podium? [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Order, hon members! Hon members, if indeed the member said "shut up" it is not parliamentary, but I didn't hear him. Again, I will study the Hansard and come back with a ruling. [Interjections.] [Applause.] Order, hon members! Order!
Mr J H STEENHUISEN: I will wear the hon Manuel's scorn as a badge of pride. Just last week the widely awaited Manase forensic report into ANC-run Ethekwini Municipality was released. The report revealed that for years politicians and deployed cadres in the administration had been involved in dodgy tender deals and irregular activities amounting to over R2 billion.
The report has recommended that criminal charges be instituted against the officials and the politicians concerned. One wonders if the ANC are going to have the power to do the right thing and to sack the officials and councillors involved, and to press those charges. Or are they going to be recycled only to appear in other government departments?
This is because this was certainly the case in the matter of the erstwhile municipal manager of the Bitou Municipality who was dismissed for serious cases of violating the Municipal Financial Management Act, MFMA, yet was appointed as a municipal manager in another ANC municipality. This beggars belief. People like this should be fired, criminally charged and barred from serving in our public service ever again. [Applause.]
The DA will introducing private members' legislation in this Parliament which will seek to have public officials found guilty of corruption, fraud and maladministration, blacklisted and prevented from being public servants again. It is essential that we prevent this slide to a failed state.
But it doesn't have to be like this. The DA has shown the way by example in the Western Cape that clean and accountable government can be achieved and that clean and accountable government attracts investment both locally and internationally. [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Order!
Mr J H STEENHUISEN: It also shows, in stark contrast to ANC-run administrations, that there is a causal link between clean and accountable government and vastly improved service delivery. This government must take heed and stop the rot in our provinces and municipalities.
Perhaps when the President replies to this debate on Thursday, he will include a commitment ... [Interjections.] ... by his administration – he's ignored corruption long enough, hon Manuel - for bold new actions in the fight against corruption, cronyism and maladministration.
The President has an opportunity to side with the people of South Africa, particularly the poor, marginalised and vulnerable who feel the sting of corruption the hardest. South Africa needs protection from politicians and officials who abuse the trust placed in them and who line their own pockets and misdirect state resources for personal enrichment. [Interjections.]
If the government fails to deal with the tide of corruption then it will undermine and wash away all the virtuous ends of what the President announced in his address to the nation. It will infect every infrastructure project you have outlined and will devour the funds earmarked for desperately needed social upliftment and relief. Mr President, the time for talk is now over. It is time for action. [Applause.]
Ms S C VAN DER MERWE / Src / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 16
Mr J H STEENHUISEN
Ms S C VAN DER MERWE: Mr Speaker, Mr President, Mr Deputy President, hon Ministers and hon members, there is a new speak, a new language, about Africa today, it's about hopeful Africa. This new speak resonates directly with the President's call to us to create a new story for South Africa.
The President said last week on Thursday that we would begin to write a new story about South Africa, the story of how working together we drove back unemployment and reduced economic inequality and poverty. I would like to suggest here that we can do this best if we look carefully at what is happening on our continent and recognise this as an opportunity to grow our own economy and bring prosperity to all our people.
The Economist of December last year lead with the story entitled, Africa rising, Africa's hopeful economies". This is a dramatic change in tune for The Economist, which in 2000 labelled Africa "the hopeless continent" and I quote from the article:
The politics of the continent's Mediterranean shore may have dominated headlines this year, but the new boom south of the Sahara will affect more lives.
It continues:
From Ghana in the west to Mozambique in the south, Africa's economies are consistently growing faster than those of almost any other region in the world. At least a dozen have expanded more than 6% a year for six years or more and Ethiopia will grow 7,5% this year, without a drop of oil to export. Once a byword for famine, it is now the world's 10th largest producer of livestock.
Further on, the article says:
Since The Economist regrettably ...
- it says it itself –
... labelled Africa "the hopeless continent" a decade ago, a profound change has taken hold. Labour productivity has been rising. It is now growing by, on average, 2,7% a year. Trade between Africa and the rest of the world has increased by 200% since 2000. Inflation dropped from 22% in 1990 to 8% in the past decade. Foreign debts declined by a quarter, budget deficits by two thirds. In eight of the past 10 years, according to the World Bank, sub-Saharan growth has been faster than East Asia's.
... And the continent's impressive growth looks likely to continue.
This is a good story. The question is: Are we ready to take advantage of Africa's hopeful signs? Are we able to rise to the challenge to benefit our people and to further lift the prospects for our continent?
I believe the announcements of infrastructure roll-out by the President on Thursday suggest that we are indeed well placed for this new African story to impact in a meaningful way on our country.
I would like to highlight three major areas of work that need our focused attention in the coming period. These areas are key policy positions of the ANC and are evident in government priorities and extend from the domestic into our international work, as one is inextricably linked to the other.
The first, directly linked to the government's domestic infrastructure plans, is cross-border infrastructure, including other instruments to improve intra-Africa trade. The second is developing our greatest asset, our young people, to meet the challenges. The third is strengthening sound governance practices in governments and in businesses across the continent and defeating corruption.
In terms of the first focus area: development of cross-border infrastructure, the plans announced by the President have included some of these - the North-South corridor from the heart of our industrial cities reaching north into the heart of Africa, improvements to the Durban-Gauteng rail corridor opening up links to the region and the manganese export channel through the port in Nelson Mandela Bay. These are examples where these programmes are already in process.
The White Paper on Foreign Policy for South Africa, published last year, emphasises the strengthening of regional economic communities as building blocks for African integration and recognises that future African economic prosperity will only be realised to the extent that the continent is able to rationalise and streamline these communities.
This will include, of course, cross-border infrastructure programmes, thus creating seamless routes and connections for trade and interaction for goods and services to be bought and sold, and for people to move freely.
In January, leaders of the continent met in Addis Ababa at the African Union, in terms of the theme or the title "Boosting Intra-African Trade. I would like to quote again from the article in The Economist. It says:
Trade barriers have been reduced at least a bit and despite the dearth of good roads, regional trade - long an African weakness - is picking up. By some measures intra-African trade has gone from 6% to 13% of the total volume. Some economists think the postapartheid reintegration of South Africa on its own has provided an extra 1% in annual GDP growth for the continent, and will continue to do so for some time. It is now the biggest source of foreign investment for other countries south of the Sahara.
So, although much of this work is under discussion on regional and continental levels, I believe there is still much work to be done.
The second area of focused attention is our young people. Africa has one of the youngest populations in the world. It is our greatest asset as a country and indeed as a continent. We must spend every effort to make sure our young people are educated and acquire the requisite skills to take advantage of what The Economist defines as a boom in sub-Saharan Africa.
