We have to ensure we do more, better

As this edition of ANC TODAY goes to print, we are well on the way to finalise the constitution of the national and provincial governments. We therefore take this opportunity to wish all these governments success in their work over the next 5 years.

As they settle down to work, these governments will have to keep in sharp and clear focus a number of factors. These derive from the commitments we made in our 2004 Election Manifesto "A People's Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty", and the overwhelming mandate we received from the people to govern South Africa.

In our Manifesto we said: "Yes, we have made massive progress (during our First Decade of Democracy). However much, much more still needs to be done. At the heart of our challenges are two linked concerns - we must create work and roll back poverty. These two core objectives are the major focus of our programmes for the Second Decade of Freedom. To achieve this, we need stronger partnership among all South Africans, A People's Contract for a Better South Africa."

Further to explain these commitments, we spoke about our "Vision 2014" and said:

"Guided by the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), our vision is to build a society that is truly united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic. Central to this is a single and integrated economy that benefits all.

"The combination of some of the most important targets and objectives making up Vision 2014 are as follows:

• Reduce unemployment by half through new jobs, skills development, assistance to small businesses, opportunities for self-employment and sustainable community livelihoods.
• Reduce poverty by half through economic development, comprehensive social security, land reform and improved household and community assets.
• Provide the skills required by the economy, build capacity and provide resources across society to encourage self-employment with an education system that is geared for productive work, good citizenship and a caring society.
• Ensure that all South Africans, including especially the poor and those at risk - children, youth, women, the aged, and people with disabilities - are fully able to exercise their constitutional rights and enjoy the full dignity of freedom.
• Compassionate government service to the people; national, provincial and local public representatives who are accessible; and citizens who know their rights and insist on fair treatment and efficient service.
• Massively reduce cases of TB, diabetes, malnutrition and maternal deaths, and turn the tide against HIV and AIDS, and, working with the rest of Southern Africa, strive to eliminate malaria, and improve services to achieve a better national health profile and reduction of preventable causes of death, including violent crime and road accidents.
• Significantly reduce the number of serious and priority crimes as well as cases awaiting trial, with a society that actively challenges crime and corruption, and with programmes that also address the social roots of criminality.
• Position South Africa strategically as an effective force in global relations, with vibrant and balanced trade and other relations with countries of the South and the North, and in an Africa that is growing, prospering and benefiting all Africans, especially the poor."

We went on to spell out some of the details of our Programme of Action over the next 5 years. We also explained how we would work to implement this Programme and take our country forward towards the achievement of Vision 2014. We said:

"Vision 2014, and the practical steps over the next five years to see to its realisation, are the measures that can and will set our country on the road to faster realisation of the ideals of our Constitution - a free South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it, a South Africa whose wealth is used to improve the quality of life of all citizens and a South Africa that works with humanity to build a better Africa and a better world.

"But how will this be done? How do we ensure that these objectives are met?

"We will strengthen co-operation among economic partners - government, business, trade unions and community organisations - to implement agreements of the Growth and Development Summit which are aimed at creating work and fighting poverty.

"We will forge stronger partnerships across all sectors to deal with the challenges of distributing social grants, fighting crime and corruption, improving our common efforts against TB, malaria, HIV and AIDS as well as other diseases.

"We will improve the system of monitoring and evaluation to improve implementation of all these programmes, through stronger monitoring and evaluation units at national, provincial and local levels, and we will ensure that municipal councils - which are closer to communities - meet their mandates.

"We will speed up economic development in rural and urban areas with economic potential, improve skills and access to services especially among women and youth in all parts of the country and intensify the rural development and urban renewal programmes.

"We will recruit more police and provide them with skills to more than match the criminals and their syndicates, and we will make life more and more difficult for those who amass wealth through corrupt means.

"We will strengthen South Africa's Early Warning Mechanism on Africa and dedicate more resources to ensure that we contribute more effectively to the efforts on our continent to prevent and urgently resolve conflict."

In addition to all this, we also made a firm commitment to all our people, which our national and provincial governments have an obligation to honour. We said:

"The ANC commits itself, working within communities and within government, to play its part in forging this People's Contract for a Better South Africa, inspired by its commitment to democratic consultation, mass participation and volunteerism, Moral Regeneration as well as people-centred and people-driven development."

Almost 70% of the electorate voted for the ANC. As we said when we celebrated this outstanding victory:

"The people of South Africa have made a clear statement that they are confident that the ANC will lead them to the achievement of the goal of a better life for all. In their millions, South Africans of all races have pledged that they are ready to enter into a people's contract to create jobs and fight poverty.

