The people's contract for a
better tomorrow
Last
Friday, the 14th of February 2003, we presented our annual
State of the Nation Address to the Joint Houses of Parliament
in Cape Town. This past Monday and Tuesday our national public
representatives had the opportunity to debate this State of the
Nation Address.
Among the important issues we addressed, is the fact that our economy
has for the past decade performed relatively better and has, for ten consecutive
years, posted positive growth.
We spoke about the encouraging development in our manufacturing sector,
which last year grew by 5,4%, the fastest such growth since 1995. By the
end of last year our currency had bounced back from the depreciation of
2001, making it the best performing currency in the world.
We also mentioned the fact that through tax reform we have, since 1999,
managed cumulatively to increase the income of our citizens by R38,1 billion.
This is in addition to the vast amounts of money that we spent on the
most vulnerable in our society through social grants.
All these are important advances in our on-going struggle to defeat poverty
and underdevelopment. The latter add to what we called in our Address
a 'social wage', which we continue to direct to our people, especially
the poor. This 'social wage', as we explained on Friday, includes the
provision of free housing, water, electricity, health care, land redistribution
and many other interventions that have improved the lives of our people.
Because of the achievements we have scored and what we can now do as
we move forward, we made bold to say - the tide has turned!
In addition to other things, we are now in a better position to make
the necessary progress with regard to black economic empowerment, to ensure
that all South Africans participate fully in the economy of the country.
We are also ready to strengthen the critical sector of small, medium and
micro enterprises.
We are able to accelerate the pace of reform in these areas because we
have refined the relevant policies and have some of the necessary resources.
Accordingly we are in a better position to accelerate the pace of the
growth and deracialisation of our economy and society, with a positive
impact on our employment levels.
Indeed, the policies that we have and continue to pursue, have helped
us to push back the frontiers of poverty and open access to a better life.
They have ensured that we are able to move forward on the question of
fundamentally transforming our country into the one that the ANC has fought
for since its formation 91 years ago - a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic
and prosperous South Africa.
Our policies have opened new possibilities for further qualitative and
quantitative advances in the programme of the reconstruction and development
of our country.
We must stress the point that the progress we have made in the transformation
of our country and the numerous positive changes that we spoke about in
the State of the Nation Address did not come of their own. They are an
outcome of the hard work by government and the people as a whole against
formidable obstacles and challenges.
They are the result of the programmes we have pursued since 1994 for
the reconstruction and development of our country. These policies, which
were introduced by the ANC, were themselves elaborations of the policies,
principles and strategic objectives that have guided our movement for
nine decades.
While some in our society were calling for visible changes even a few
months after we came into power, at no time in the course of our work
were we ever under any illusion that our policies will produce instant
positive results. This is so because we are correcting wrongs that were
introduced and entrenched in our society over a number of centuries.
Indeed, we have always been conscious of the fact that although our policies
are correct, it will take time for these policies to have the desired
effect on the multiple challenges inherited from a racially divided society
whose skewed economy was designed to serve the minority at the expense
of the majority.
At the same time, it is important that all of us, as members of the ANC,
should continuously ensure that we fully understand these policies that
inform the work of government, so as to appreciate better the umbilical
connection between the said policies and the historical positions of the
movement on the questions of liberating our people from socio-economic
oppression.
This is necessary because part of our responsibilities, both in our political
education work and mass mobilisation, is to demonstrate the continuum
of the objectives of the movement since 1912 and the consistency of our
strategic objective on the question of liberating Black people in general
and Africans in particular.
This, as we know, refers to political as well as socio-economic emancipation
of our people, so that we can be free from oppression by another human
being as well as being liberated from the ravages of poverty and underdevelopment.
We therefore move forward on the basis of the correct policies that are
pursuant to this overall strategic objective. Out of these policies, we
have worked out and continue to implement programmes that are daily changing
the conditions of our people for the better.
As we know, resources are crucial for the successful implementation of
these programmes. Fortunately, the correct positions we took in terms
of macro-economic policy have made it possible for us to generate the
necessary public and private resources to accelerate our programme for
reconstruction and development.
Among other things, we will increase the pace of change because we have
progressively improved the effectiveness and capacity of the public service
to bring a better life to our people.