Here again The Economist makes a comparison with Asia. It says:
There is another point of comparison with Asia: demography. Africa's population is set to double from 1 billion to 2 billion over the next 40 years. As Africa's population grows in size, it will also alter in shape. The median age is now 20 in Africa compared with 30 in Asia and 40 in Europe. With fertility rates dropping, that median will rise as today's mass of young people moves into its most productive years. The ratio of people of working age to those younger and older - the dependency ratio - will improve. This "demographic dividend" was crucial to the growth of East Asian economies a generation ago. It offers a huge opportunity for Africa today.
We need to be ready, therefore, to take advantage of this demographic dividend.
The third area I mentioned that I believe needs this attention is entrenching good governance models on the continent. The efforts made thus far have resulted in more countries in Africa having held democratic elections in the past decade than ever before. For the past 17 years our foreign policy's number one priority has been our African agenda, with much work focused on developing solid continental institutions.
Looking at the achievements of our own policies and of other developments on the continent, there has been steady, even dramatic, progress. It is only 10 years since the launch of the African Union in Durban in 2002. This union at its heart aspires to bring unity to a huge and diverse continent and to spearhead the continent's development through its New Partnership for Africa's Development, Nepad, programme.
The AU's organs include, amongst other organs, the Pan-African Parliament, which is headquartered here in Gauteng; the African Court of Justice; and the African Peer Review Mechanism - that innovative and unique system of peer review among nations.
We can be justly proud that this body is now strengthened by the appointment of former Deputy President and current national chairperson of ANC, Baleka Mbete, to the panel of eminent persons.
These are very good developments and there are many others.
We must, of course, also recognise the difficulties the AU and its organs have confronted as they develop, but the start has been made and in the grand scheme of things considerable progress has been made in a relatively short space of time. The European Union, for example, is still battling with some of these problems 50 years down the line.
All this is encouraging and even exciting. So the question again is: Are we ready as a county to grow and build with the rest of the continent? In addition to writing a new South African story, are we ready to be part of writing a new African story? Do we fully recognise the desirability and indeed the necessity for us to link our growth to that of the continent?
Let me relate a little story that happened during the first stages of the economic crisis in 2008 when I was watching, like everybody else, those dramatic events unfolding. Banks were collapsing, markets were tumbling, the United States and other governments were pumping money into their respective economies to prevent total collapse. Huge amounts of money were being discussed with many noughts, and it's even difficult to conceive of some of those sizes of the budgets and cash that were being made available. And this all flashed across the television screens as trillions of dollars were pumped into economies to stave off disaster.
I watched as politicians abroad were interviewed, saying that this injection was needed and that indeed it was hoped it would prevent a total collapse. One commentator, on hearing this said: "Yes, but hope is not a strategy." I agree with him.
Hopeful Africa yes, but hope is not enough. We need focused and realistic strategies, diplomatic and other, to build our regional communities, to improve our intra-Africa trade, to entrench models of good governance and defeat corruption, and to upskill our young people to meet the challenges.
We need close working relationships with our African neighbours. We need diplomatic strategies to overcome our differences ...
The SPEAKER: Hon members, you are making it very difficult for those who want to listen to hear the speaker. The noise level is very high. Continue, hon member.
Ms S C VAN DER MERWE: We need diplomatic strategies to overcome our differences and to work in a more united way in our union. Our neighbours may well be competitors, but we should welcome this as their strength can only improve our own prospects in a race to benefit people right across the continent.
The White Paper on Foreign Policy which is entitled "The Diplomacy of Ubuntu" underscores this point. It states that South Africa's relations with individual African countries remain central to its foreign policy practice and that of the region. South Africa, it says, will also pursue closer synergy between its bilateral and multilateral engagements, thus linking our regional work with our work with individual countries.
This is further encouragement then, but let us not forget some of the most urgent of our challenges that the President has also spoken to: the issues of poverty and disease. In this regard, the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations give us targets to aim for to improve these chronic curses.
The article in The Economist,which I have referred to, concludes in the following way:
Progress towards achieving the MDGs is slow and uneven, but it is not negligible. The mood among the have-nots is better than at any time since the independence era two generations. True, Africans have a remarkable capacity for being upbeat. But it seems this time they really do have something to smile about.
In concluding, I would like to pay tribute to a great South African internationalist, Johnny Makhathini. The President announced last week that the diplomatic guesthouse in Pretoria would be named after Johnny Makhathini. I never knew him, but I wish I did because I have heard much about him. In the eyes of his comrades and friends he was a legendary figure in international engagements and he was the ANC's permanent representative to the UN from 1977, amongst other roles. He was a gifted and eloquent debater on international issues during the dark apartheid years. He was, by all accounts, a fascinating person.
The guesthouse named after him is a beautifully renovated house on Waterkloof Ridge, looking out over the African savannah. It is a place that is perfectly suited to remember his contribution to our country. I hope that he would smile at what has been achieved and at the encouraging prospects of what we still have to do. I thank you very much. [Applause.]
Mr L M MPHAHLELE / Mn/src(ch) / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 17
Ms S C VAN DER MERWE
Mr L M MPHAHLELE: Hon Speaker, honourable President, hon Deputy President, hon members and hon guests, the PAC of Azania welcomes the President's admission that the "willing-robber, willingly robbed" land distribution policy does not work. [Applause.] [Laughter.] Our forebears took up arms to defend the land and its riches.
Sesotho:
Ya lla koto, ya kgutla naha, mobu le matekwane a yona.
English:
The return of the land must be the first prize of the revolution. Let democracy be a bonus. Any liberation minus the return of our land, the liberation of every grain of soil, is a Mickey Mouse liberation – the ultimate, laughable, make-believe liberation. Africa always was and always will be the African land. Until the land question is decisively resolved in favour of Africans, the whole of the liberation struggle was in vain. Until that happens, the African people will remain the drawers of water and hewers of wood in the land of their forefathers and foremothers.
Sepedi:
Lehumo le tšwa tšhemong, ga le tšwe lefaufaung. Ebile molato wa tšhemo o sekwa tšhemong. Ga o sekwe ka ngwakong goba ka mafuri. [Disego.]
English:
At first, the colonisers gave us the Bible and usurped the land. Today, the neocolonisers have given us the Constitution, and retained the ownership of the land. [Laughter.] They even call it the best Constitution under the sun. Our Constitution glorifies land robbery and justifies colonial looting through the property section. [Laughter.]
IsiXhosa:
Nxamalala, xa uthetha ngomhlaba uyinyathele emsileni. [Uwelewele.] Uliqule uligangathe mfo kaMsholozi, andikuthelekisi xa ndisitsho. [Kwahlekwa.] Usikele uPoqo enqatheni xa uthetha ngomhlaba. [Kwahlekwa.]
English:
Honourable President, the PAC welcomes the good news that the government seeks to eliminate all forms of abusive practices inherent in labour broking. The present slave traders, euphemistically known as labour brokers, have exploited jobseekers long enough. [Applause.] They take as much as 70% of their victims' monthly income. That is slavery.
