Forward to a decisive ANC victory on 1 March!

Our next local government elections will take place on 1 March, two days before the publication of the next edition of this journal. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to wish all our people successful and peaceful democratic elections that must produce municipal governments that are accepted by all as being born of the unfettered will of the people.

We also urge all our cadres and members to sustain their interaction with the masses of our people to encourage them to exercise their democratic right to vote, and thus select municipal legislatures and governments of their choice. This means that we must not rest even on Election Day, since we must assist the voters to exercise this democratic right by providing transport for them to reach the polling stations.

Our movement considers local government as a vitally important sphere of our system of governance. For many years now, we have paid sustained attention to the task to ensure that local government is organised and empowered effectively and efficiently to meet its obligations to the masses of our people.

In April 1991, as we prepared for the negotiations that resulted in the adoption of the 1993 Interim Constitution, we adopted a document entitled "Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa". In this document we said: "We believe that there is a need for strong and effective central government to handle national tasks, strong and effective regional government to deal with the tasks of the region, and strong and effective local government to ensure active local involvement in handling local issues...Local tasks cover all the day-to-day aspects of living which most directly and intimately affect the citizen in an integrated and non-racial local authority area. The active local involvement of all sections of the population will be necessary in the fulfilment of these tasks."

We returned to this issue in the document "Ready to Govern", issued in 1992, which contained our policy guidelines for a democratic South Africa as adopted at our National Conference. In this important document we said:

"Local government will:

• Play a crucial role in building democracy in a future South Africa. Local government will bring government closer to the people and actively involve them in decision-making and the planning processes which affect them; and,
• Play a key role in development and in the equitable redistribution and re-allocation of local authority services. It will address as a priority the disparities in our cities, towns and villages which have resulted from the policies of apartheid. The promotion of the needs and interests of disadvantaged sections of communities will therefore become a major focus of local government activities..."

We went further to say that: "Local government must be developmental in character. Local government should actively promote the processes of sustainable and participatory community development. Local government should address unemployment and poverty through local economic development and promotion of informal sector activities. In particular, local government should take steps to protect the interests of the poor through appropriate forms of tenure, housing and access to employment opportunities..."

Further to emphasise the central importance of the local sphere in our system of governance in the process of social transformation, we went on to say:

"A future system of local government must not only assert non-racialism and non-sexism, but will need to actively build non-racialism and non-sexism in processes designed to counter decades of discriminatory government. The ANC is committed to ensuring that mechanisms are built into the system to enable women to participate in decision making and administrative structures at all levels of regional and local government...

"Women must be actively brought into the decision-making process. Programmes must be designed to equip women with skills to enable them to participate. In this regard, special attention will have to be paid to the rural areas where women are disproportionately located."

Throughout our years of democratic rule, our movement has been concerned to implement this decision on women's emancipation and gender equality as it relates to local government, within the overall context of building a non-sexist society. Accordingly, our 2005 National General Council accepted the proposal of our National Executive Committee that the ANC candidate lists for the 2006 local government elections should reflect gender parity.

Our movement must draw great pride and satisfaction from the fact that this NGC decision has indeed been implemented. Consistent with its role as the leading force in our country for the creation of a non-sexist society, it comes as no surprise that the ANC is the only political formation contesting the local government elections that has presented to our people candidate lists that reflect genuine commitment to the achievement of the goal of the emancipation of women.

During the negotiations that resulted in the elaboration and adoption of our National Constitution, we argued for the incorporation of the local government vision we had spelt out in out "Constitutional Principles" and the document "Ready to Govern".

Accordingly, in its Chapter 7, our Constitution says:

"The objects of local government are -

• to provide democratic and accountable government for local communities;
• to ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner;
• to promote social and economic development;
• to promote a safe and healthy environment; and
• to encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government.

"A municipality must:

• structure and manage its administration, and budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the social and economic development of the community; and
• participate in national and provincial development programmes."

All this reflects the extremely serious role we have allocated to local government within the context of responding to the challenge posed to all of us by our Constitution - to build a democratic, united, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.

Properly to respond to this challenge, we have to ensure that local government does indeed "provide democratic and accountable government for local communities", as our Constitution says, as well as "bring government closer to the people and actively involve them in decision-making and the planning processes which affect them", as we said in the document "Ready to Govern".

To achieve these outcomes requires that we act on two fronts. One of these is that we must ensure that as many of our people as possible vote during the forthcoming local government elections to produce the democratic governments we need.