"The people have voted overwhelmingly to renew the mandate of the ANC to govern South Africa. They have done so because:

"They know that working together with all our people, the ANC government will succeed to push back the frontiers of poverty, (and) because they know that the ANC is a movement of the poor of our country, regardless of race, age or gender."

We went on to say that "as a movement we must celebrate our victory with all due humility. We must not allow the decisive mandate we have received from the people to encourage an attitude of arrogance among ourselves."

We said that "on behalf of the ANC and all the democratic forces of our country, (we) would like to tell all our people that we will not disappoint (their) expectations. As we said at the conclusion of the 1999 elections, we must now get down to work!"

And so all our governments must now get down to work! None of us should allow ourselves to be distracted by mischief-makers and those with personal agendas, who have been speculating and will continue to speculate about who might or might not have been in any of the national and provincial governments.

The masses that elected us are not interested in any of these manoeuvres. They have mandated us to implement what we said in the 2004 Manifesto and not to engage in fruitless factional fights.

The overwhelming majority of those who voted to renew our mandate are poor people. They are black and white, men and women, the young and the elderly. Many of them depend entirely on the government to empower them to do what they can to help improve their lives, responding to our call to them to join the people's contract.

They know that they cannot depend on "the market" to achieve a better life. However, they are certain that they can depend on the ANC and the governments it has formed to realise this objective. Accordingly, we have an absolute obligation to honour the commitment we made to them, that we will not disappoint their expectations.

In this regard, I would like to highlight two issues raised in our 2004 Manifesto. We said: "we will ensure that municipal councils - which are closer to communities - meet their mandates." We also said: "We will improve the system of monitoring and evaluation to improve implementation of all programmes, through stronger monitoring and evaluation units at national, provincial and local levels."

Accordingly, all relevant structures of our movement must ensure that the municipal councils do indeed meet their mandates. Necessarily, government must also carry out a thorough review of our system of governance so that we empower local government to discharge its responsibilities to the people.

Our 2002 Stellenbosch National Conference resolved that we must carry out the "monitoring and evaluation" work mentioned in the 2004 Manifesto. Both the ANC and our governments will therefore have to take the necessary steps to ensure that this is done.

We must do this "to improve implementation of all (our) programmes", as we said in the Manifesto. There is therefore no intention to abuse the monitoring and evaluation processes to carry out a witch-hunt and indiscriminate purging of cadres deployed in government.

However, those of us working in government, whether we are members of the ANC or not, must know that our obligation to meet the commitments we made to the people, as well as the imperative to respect the overwhelming mandate given to us by the people, necessitate that those who are not ready and prepared to serve the people of South Africa should be ready and prepared to leave government.

In our Manifesto we said: "Our goal is to create a South Africa in which all can experience an improving quality of life, enjoying equal human rights, with access to opportunities that freedom has brought us, and bound together as a nation by our humanity.

"Working with (everybody) in a People's Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty, we are confident of success.

"Together we can and will do more, better! A better life for all!"

Our national and provincial governments will have to ensure that practically we do more and better, successfully addressing the challenge of a better life for all, for whose realisation the masses of our people gave us an overwhelming mandate.

Workers Day

Workers have much to celebrate, many challenges ahead

As South Africa celebrates Workers' Day on 1 May, the country's workers have much to celebrate, including the ANC's decisive victory in the 2004 elections. At the same time, there is still much work to be done to ensure that the country's working class can fully benefit from the achievements of freedom.

The decisive mandate the ANC received in the 14 April election, primarily from the poor and working class, means that workers can celebrate on 1 May with a government that reflects their interests and aspirations. It ensures that the gains made by workers in the first decade of democracy are consolidated and advanced as the country enters its second decade of freedom.

It means that South Africa will be led for the next five years by the people 's movement, committed to working with all stakeholders, all communities and all citizens to ensure that the country is able to tackle the high levels of unemployment and push back the frontiers of poverty.

In their millions, South Africans have endorsed the concept of a people's contract in which everyone has a role to play in building a better life for all. As in the struggle against apartheid, and in the struggles of the first decade of democracy, workers will need to be playing a leading role in forging this people's contract and ensuring that the country meets the ambitious goals it has set for itself.

Gains for workers

In the first decade of freedom, the ANC worked alongside workers to protect their rights and improve their working and living conditions. It worked, together with all South Africans, to meet the basic needs of the country's poor and to tackle the apartheid legacy of poverty and unemployment.