Honourable President, we welcome the creation of 365 000 jobs during 2011. The PAC wants to know how many jobs were created as a result of the multibillion-rand arms deal.
While we welcome heritage projects regarding Sobukwe's home and grave, we are concerned that the ruling party never honours heroic PAC leaders and events, except for one leader: Sobukwe. [Interjections.]
The SPEAKER: Order, hon members! Order!
Mr L M MPHAHLELE: Even then, they say they honour him because he was once their member. [Laughter.]
In 1967, long before the Matola Raid, a unit of the Azanian People's Liberation Army, Apla, fighters under commander Gerard Kondlo was intercepted by Portuguese forces in Mozambique. What followed was the celebrated battle of Villa Peri. The South African ... [Interjections.] Well, that is true, unless you don't know your history, hon Minister. [Laughter.] The South African government had to send reinforcements to help overcome the freedom fighters. Why is only the Matola Raid memorialised in Mozambique? Why there is a conspiratorial silence over the PAC-inspired Poqo uprisings? Why there is no mention of the Lion of Azania, Zephania "Uncle Zeph" Mothopeng? The heritage project is fundamentally flawed, because it is biased and partisan. It smacks of party-propaganda posturing.
Of the 134 people who were executed for political reasons, 94 were PAC members, and that is beyond denial. Bhekaphansi Vulindlela, a PAC member, was executed at the age of 18, making him the youngest person to be executed for political reasons. I am teaching you a history lesson, hon Minister. [Interjections.]
The oldest person was also a PAC member, Hlathi Blaai, who was executed at the age of 63. Jafta Masemola spent a longer time than any other person on Robben Island as a political prisoner. [Interjections.] David Maphumzana Sibeko pioneered the cause of the South African struggle at the United Nations. In fact, after he had delivered his speeches, African diplomats used to carry him shoulder high. He was a giant. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mr K J DIKOBO
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 17
Mr L M MPHAHLELE
Mr K J DIKOBO: Mr Speaker, honourable President and Deputy President, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members and honoured guests, as a young boy growing up my father taught me the evils of gambling. Under the threat of punishment, my older brothers and I were told not to gamble. In our area, gambling was largely in the form of cards and a dice. I obeyed my father's instructions, except that one day I found myself at a place were other boys were gambling. I did not gamble; I just stood there and watched.
Unfortunately that day, we were ambushed by the then South African Police, and they apprehended us. I protested that I did not take part in the gambling but I was told ...
Afrikaans:
Maar julle staan en kyk. [But you stand and look.]
[Laughter.]
English:
As a young boy then, I concluded that the system was unfair, for how could it lump gamblers and spectators together? Later in life, a lawyer friend of mine explained to me that to law-enforcement officers the fact that I stood there meant that I derived pleasure from what was happening, but if I had not, I should have gone to report that a crime was being committed. [Laughter.]
A moulana also taught me that according to the teachings of the prophet – peace be upon him – I should have received double punishment, because I had received enlightenment, and yet I did not share it with the gamblers. He told me that I was the worst offender. [Laughter.] We will come to this story later.
Mr President, your speech was by and large clear and coherent. The new infrastructure plan had clearly defined activities. The idea of major geographically focused areas is commendable. The plan has the potential to change the face of South Africa for the better and to create the much-needed jobs.
Let us talk about risk analysis, Mr President, and what can go wrong and therefore put this plan in jeopardy. Number one is corruption. Corruption, Mr President. We suspect that as you were addressing this House and making mention of the money allocated for the infrastructure, that there were those who were already salivating, who took out their calculators to compute how much they could make for themselves. [Laughter.] What is going to be the role of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordination Commission, PICC, in ensuring that tenders are awarded to deserving bidders and that appointed contractors do not do shoddy work and leave us with poor infrastructure that will collapse at the mere mention of the words wind or floods? [Laughter.]
What is the PICC going to do to ensure that there is no underspending, as there has been in the Eastern Cape, where the department of education only spent 28% of its allocated infrastructure grant between April and December 2011 - this, in a province that still has mud schools?
Honourable President, you referred to the lesson learned from project management of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup build programme. Very well, sir. Azapo will be watching and we will speak out if we see thing going wrong. Otherwise, history will judge us harshly and say to us ...
Afrikaans:
Maar julle staan en kyk. [But you stand and look.] [Gelag.]
English:
Azapo also welcomes the plan to refurbish hospitals and nurses' homes. Some of the infrastructure in our hospitals has deteriorated to unacceptable levels, mainly because of poor maintenance or no maintenance at all. We are disturbed by reports that we get of nurses and other health professionals staying in dilapidated buildings.
Azapo welcomes the plan to integrate road and rail. The plan, if successful, will reduce the damage that is done to our roads and remove dangerous substances being transported daily on our roads. It will also reduce the number of accidents on the roads of our land. And as you think of these plans, Mr President, Azapo urges you to seriously look at empowering the Department of Public Works to roll out some of these projects or to consider creating another state-owned enterprise to roll out the plan. It is called "Public Works", so let it work.
We thought, Mr President, that in your address you would say something about the situation of hospitals being unable to pay the National Health Laboratory Services, which resulted in the closure of some of the laboratories, temporary as it were, thus leading to the unavailability of services provided by those laboratories. How was the situation allowed to reach those levels?
Azapo has noted with appreciation that you have requested Eskom to seek options on how the electricity price requirements may be reduced. We agree that it is important that Eskom remain financially viable while electricity remains affordable. That is why we call upon the shareholders to increase their investment in Eskom. If this does not happen, many poor people will simply resort to firewood as fuel and, in the process, destroy the forests.
In the state of the nation address, Mr President, you declared 2011 as the year of job creation and promised the creation of 500 000 jobs; 350 000 people have been employed so how do we calculate this? Is this the difference between the jobs that were created and the jobs that were lost? We need to understand. In the same breath, you also promised that fully funded vacant posts in the Public Service would be filled. What is the outcome?
We support you and congratulate teachers, learners, parents and communities on the increase in the matric pass rate. In terms of the Eastern Cape, Mr President – yes, section 100(1)(b) to assist – we are disturbed by reports of a standoff between the national team and provincial officials. Provincial officials are reported to be blocking and frustrating efforts by the national team to bring order. They've effectively shown them the wrong finger. The province is an integral part of South Africa and not some breakaway or secessionist republic. Do something to bring the Eastern Cape into line, for the sake of our children in that province. We have heard the tough talk, Mr President. Azapo now calls upon you to walk the talk.
We agree that the willing-seller, willing-buyer system has not been the best option. As we interact with the Green Paper, Azapo will call upon expropriation as a last resort where everything else has failed.