Accordingly any attempt to discourage the people from participating in the elections can only be directed fundamentally at compromising our advance towards the achievement of the goals of the national democratic revolution, which include the establishment of a strong, democratic and popular developmental system of local government.

The second front on which we have to act is to provide the sphere of democratic local government with the necessary human, financial and other resources to enable it effectively to discharge its responsibilities to the people. And indeed, we have firmly committed ourselves to the realisation of this objective and must pursue it with great determination, properly to empower the municipal governments that will be formed as a consequence of the 1 March elections.

Those who claim to come from the ranks of the progressive movement should therefore know that to destroy the people's property held in trust by the municipal authorities is to act in a manner directly intended to weaken and destroy the capacity of our movement to bring about the fundamental social transformation that constitutes the very essence of the national democratic revolution, through the system of local government.

Fully understanding the critical role of the system of local government in this regard, in its January 8th Statement, our National Executive Committee declared this 94th year of the fighting existence of the ANC as "The Year of Mobilisation for People's Power through Democratic Local Government".

In this Statement the NEC said: "The work we did last year confirmed the vital importance of our system of local government with regard to the achievement of the central goal of securing a better life for the people. We must therefore take the forthcoming local government elections as presenting us with an important challenge to ensure that this sphere of government performs optimally with regard to all our socio-economic programmes directed at the further improvement of the quality of life of all our people."

The entirety of our movement must respond vigorously to this challenge, fully understanding that this is one of the central tasks of the national democratic revolution, which all genuine members of our movement must respect.

We identified a fundamental element of our approach to the construction of our democracy when we said in 1991 that "the active local involvement of all sections of the population will be necessary in the fulfilment of the tasks (of local government)". This expressed the view we must continue to pursue, of a people's contract for progressive change and a people-driven process of social transformation.

One of the outstanding features of contemporary human society is the tendency towards the empowerment of the working people to act as an independent force in defence of their interests. As a revolutionary movement we have welcomed this and sought to give it progressive content by advancing the concept and practice of a people's contract for progressive change. Local government is one of the critical areas within which we must give expression to the strategic vision of this people's contract.

The World Bank entitled its 1999/2000 World Development Report "Entering the 21st Century". Among other things, it said: "People around the world are demanding greater self-determination and influence in the decisions of their governments - a force this Report has labelled (as) localisation...The experience of the last 15 years shows that the devolution of powers affects political stability, public service performance, equity, and macro-economic stability."

In this context, the Report took particular note of the work we had done to establish our system of local government. It said:

"South Africa and Uganda have adopted ambitious decentralisation programmes and...are emerging as two important models for devolving centralised power...Apartheid fostered a dual structure of government based on race. For whites, it promoted accountability, political involvement, and effective service delivery.

"But blacks, segregated in 'homelands' and 'townships' on the fringes of urban areas, had limited access to public goods and services. To reverse this racial system, the new constitution provides for a comprehensive decentralisation policy, which the leadership has been implementing...Decentralisation has succeeded in becoming one of South Africa's main instruments of unification."

Decentralisation, resulting in the consolidation of our system of local government, must lead us to the achievement of the strategic outcome identified in this year's January 8th Statement - the exercise of People's Power through Democratic Local Government.

Relying on the great confidence of the masses of our people in our movement, our immediate task in this context is to go all out to achieve a decisive ANC victory in the March 1st elections!

Government Programme Update #1

Practical projects towards accelerated and shared growth

Following the State of the Nation address on 3 February, cabinet ministers addressed a number of briefings on progress in the implementation of government's programme of action. During the course of the next few weeks, ANC TODAY will publish edited extracts of those briefings, beginning, this week, with the economic cluster:

The Cabinet Lekgotla met in January 2006 at a time when there is broad agreement that the economy continues to improve its performance in key areas. The macro-economic fundamentals are in place and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) is set to drive the economy to a higher rate of growth that will optimise broad-based impact. It will seek, at the very least, to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014.

In short, ASGISA is a programme of targeted interventions that will stimulate 'business unusual'. To this end, government's economic and investment cluster used ASGISA as a framework for identifying priorities that it will focus its attention on in 2006. This has resulted in the identification of strategic interventions, currently numbering twenty-seven projects. These interventions will have a high impact on economic development and will be achieved though intensive coordination across the cluster departments.

The identification of projects was also informed by other government policies. The previous year's programme of action was also taken into account when formulating the cluster's approach, with incomplete projects being absorbed into the 2006 programme or into departments' programmes.