Working together with its alliance partners, the ANC fought for the inclusion of workers' rights in the new democratic Constitution, which was adopted in 1996. It guaranteed workers' rights to fair labour practices; the right to form and join trade unions, strike and picket; and the right to collective bargaining.

In the previous year, the ANC-led government introduced the Labour Relations Act (LRA) which, for the first time, gave labour rights to all workers, including domestic, farm and public sector workers. The LRA ensures employers cannot dismiss workers for being members of a union or for legal strike action; and requires employers to consult on retrenchment. It set up the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to provide easier and faster dispute settlement.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act, adopted in 1997, ensures decent minimum conditions for all workers, including contract and outsourced workers, and farm, domestic and informal workers. The law bans child labour, and provides sick, maternity, annual and family leave for all workers. It provides for overtime payment and limits the number of hours workers must work every day. It allows for the government to set minimum wages for vulnerable workers like domestic and farm workers.

With this basic legislation in place, the ANC-led government also introduced legislation to end discrimination in the workplace and redress the racial and gender imbalances in the workforce. The Employment Equity Act of 1998 prohibits unfair discrimination and requires employers to develop and implement a plan for improving representivity among their workforce.

Health and safety legislation introduced by the ANC-led government over the last ten years gives workers the right to monitor health and safety in their workplaces through joint committees with employers. Unions have the power to monitor occupational safety, and workers can refuse to work in dangerous conditions. The ANC-led government has also ensured that all workers have equitable access to compensation funds for injuries suffered at work.

Through the provision of social infrastructure and services, the ANC-led government has worked to improve the lives of working people and the poor. In the first decade of democracy, the ANC has provided subsidised housing for an additional six million people; improved access to education; ensured that millions of children receive free meals at school; and extended social grants from 2.6 million people in 1994 to over 7 million people in 2004. On an unprecedented scale, it has expanded the provision of water and sanitation, electricity and telephones to millions who did not have before.

All of these areas of progress reflect gains for workers, that need to be consolidated and built on in the coming years. They confirm that South Africa is steadily making progress towards achieving a better life for all.

Challenges ahead

However, much more needs to be done. Many challenges remain, particularly for workers and the millions of South Africans still living in poverty. It is for this reason that the ANC has developed a vision for the next 10 years which seeks to make decisive and lasting progress in tackling unemployment, poverty and related social challenges.

Over the last few months, the ANC has been meeting with South Africans across the country - in their homes and in their workplaces - to discuss this vision for 2014 and the programmes that need to be taken up over the next five years to achieve this vision.

Working together with all South Africans, the ANC is seeking to halve unemployment by 2014 through new jobs, skills development, assistance to small businesses, opportunities for self-employment and sustainable community livelihoods. This needs to take place alongside efforts that reduce poverty by half through economic development, comprehensive social security, land reform and improved household and community assets.

South Africans need to work together to provide the skills required by the economy; build capacity and provide resources across society to encourage self-employment; and build an education system that is geared for productive work, good citizenship and a caring society.

We need to work to ensure that all South Africans, especially the poor and those at risk, are fully able to exercise their constitutional rights and enjoy the full dignity of freedom.

These are the key tasks for the country over the next five and ten years. As we celebrate Workers' Day, we need to reaffirm the leading role that the working class needs to play in ensuring that these tasks are undertaken with commitment and determination.

Theological comment

A manifesto for people of faith

There are many people of faith in the ANC. Christians from the 'main line' Churches, African Indigenous Churches, many Pentecostal groups, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahái's and many people who do not have religious institutions, but who have the energy of faith inspired by other traditions, visions and philosophies, have together stamped a high tone on the ANC's 2004 Manifesto.

Those who say the ANC is atheist are simply wrong. Practicing their different rituals, clad in different clothes, citing separate songs and scriptures, ANC supporters may seem divided, but in our struggle for liberation and transformation they share a belief in God and support a common political platform.

Through their calls upon Jehovah, Jesus, Thixo, Allah, Umvelinqangi, Krishna, Modimo, or the teaching of the Buddha, Bahula, or Marx, similar themes emerge. We are all spiritual people, even though we are not all religious. We recognise a supreme driving force of goodness, success, and hope in the heart of the human community which does liberate and does transform. We have seen it happen.

So the ANC 2004 Manifesto begins on the note of celebration and thanksgiving. Despite the horrific situation we faced a decade ago, and however big the problems of today, or fears of the future, we celebrate a South Africa that has experienced a major transformation. "Ten years ago I was filled with fear and foreboding at what might happen under an ANC government," said a leader of the NGK recently. "I am so glad to admit how wrong I was. My proudest boast today is to say with our President: 'I am an African'!"