You want to eliminate all the harmful and abusive practices in labour broking. Well, you can't, Mr President, because the system itself is inherently abusive. It has no single benefit for the workers, because it was never designed to assist them. The solution, in Azapo's view, is a complete ban on labour brokers who are the modern form of slave owners.
We welcome the heritage project announcement, honourable President, more especially the inclusion of other heroes from outside the ruling party. [Applause.] We have noted the inconclusive vote by the African Union to elect a Chairperson of the AU Commission. We have also noted that hon Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will still be a candidate at the next summit. Azapo wishes her well, but then, Mr President, you have not really taken us into confidence on why it is important for the AU, for the Southern African Development Community, for South Africa, and for the hon Minister to be at the helm of the commission. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
The MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT / Mohau, NB – IsiXhosa//Mia Eng (check) / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 18
Mr K J DIKOBO
The MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Mr President, Deputy President, Speaker, hon Members of this House, in his state of the nation address President Zuma reminded us all that "the year 2012 is ... special because it marks the 16th anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic, which gives full expression to our democratic ideals." The President said further that "the Constitution is South Africa's fundamental vision statement, which guides our policies and actions. We reaffirm our commitment to advance the ideals of our country's Constitution at all times."
It is the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa that is our guide as we advance in our quest to create a national democratic society. In its preamble, the Constitution enjoins all of us to:
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen isequallyprotected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.
As we celebrate 100 years of selfless struggle by the ANC, it is important to reflect on how the history of the ANC struggle sought to advance human rights and equal opportunities for all people of South Africa. The struggle for freedom has always been a struggle for human rights, a struggle for justice.
It was, therefore, no coincidence that in 1923 the ANC was the first organisation in South Africa to adopt the Bill of Rights. Its main themes in 1923 were that human rights should be universal, that all South Africans be given the right to ownership of land, and that there should be equality before the law, and that there should be equal political rights.
These fundamental principles were rooted in contemporary democratic thinking and applied to our own specific South African conditions. These fundamental principles laid the basis for the adoption of the Africans' Claims in South Africa document by the ANC in 1943.
The Africans' Claims committed to the following, amongst other things, the abolition of political discrimination based on race, the right to equal justice in courts of law, freedom of movement and the repeal of pass laws, the right to freedom of the press, the right of every child to free and compulsory education, and equality of treatment with any other section of the South African population.
It is also of significance that the Africans' Claims were adopted ahead of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rightsin 1948. It did not end there. The continual struggle for freedom culminated in the Congress of the People, a countrywide campaign that led to the birth of the Freedom Charter, which became a profound policy document that ultimately became and formed the bedrock of our current Constitution in the Republic of South Africa.
The masses of our people, when assembled in Kliptown in 1955, pledged to fight side by side, throughout their lives, until they had won our liberty. It has taken close to half a century for these freedoms and these liberties contained in the Freedom Charter to be realised in a protected, painful struggle for freedom led by the ANC.
Allow me, also, to remind this House that many in the liberation movement suffered the consequences of fighting for the constitutional values that we enjoy today. In this regard, many were imprisoned, many were exiled, many suffered various atrocities at the hands of the repression by the South African security forces. Many paid the ultimate price to ensure that this fundamental vision statement that the President talked about represented and found expression in every sphere of our endeavours as South Africans.
As you would know, these historical documents formed the basis of the mandate of the ANC leaders who led the negotiation process for the free democratic South Africa that we have come to witness today, representing the views and aspirations of millions of South African people. The unbanning of the ANC and other political parties and the release of former President Nelson Mandela and other political leaders set the tone for the negotiated settlement. The Groote Schuur Minute and the Pretoria Minute set the conditions for the negotiations between government and all political formations led by the ANC.
These negotiations, as we all know, ushered in our esteemed Constitution, which was eloquently described by former President Mandela as follows:
This is our national soul, our compact with one another as citizens, underpinned by our highest aspirations and our deepest apprehensions. Our pledge is: Never, never again shall the laws of our land render our people apart, or legalise their repression or oppression. Together we shall march hand in hand to a brighter future.
Therefore, this Constitution is founded on the values that the ANC stands for: nonracialism, nonsexism, respect for human rights and prosperity for all. It enshrines a justiciable Bill of Rights, which, in terms of section 7 of the Constitution, is the cornerstone of our democracy. It enshrines the rights of all people in this land and affirms democratic values, human dignity and freedom.
The independence of the judiciary and the rule of law are the pillars on which the constitutional order is anchored. The separation of powers embodied in our Constitution provides checks and balances to safeguard these values. Each of the three arms of the state has been conferred a mandate by our Constitution.
These mandates are not meant to result in unhealthy competition or conflict with one another, or to put the three arms into antagonistic positions against each other. Instead, the Constitution creates a complementary framework in terms of which powers are exercised in a manner that would entrench the overall text and spirit of the Constitution as a whole.
We should bear in mind that the judiciary, by and large, must, as the late Chief Justice Mahomed would attest, interpret laws that seek to buttress our democratic order in line with the general injunction of the Constitution. These laws are instruments enacted by the legislature. This is a very important principle because the crafters of our Constitution had full knowledge of the inherent tension in the interplay amongst the three arms of the state, hence the powers to make laws do not reside with judges but with the legislature.
Similarly, the power and mandate to interpret the law does not reside with the legislature or the executive but with the judiciary. On the other hand, the executive is charged with political administration to ensure transformation and development, and not with the judiciary.
The Constitutional Court continues to have a significant role in the transformation of society ...
Prince M G BUTHELEZI: Mr Speaker, point of order ...
The SPEAKER: Hon Minister, just hold on for a second. Yes, sir?
IsiZulu:
uMntwana M G BUTHELEZI: ... babanga umsindo laphaya, sikhathele umsindo. [Uhleko.]
The SPEAKER: Hon members of the IFP that side ... [Laughter.] ... and all members in the House, we want to hear the speaker. Proceed.
The MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: The Constitutional Court continues to have a significant role in the transformation of society, which is underscored by a series of landmark judgments by the highest court in the land. These judgments include, amongst other judgments, the Makwanyane judgment which outlawed the death penalty and reinforced the values of human dignity and ubuntu; the Grootboom judgment which gave effect to the right to housing enshrined in the Bill of Rights; as well as the Treatment Action Campaign, TAC, judgment which gave effect to the right to basic health care and access to antiretroviral drugs.
Our evolving jurisprudence championed by our Constitutional Court should always strive to advance the values of a democratic society to improve the quality of life of all our people. It is within this context that the judgments of the courts, in particular of the Constitutional Court, will generate debates and criticism, not unusual in a constitutional democracy.
However, any criticism in this regard will always be welcomed as stated by the late former Chief Justice Mahomed:
What they are entitled to and demand is that such criticism should be fair and informed; that it must be in good faith, that it does not impugn upon the dignity or bona fides and, above all, does not impair their independence because judges themselves would not be the only victims of such impairment.