At the same time, however, we believe that we can and must do better
to bring services to our people.
In this regard, particular attention will have to be paid to the sphere
of local government. Because local government is the sphere closest to,
and in day-to-day contact with our people, we must continue to increase
its capacity efficiently and effectively to implement our policies.
The overwhelming majority of these local government structures are run
by the ANC. Therefore, their failure to deliver the basic services to
the people means that the ANC is failing to serve the people as it should.
This poses a particular challenge to all of us to ensure that we deploy,
at this sphere of government, the right cadres, with the appropriate skills
and the necessary commitment and passion to improve the lives of our people.
We must also ensure that in all our local government structures, we have
relevant structures of the movement, such as Governance Committees that
are constituted by people who understand the policies of the ANC and government
with regard to the transformation of society. This is in addition to the
presence of strong, vibrant and effective branches and RECs that must
give overall political guidance to the work of our deployed councillors
and others in government.
These Governance Committees should make it their duty to understand the
programmes that we have put in place, to ensure that local government
structures improve the conditions of our citizens at the local level,
and that this actually happens.
They should work out systems to appraise performance and put in place
performance benchmarks for the implementation of our policies and the
delivery of infrastructure and services to the people. This will be an
entirely ANC programme that seeks to constantly evaluate the work we are
doing, so as to rectify mistakes and remove blockages on time and help
to improve the social conditions of our people.
We therefore need comrades who will always be available to work with
councillors and others that are deployed in this sphere, to ensure that
the policies of the movement are rigorously and consistently pursued.
I am certain that every ANC member will agree that we need to pay this
special attention to local government because, amongst other things, better
delivery of our programmes at this level is one of the central elements
to the consolidation of the progress that we have made as a country since
1994.
For example, we announced in the State of the Nation Address, that we
have to reach 50% of those who are eligible for a supply of free basic
water but still have no access to this service, as well as those who do
not receive up to 50kW of free basic electricity in areas connected to
the grid. In non-grid areas, there will be a subsidy of up to 80 % of
the market cost to provide access to electricity services.
Clearly, these are important programmes in our fight against poverty
and underdevelopment. Again, the implementation of these measures will
happen at the local government level.
Hence, we stress what should be an obvious matter, that we cannot postpone
the necessary challenge of sufficiently empowering the structures of local
government. In some instances, this may mean, as we have done in the past,
redeploying some of our cadres from the provincial and national legislatures
and executive structures to strengthen local government.
In addition, we have taken a decision to create a public service stratum
of multi-skilled Community Development Workers who will work directly
with our people.
These workers will help us to make timely and appropriate interventions
on the process of community development and delivery of services to improve
the pace and quality of the implementation of our programmes.
Through these Community Development Workers, we will be taking government
to the people, in a real and practical way.
We have a duty, as the movement of the people, to ensure that we assist
in identifying and encouraging the correct people committed to serve the
people to apply to become Community Development Workers.
Of course, once accepted, they will be further trained and properly supervised
so that they are able to do their work effectively. Like all public servants,
these workers will be guided and inspired by the spirit of Batho Pele.
Those who are not ready to serve the people, including those in the rural
areas, should not bother to apply.
These and other efforts will be in addition to the programme of interaction
of government with the people through izimbizo, so that we can continuously
ensure that there is integration and co-ordination in the work of Ministers,
Premiers, MECs, and Councillors and that government as whole continuously
strengthens its links with the people.
In the State of the Nation Address we said that the tide has turned,
that we must put our shoulders to the wheel to accelerate change and that
our contract with the people for a better tomorrow is taking shape.
We have made these advances because of the selfless contribution of many
true patriots in our country, in government, the private sector and civil
society. These are men and women who value our freedom, appreciate the
challenges that we face to ensure that we become a truly non-racial, non-sexist
and prosperous nation. It is because of their hard work that the tide
has turned!
These patriots are found within the ANC, in other political formations
as well as among individuals who do not belong to any political organisation.
Our duty as members of the ANC, at all levels of the organisation, is
to ensure that we swell the ranks of these patriots so that the people's
contract for a better tomorrow becomes in reality exactly that: a contract
encompassing all the people of South Africa in the struggle to build a
better future.
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