We celebrate ten years of freedom and democracy, ten years of peace and progress in a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it. Much, much remains to be done, but we can tackle it in confidence because the Faith and Hope we had in the past has worked.

Spiritual Politics

A Manifesto is a political pronouncement, but this one is full of words which figure in spiritual tracts: together, commitment, compassion, caring, confidence, hope, justice, peace, cooperation, working with, partnerships, volunteerism, healing, the poor and marginalised. Such concepts indicate the deep spiritual awareness that drives ANC policies in promoting a people's contract to create work and fight poverty in the immediate future.

We recognise that the present dominant economic international system makes most people poor. How can we build a system which creates work, and pushes back the frontiers of poverty? The Manifesto makes a commitment to unite with all our people behind this quest.

It is quite different from manifestos of parties that promote the interest of a small group, of the justification of violent oppressors, or parade the claims of 'entitlement'. There is nothing in the manifesto about politics to seek privileges for race, creed, or wealth.

ANC members have certainly criticised those who have misused religion, and who try to separate faith from politics and economics. Some colonial religions tried to make religion a tool of oppression, or used it as a hiding place from the demands and joys of real life.

The ANC believes that Faith and Politics go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin. We believe that the African world view of religion as an inclusive factor of life is accurate: ubuntu is an holistic view of life in the whole community. It is spiritual politics.

The manifesto accepts the hard fact that selfishness, hatred, greed and lust exercise a major influence within the human community. Whole societies can become corrupt. The over emphasis on individualism by religions, economics and politics in the past has largely destroyed the sense of community which is basic to successful human life. In this spiritual wasteland all the evils of corruption, exploitation, crime, economic systems which make people poor, and the social roots of criminality, flourish. The manifesto recognises this and commits itself to support not simply individual goodness, but a social contract to transform our communities.

A People's Contract

The political thrust of the manifesto recognises the necessity of a broad social response. The achievement of a better life for all is the only way to a better life for me. The 'good life' does not happen by retreating to a remote private world, but in a social contract for a morally regenerated community. The transformation of South Africa cannot be achieved by saying it must be done by the government, or religions, or business, or the unions, or women, or the youth, or the men: it needs a contract between all of us to make the 'good life' happen.

The manifesto picks up the common political threads and social objectives which mark the path of all religious teaching, with practical policies built on the priorities of the prophets. The 'Better Life for All' means food, housing, water, services and concern for the poor which all the holy teachings commend. "Removing discrimination", "social grants", "combining resources", and the quest of "a society that truly cares" are political statements which turn spiritual calls into practice.

It means we shall put work for all in front of profit for some; practice people power by encouraging everyone to take part in local wards and government; rediscover volunteerism, the spirit of personal commitment which brought us liberation from apartheid and will also bring us the transformation of our society.

The Manifesto thus strikes deep chords in the theological community. It raises major questions about human life systems, ownership, and ubuntu which do not limit faith to saving souls or life after death. It means taking practical steps towards a growing economy; a sustainable livelihood; access to services; comprehensive social security; and tackling crime and corruption. The manifesto also recognises that we can only achieve our objectives by working in harmony with Africa and the world.

All of these objectives have deep spiritual roots. They are positive tasks which religions and politics can work together to achieve. The ANC is a Parliament of the People, a 'broad church', and all groups are represented within it, including all religious groups. Freedom makes room for widespread differences of opinion, and enables a commitment to mediate, to agree the broad thrust of our quest for a better life for all.

Within the ANC membership, and in the relationship between the ANC and religious bodies we respect and celebrate our diversity, and commit ourselves to live in peace and harmony. Our points of agreement are far greater than anything else.

We conclude by remembering the words of former President Nelson Mandela to religious leaders: "The transformation of our country requires the greatest possible cooperation between religious and political bodies, critically and wisely serving our country together. Neither political nor religious objectives can be achieved in isolation. They are held in a creative tension with common commitments. We are partners in the building of our society.

"Our people belong to different political parties and religions, and some with strong ethical and moral values have no formal political or religious ties. Yet all of us have strong beliefs.on points on which we do agree. Is there a form of cooperation between religion and politics which does not compromise independence, but combines our forces to the maximum to improve the quality of life of all our people?"

** This is an edited version of an article that appears in the April 2004 edition of Phakamani, an occasional magazine published by the ANC Commission for Religious Affairs.

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