The assessment, therefore, of the impact of judgments of the Constitutional Court on the transformation of South African society seeks to evaluate the impact of our jurisprudence on the democratisation process. This must, therefore, not be viewed as an attempt by government to undermine the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law which are entrenched in our Constitution.
The ANC government continues to implement laws and programmes to safeguard the constitutional values that advance the national democratic principles that underlie our rainbow nation. The Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Bill, its accompanying Superior Courts Bill currently being debated in Parliament, and the President's proclamation that establishes the Office of the Chief Justice as a separate independent entity, seek to affirm our commitment to the independence of the judiciary.
The measures we have introduced are not an ideological onslaught on the independence of the judiciary, as some of our detractors argue, but are constitutional imperatives entrusted in our government. This includes the obligation to establish a judiciary that reflects the racial and gender demographics of South African society. The transformation of the judiciary extends beyond the racial and gender composition and includes changing the mindset of the members of the distinct arms of the state and the transformation of the legal order to advance the attainment of our national democratic society.
In striving for a better life for all, underpinned by our vision of a nonracial, nonsexist, democratic and prosperous society, we have persistently encountered obstacles, mainly due to the legacies of more than 300 years of colonial oppression, which produced an economy predominantly led and owned by white males. Our agenda is informed by a framework for a mixed economy, where the private sector and our developmental state interplay to resolve the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
This journey towards a national democratic society is and will not be easy as the first president of the ANC, John Langalibalele Dube, told us in January 1912:
Many are the difficulties I foresee in our way – enemies without, fierce and frank; dangers within, undersigned perhaps but still more harmful. It will be an uphill fight, but our watchword shall be "Excelsior!" - onward, higher; cautiously, ploddingly! ... by the nobility of our character shall we break down the adamantine wall of colour prejudice and force even our enemies to be our admirers and our friend.
On this occasion, Mr Speaker, allow me to make a call that we should look beyond our differences and ensure that we all work towards the vision of a national democratic society that is envisaged in our Constitution. We will continue to build a stable, peaceful, democratic, nonsexist and prosperous society, in which the fruits of our country are enjoyed by the people as a whole, as outlined in the Freedom Charter and further consolidated in our guide, the Constitution. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr N T GODI /// NPM//GM (ed) / END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 19
The MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr N T GODI: Mr Speaker, Comrade President, Deputy President, comrades and hon members, I rise on behalf of the APC to congratulate you on your state of the nation address. You spoke to some of the issues critical to taking us forward as a country with clarity, focus and detail.
Our Constitution enjoins us to honour those who suffered for justice in our country. In this year of the centenary of the liberation movement, the APC wants to reiterate that yes, we have a future as much as we have a past. Yes, we had a brutal colonial system of white minority rule that oppressed and exploited the African majority politically, economically and culturally, and that as we live and enjoy this freedom, let's not forget where we come from.
Rural development, land reform and agriculture must be elevated to a higher pedestal as areas of possible and easy competitive advantage. Africans must consume what they produce. Productive land should not be allowed to lie fallow.
The APC agrees fully with you, Comrade President, that land reform has to be done differently. Land reform must be seen not only as a matter of historical redress but also as a matter of social justice. It cannot be that white South Africans should own land out of proportion to their population figures. It is not sustainable.
We, equally, make a call for the development of the rural areas. People in rural areas bear the brunt of underdevelopment and grinding poverty. In many instances they lack basic amenities like water, proper roads, etc.
We also make the call that the role of traditional leaders in socioeconomic development needs to be clearly articulated and properly implemented. The APC, Comrade President, remains concerned that the issue of the remuneration of headmen and headwomen remains a dream deferred.
Despite the half-hearted recommendations of the Seriti commission in August 2011, there has been no implementation. So, headmen and headwomen in Limpopo continue to earn R13 000 per annum, whilst those in the Eastern Cape earn about R86 000 per annum.
Comrade President, the APC calls upon you to hear the pleas and heed the plights of headmen and headwomen, who are both the motive force and underclass of the Institution of Traditional Leadership. The APC submits that the way in which issues of traditional leaders are handled still leaves much to be desired.
The APC has always articulated and striven for a society that is democratic in form, nonracial in character and socialistic in content. The APC therefore welcomes and supports an enhanced role of the state in the economy. The difference in economic development between India and China, as observed by Robert Sobukwe in 1959 and which still holds true today, is the difference between a state playing a key role in the economy and the opposite.
The APC wants to congratulate SADC on taking a firm stand against French neocolonialism. We must continue to challenge for the chairpersonship of the AU Commission. The APC has full confidence in Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. [Applause.] We also wish to applaud Comrade Baleka Mbete on her appointment to the African Peer Review Mechanism. We want to see South Africa playing a more prominent role in the continent's affairs.
The unfolding events in the Syrian Arab Republic are a matter of concern for the APC. However, the APC believes that South Africa must only support the Arab League if it has norms and standards to which it subjects all member states, and not just some because they happen to be ruled by non-Sunnis.
How do oligarchs that do not allow women to watch a soccer game in a stadium, or allow women to drive vehicles, lead a charge to demand human rights and democracy in Syria? South Africa should not allow itself to be used. [Applause.]
Finally, as the APC, we say to the ANC: Happy birthday! The APC loves you. [Applause.]
The SPEAKER: Hon member, you still had another minute to go.
Mrs J D KILIAN / JN ///tfm/// END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 20
Mr N T GODI
Mrs J D KILIAN: Mr Speaker, while the announced super spending on infrastructure development is good news, Cope is concerned that the roll-out of this programme may be impeded by the escalating public wage bill, which already consumes 42% of government expenditure. Furthermore, we are concerned that the President said very little about critical issues that impact on South Africa's positioning as a developing country and as an attractive investment destination. These include education, skills development, service delivery and the rooting out of the scourge of corruption.
Remarkably, the President was also silent on the information and communications technology, ICT, sector and its role in building public-private partnerships for investment in communications infrastructure, which is a key cornerstone for economic growth.
I will deal with a few issues that could place us on a trajectory to development and which could eradicate poverty and inequality. If we however fail to address these challenges, we will fail the nation as a whole, in particular the youth of the country.
In 2009, President Zuma gave South Africa an undertaking that teachers would be in their classes in schools on time and that they would be teaching. Yet, after a crippling teacher strike in
2011, which left thousands of matric learners at their own mercy, the President said this year that we had had remarkable success in basic education on the basis of an upward trend in the matric pass rate, a trend of which the credibility and the quality of the matric results are being questioned by many independent education experts.
Cope, like many thousands of parents in South Africa, believe that the South African public schools system suffers from the dangerous effects of irresponsible career unionism, which is the major source of teacher absenteeism. This sad state of affairs is contributing to a dangerous inequality gap - those who matriculate from schools where teachers are committed to quality education and those who have to fend for themselves when teachers go on strike and when union leaders use teacher strikes to advance their own standing in the ruling alliance. And then the President thanks them for resolving the crisis they themselves created.
Within the first four weeks of the new academic year in the Eastern Cape, which is the province with the worst matric results in the country last year, seven million teaching hours had already been lost, and then the President congratulates the union leaders on resolving the crisis.
The question is: Does the President support his Minister of Basic Education and her efforts in the section 100(1)(b) intervention? Why did he deliver her to the detractors who have no real interest in the wellbeing of the learners of our country? Is the President really serious about quality education and the future of our youth, or are learners in the Eastern Cape knowingly sacrificed in the crossfire on the road to Mangaung? [Applause.]
The President's scant reference to improvements in the fight against crime and corruption was also unsatisfactory. Private-sector initiatives can help, but government should lead this fight. Government needs to send a strong signal. We need public sanction for people in high offices who are caught in corrupt practices.
Why are the harsh sanctions prescribed in the Public Finance Management Act not implemented? Are there too many sensitivities and loyalties that prevent its strict application? Or is it a lack of political will? How many errant officials have been made to pay back the spoils of corrupt practices? According to the Auditor-General, none so far.
When the noose tightens, those guilty of misappropriation of state resources simply resign or they get redeployed somewhere else in the public service. Members of the Ethics Committee of Parliament recently let a former member of the executive off the hook because he resigned from Parliament. But what message does that send, sir, if a member of the executive can escape sanction by simply resigning? Must we resign ourselves to a general perception that bribery and corruption has become a South African way of doing business? No, sir, we should not. As a nation, we need to stand up.
Every day, individuals and organisations around the world stand up to corruption, from accountants, to school teachers, to journalists - people with diverse backgrounds, but with a single message: corruption shall not and will not be left unchallenged, showing that it is possible for ordinary people to do extraordinary things. But it is a lot easier if government plays its part through introducing the necessary penalties in the Executive Members' Ethics Act and other laws that govern the public sector.
We know that where there is power and money, there will be attempts at corruption. The only variable is how serious it becomes and what is done to expose it. We don't need limp-wristed reprimands or redeployment depending on the individual's potential influence in Mangaung. We need firm action from the government, irrespective of the individuals concerned.
South Africans also expected more concrete emphasis on measures to arrest the intensifying collapse of service delivery at local government level. Damning findings by the Auditor-General indicate widespread unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure in local government. Nearly R10 billion of public funds could not be properly accounted for, with much of it potentially being lost through fraud and corruption. Why did the President not express his concerns about this trend? Or does the shadow of a collective voting strength of ANC cadre councillors at Mangaung cloud the issue of local government service delivery failures?
Cope's challenge to the President and the government is to fight corruption with decisiveness. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mr N J VAN DER BERG
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Take: 20
Mrs J D KILIAN
Afrikaans:
Mnr N J VAN DER BERG: Mnr die Speaker, verhoudings is meestal inherent ingewikkelde konsepte. Jy kan nie van verhoudings ontvlug nie. Die hele lewe is deurspek met verhoudings. Vra maar vir enige mens hoe moeilik of maklik dit kan wees. Verhoudings kan die mens laat blom van geluk of dit kan vernietigend wees as dit misluk. Hoe dit ookal sy, verhoudings verg aandag. Dit moet daagliks onderhou word. 'n Goeie verhouding kan ook nie net van een kant af kom nie. Beide partye moet elke dag hard werk om die verhouding te laat slaag, mekaar dinge gun wat die ander se menswees laat blom. Die mens se verhouding met die staat is een van die belangrike verhoudings in sy bestaan. Die veeltalige, multikulturele aard van Suid-Afrika maak eenvoudige, ongekompliseerde verhoudings tog moeiliker, maar dit skep ook unieke geleenthede vir versoening.
Mnr die Speaker, die President se toespraak het op belangrike makroekonomiese sake gefokus, maar Mnr die President, u het gefaal om met ons te praat oor sake wat ons harte raak en ons nasie saamsnoer en versoening aanwakker. Ons is bly die President het 'n versoenende gebaar gerig aan die Khoi-mense en verwys na sekere erfenisgebiede. Ongelukkig was dit net 'n druppel in die emmer. Die President moet weet, en ek wil nie die saak onredelik vereenvoudig nie, die gewone mens meet die regering se agting vir hom as mens op grond van die regering se houding teenoor sy taal en kultuur. Die verskillende taal- en kultuurgroepe waak jaloers oor die eie en wat die ander kry. Alhoewel ons as individue almal lede is van die wonderlike Suid-Afrikaanse nasie is ons vanweë natuurlike faktore tog in verskillende taal- en kultuurgroepe losweg gevoeg. Die groepe is soos die land se kinders: Jy kan nie vir die een iets gee en vir die ander nie. Jy kan ook nie iets by die een wegvat en vir die ander gee nie. Die regering kan ook nie iets belowe en dit nie gee nie. Ons moet ook so optree dat dit nie gesonde nasieskap ondergrawe nie.
Alhoewel daar groeperinge is, moet ons dit nooit uit die oog verloor dat ons saam 'n toekoms moet bou nie. Die toekoms het genoeg ruimte vir almal. Dit is juis oor die toekomsbeskouing waar apartheid so jammerlik gefaal het. Die DA sien 'n wonderlike gesamentlike toekoms vir ons almal onder een sambreel, so 'n mooi bloue. [Tussenwerpsels.] Die Grondwet is ook so geskryf om as versekering te dien dat alle groepe se taal- en kultuurerfenis beskerm word. Dit moet ook bevorder en gevier word. Die regering moet alles moontlik bydra om Suid-Afrika se kultuurerfenisgebiede te beskerm en te bewaar. Ons sal beoordeel word op die wyse waarmee ons met historiese artefakte en die geskiedenis gehandel het.
Dit is nou onverstaanbaar dat die regering onrus en woede saai met die wysigingswetsontwerp oor tale, die South African Languages Bill. In sy huidige vorm is die wysigingswetsontwerp ongrondwetlik en sal die DA alles in sy vermoë doen om elke taal van ons land te beskerm. Taal en kultuur is en bly een van die hoekstene van versoening. Versoening hou ook nooit op nie. Ons sal nooit 'n dag in ons land kan hê waar ons sal kan sê dat versoening nou bereik is nie. Alle verskille is bygelê. Ons moet elke dag onsself afvra: Het ek vandag so opgetree om verdeeldheid, onreg en liefdeloosheid weg te boender? Is ek 'n ware versoener? Ons moet elke dag daarna streef om die taal wat ons moeders aan ons gegee het met sorg te praat, dit blink te poets en 'n besondere poging ook aan te wend onsself meertalig te maak sodat ons kan deel in die trefkrag en darteling van ons inheemse tale. Gaan lees gerus weer 'n mooi gedig in jou taal en raak van voor af verlief op jou eie taal. Dit is tog immers Valentynsdag.
Ons hoor die pragtige Afrikaanse gedig, D J Opperman se Sproeireën, as een voorbeeld:
My nooi is in 'n nartjie,
my ouma in kaneel,
daar's iemand ... iemand in anys,
daar's 'n vrou in elke geur!
As ek 'n stukkie nartjieskil
tussen my vingers buig of knak,
breek uit die klein sproeireën
wat geurend om my hand uitsak,
die boorde weer van Swartfoloos
en met die nartjies om my heen
weet ek hoe dat 'n vrou kan troos.
O my nooi is in 'n nartjie,
my ouma in kaneel,
daar's iemand ... iemand in anys,
daar's 'n vrou in elke geur!
English:
Afrikaans, will you be my Valentine? [Afrikaans, sal jy my Valentyn wees?]
Afrikaans:
Ek dank u. [Applous.]
The MINISTER OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES / AZM MNGUNI (Eng)/VM /Mia (Afr)/ END OF TAKE
UNREVISED HANSARD
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 Takes: 21 & 21A
Mr N J VAN DEN BERG
The MINISTER OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES: Hon Speaker, honourable President, hon Deputy President and hon members, I know that I'm literally standing between the hon members and their Valentine commitments. So, I shall waste no time.
The honourable President has already outlined what was an extensive and very visionary state of the nation address, beckoning us to do more together and united in our diversity to advance our historic mission of total emancipation and construct a national democratic society with high rate of growth and shared wealth.
Never has a vision been so eloquently articulated through concrete projects as in what the President outlined in such a comprehensive fashion and with such admirable thoroughness such that words alone, no matter how beautiful, would seem wholly inadequate.
The central theme of the President's message was that we need to act urgently and concretely to get South Africa working, growing and moving. The vision advanced by the President beckons us to pursue a growth-enhancing economic response path that places at its core infrastructure development and that deals directly with structurally entrenched industrial weaknesses, amongst which is investment in social and economic infrastructure.
The developmental state paradigm has no space for fatalism, but encourages pragmatic creative policy thinking which takes into account the strategic focus of the state, the institutional architecture, the organisation of the state, technical capacity and the political will to take hard decisions that powerful actors or interest lobby groups would otherwise evade.
The state of the nation address is predicated on the government's willingness to correct capital market failures through infrastructure investments as a mechanism to facilitate economic transactions.
As outlined by the President, the state-owned companies are but one of the vehicles for the achievement of the national objectives. The programme outlined in the state of the nation address could potentially position South Africa as a manufacturer of capital and intermediate goods through investment in localisation programmes.
The programme seeks to meet the global demand for our natural resources, exploit economic opportunities in various routes and present a new opportunity in particular for the manufacturing industry to create downstream linkages whilst the electrification programme is responding to our growing economy and seeks to ensure security of supply, with a long-term objective of reducing the carbon footprint by 2030, and building technical expertise that could be converted into a national asset for a global south electrification programme.
Already through the construction of Medupi and Kusile power stations, the socioeconomic impact of Eskom in these communities is massive. The next step is to encourage provincial and local governments to use the technical capacity created by this investment to stimulate local economic development. By its nature, the developmental state is the manager of the strategic sectors of the economy and of the reallocation of resources to productive sectors.
Infrastructure is critical for South Africa to break free from the minerals complex economy and diversify - to build a dynamic economy. We believe that through the public infrastructure programme, we are not only testing our ability to facilitate cross pollination between the public and private sectors, but we will be writing a story on growth that is unique in the South African context.
In that regard, government is determined that it should provide the leadership requisite for infrastructure roll-out to take place, including through resolving all bureaucratic impediments to the speedy and successful implementation of projects. For example, we have acted swiftly to eradicate the obstacles that might impede the implementation of the coal corridor expansion from the Waterberg by engaging with our Swazi colleagues at ministerial level to ensure the commencement of the work towards the 146-kilometre Swazi rail link.
Ministers in the Cabinet understand that the successful implementation of these projects is not merely the responsibility of the relevant state-owned companies, so they are taking the lead. Furthermore, we understand that the Department of Public Enterprises must intensify its focus on its three functions as the shareholder, stakeholder and change manager. The issue of organisational capacity requires that we continue to pay attention to the strength of our state-owned companies, their internal leadership capabilities as well as financial viability.
With regard to Transnet, the company has strong and solid leadership and has been enjoying positive results recently, which have strengthened its balance sheet and enabled it, as the President has stated, to review its capital expenditure plan from R110 billion in five years to R300 billion in seven years.
This emboldened capital expenditure plan is intended to satisfy validated demand and, more importantly, to shift the Transnet capex spend away from focusing on investment backlog, as is currently the case, towards expanding capacity to meet market demand by enabling volume growth, capturing operational efficiencies, expanding funding sources and expanding South Africa's economic transformation by supporting the new growth path.
The focus of this market demand strategy is on growth in order to reposition South Africa as a key global coal, iron ore and manganese supplier, as well as the leading logistics hub for Sub-Saharan Africa and global reference point for container and heavy-haul operations. This will make Transnet one of the largest employers in South Africa, one of the top five global freight railways and one of the top five South African companies in terms of revenue. Its overall headcount will grow by 25% by 2019, from 59 102 workers currently to 73 962, whilst indirect jobs are estimated to increase to 194 303. An amount of R7,7 billion will be spent on training in the next seven years to up-skill the workforce, and the intake of apprentices will increase from 500 to 886 per annum by 2019.
The purpose of this market demand strategy is to reduce the cost of doing business and facilitate job creation, localisation and regional integration. An amount of R31 billion will be spent on local suppliers for locomotive spend over seven years. The investment for the revitalisation of the rolling stock fleet is R125 billion over seven years. Of course, this strategy is financially sound and most of the growth will be internally funded, off the Transnet's strong balance sheet, and only a third of this will require external funding.
In implementing this strategy, opportunities for private-sector participation amounting to about R5 billion in various sectors, such as containers, dry bulk, break bulk, liquid bulk and automotive, will be pursued. Further private-sector participation will also be pursued towards the construction of the dig-out port at the old Durban International Airport.
In addition to this, Transnet has been in extensive discussions with the Ports Regulator of South Africa on the issue of port tariffs to effect a R1 billion rebate - as the President indicated - for exporters of manufactured goods.
Accordingly, we expect that the Ports Regulator will issue the record of decision or tariff decision, which will be effective from 1 April 2012. The automotive sector is one of the key customer sectors that will benefit from the rebate.
In this regard, Transnet has signed an agreement with Toyota on 14 December 2011 to rail all its cars from the Durban Harbour to Gauteng, and from their Prospecton manufacturing plant to the Durban Harbour for exports and to do other value-added services inland and in Durban.
Further to this, Transnet will create additional container handling capacity particularly in Durban in order to ensure that it is able to meet the demand. An amount of R12 billion will be invested to expand the Richards Bay Terminal and a coal terminal will be constructed at the East London Harbour to support coal mining in the Eastern Cape. In addition, Ngqura will finally be officially opened by the President on 16 March 2012 to be positioned as a trans-shipment hub.
It is important to continue operating the container terminals as a complementary system in order to optimise the volumes that can be handled through the South African port system. At the same time, after engaging the National Energy Regulator of SA, Nersa, Eskom should be able to report to the President, government and the public within four weeks about the electricity pricing path favourable to economic growth and job creation. This has been made possible by Eskom's strong financial and operational position, which has enabled some flexibility in how it funds and spends its capital and to introduce internal efficiency measures not previously possible.
Because of this, the company has refined its capital expenditure numbers, re-evaluated its debt-funding approach and performed a detailed interrogation of the future energy demand forecast to enhance its accuracy. However, for this to happen, we must manage the electricity demand, and all South Africans must work together to reduce their electricity consumption by 10% through more efficient usage.
In this regard, we will need a pact, especially with big business, not only to use electricity more efficiently to reduce consumption, but also, it is hoped, to maintain current production levels. We will also need to gain more certainty around Eskom's input costs, especially coal price increases over the next five years. A pact will be needed with the suppliers of coal to limit price increases to the absolute minimum, preferably to single-digit percentages year on year.
Eskom will also need to engage with ratings agencies to ensure that its investment outlook remains stable. In this light, and to provide more certainty to the investor community, Eskom might have to revise its price path going forward without jeopardising its commitments.
The Medium-Term Risk Mitigation Plan shows that the electricity supply-demand balance will remain tight until both the Medupi and the Kusile power plants begin operating.
In the interim, we need efforts to be made from all sectors of society to ensure that the balance is maintained and that load shedding does not happen. We are determined that load shedding can be prevented if businesses, households and government work together to implement supply and demand measures, thus creating a safety net that can see the country and the economy through this period. Additional capacity of 3 000 megawatts is needed to ensure a comfortable reserve margin.
South Africa aims to "keep the lights on" and prevent rotational load shedding. These goals are non-negotiable. The current instability in operating the power system is not acceptable. We need to move from crisis management to reliably providing electricity with scheduled window periods for maintenance. This moment calls for responsible citizenship on the part of individual and corporate citizens of South Africa.
To this effect, we are implementing the 49M energy-saving campaign aimed at mobilising individual South Africans to save electricity in their households. To achieve these objectives, an emergency plan has been developed between the Department of Public Enterprises and Eskom for consideration and approval by government. We are co-operating with the Department of Energy and other stakeholders on these plans.
Mr President, your state of the nation address has elicited an overwhelmingly positive response and communicated a message of profound hope, vision and leadership to the rest of the country.
So thorough were you, Sir, that others used the occasion of this debate to present their own gimmick state of the nation addresses. [Laughter.]
As expected, today we have been treated to the yearly refrain from the opposition, rehearsed and rehashed with the same short-sighted enthusiasm each year, that the President's address did not address this or that, selected by those who lost the general election and therefore the popular mandate. Frankly, we should now be spared such hollow and tired rhetoric and simply be referred to previous years' archives; maybe then we could have finished early enough to be able to attend to our Valentine's commitments. [Laughter.]
Aristotle once said that criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing. On the contrary, since the ANC insists on saying something, doing something and being something, we should accordingly expect criticism. Failing to curb her inexplicable eagerness, the camera-prone hon Mazibuko had to please her constituency eager for doomsday news and criticise the state of the nation address a week before it was delivered.
On the contrary, the DA leader, the hon Helen Zille, applauded the President's focus on infrastructure and correctly challenged the government to cut red tape in order to create jobs. Quite clearly, you have the starkest contrast between the DA leader, whose stint as premier has exposed her to the challenges and intricacies of running a government, and the hon Mazibuko whose only experience is as an opponent who has never had to lift a finger to do anything. [Applause.] Of course, they say the devil finds work for idle minds.
The hon Leader of the Opposition is not only grossly inexperienced, she is also hopelessly clueless. [Applause.] Today she amended her ill-informed remarks made on Thursday night in haste. Her speech in this House earlier was a mere pipe dream and incoherent wish list that reminded me of where we were in 1994, and how far we have progressed since then, when we still stood at the dawn of our freedom. On the contrary, the President's speech built on the proud edifice of 1994, and took South Africa into a future where the economy grows, people work, and the youth are skilled; a South Africa that is growing, working and moving.
The opposition should not limit their understanding of being in this House to be purely for the sake of opposing. If this were the case, I can assure them that they do not need so many seats just to perpetually say "No". The hon Lekota's speech had a pitfall. He spoke so eloquently about job losses and people taking other people's jobs that I nearly believed him, until I was reminded of Mr Shilowa and wondered why his job was taken and who has taken it. [Applause.]
The hon Steenhuisen was quite opinionated for a newcomer. He told us about the beautiful Western Cape model. But what does this model tell us? It tells us of R1 billion in corruption in the communications advert tender; it tells us of no transformation; it tells us that women must stay out of government and probably remain in the kitchen. [Interjections.] He says that the President must side with the poor. The President did this long ago when he joined the struggle to defeat the system that the hon Steenhuisen continues to benefit from, and which he defends so vociferously. The President chose the poor long before Mr Steenhuisen was even an idea in the minds of his parents. [Applause.]
The late US President, Mr Theodore Roosevelt, once said:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
[Applause.]
Those amongst us whose constituencies exist beyond the boundaries of suburban comfort understand that we are obligated to create a country that allows all its citizens access to opportunities and a dignified standard of living.
We face a stubborn set of structural challenges, which the President accurately and most comprehensively addressed in his state of the nation address. We must muster the foresight collectively to galvanise our people towards a future of prosperity for all.
If this dispensation - if our mandate - is to be successfully fulfilled, it is towards this end that we must act collectively as this august House, rather than allow ourselves to be prisoners of a calamitous ideology and a paralysing despair towards which our opposition constantly strives to drag us. The realities that face our country need serious people who understand that we are here to work. Merely criticising is not enough. Hon members, "Happy Valentine's". [Applause.]
Debate interrupted.
The SPEAKER: Hon members, that brings us to the end of the list of speakers for the day. We will resume the state of the nation address debate tomorrow at two o'clock sharp. The House is adjourned. Enjoy what remains of Valentine's Day! [Laughter.]
The House adjourned at 18:22.
C.I//A N N(ed) / END OF TAKE
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