The emphasis of the cluster's approach is on improved coordination, strengthened implementation, better monitoring, sharper planning and greater accountability. This approach will ensure the cluster fulfils its role in the delivery of targeted growth.

Macro economy and sector investment strategies

The National Treasury will be engaging in modelling the impact of interventions across the economy with the objective of highlighting gaps and necessary interventions. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be finalising the National Industrial Policy Framework that will include a regional development strategy and focus on strengthening competition regulation. The policy will focus on unlocking South African industrial development in a sustainable manner through identifying strategic industrial interventions.

The Department of Communications will be leading a project to bring down the costs of information and communications technology (ICT). This project will dovetail with Sentech's infrastructure project. The project will focus on creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment and remove Telkom's monopoly in the fixed line network. This will have the effect of reducing telecommunication prices to internationally competitive levels and assist in the achievement of universal service.

One of the sector investment strategies that is perceived as having massive potential for job creation is Business Process Outsourcing and Offshoring (BPO&O). This project, led by the DTI, will hinge on the development of customised incentives, a marketing strategy and skills development programme that together will stimulate growth of the industry. The BPO&O project will include a specific focus on creating job opportunities in five poor rural nodes.

Together with DTI, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism will lead a programme to accelerate the growth of tourism. This strategy, aimed at job creation and earning more foreign exchange, will be based on an improved marketing strategy, an airlift strategy, customised incentives, improved data collection, improved tourist safety and security, enhanced product offering, business development aimed at small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and improved tourist public transport. The effect of this strategy will be the removal of constraints to growth of this labour intensive sector.

Public Investment

In terms of public investment, which includes expenditure of R370 billion over the next three years, the cluster has chosen three major infrastructure spend projects to champion with three supporting initiatives.

The three infrastructure spend projects include the development of the Olifants River System with the construction of the De Hoop Dam. Led by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, this year will see the completion of site preparations and dam construction with the diversion of the Steelport River. The impact of the project will be to supply water for mining development and social needs in Sekhukhune area.

The second infrastructure spend will be focused on the development of the Durban-Gauteng corridor. The corridor will aim to develop an integrated freight system between Durban and Johannesburg for all modes of transport. Led by the Department of Transport, the project will, during the course of 2006/7, establish a stakeholder committee, complete a logistics plan and feasibility study.

The final infrastructure spend will be the roll-out of the Sentech Wireless Broadband Network under the auspices of the Department of Communications. During 2006/7, the cluster is hoping to achieve the complete rollout of a wireless broadband network. The roll-out will accelerate the delivery of universal access to communications, including providing cost-effective connectivity that supports government e-health and e-education services.

As a support project to infrastructure spend, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism will be undertaking a review of environmental impact assessment legislation. The aim of the project is to get cluster input into the promulgation of new environmental assessment regulations. This will assist in the development of appropriate environmental impact management tools.

The cluster will set up a project to monitor infrastructure implementation and impact. Led by the Department of Public Enterprises one of the outputs will be a single capital expenditure (capex) database for tracking projects. It is envisaged that this project will lead to increased transparency, accountability and effective implementation.

Dovetailing with the macro-economic modelling project is a project to model infrastructure impacts. The project aims to model the impact of the capital expenditure programme on the economy, social equity and natural environment. Through such impact forecasting, the project will promote capex planning is aligned with macroeconomic and industrial policy targets.

The department will be championing a review of capital expenditure procurement. This will be done in close consultation with other cluster departments and will lead to the development of a policy framework for government procurement. The intended impact of the cluster's project is to leverage capex to optimise the impact on local manufacture.

Equity and Development

The DTI will lead a cluster project to implement 'set asides' for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). This will be a list of ten general 'set aside' products that will be procured by the state on a basis that gives preference to SMMEs. This will lead to increased demand for SMMEs.

Together the DTI and Department of Agriculture will roll out implementation of the Apex and Mafisa funds to improve access to finance for micro-enterprises. This will improve provision of affordable credit for the poor in a sustainable manner. This project will be complemented by a project led by the DTI that will consolidate existing activities on SMME finance with a key focus being the addressing of market failure in SMME finance for loans ranging from R10,000 to R250,000. The cluster will also work towards ensuring agreement by the banks to abide by their Financial Sector Charter commitments.

Promoting shared growth

The economic cluster has emphasised growth projects and methods that optimise broad-based impact in this year's programme. The introduction of focus groups and task teams and a more project based planning with effective monitoring and evaluation will ensure the effective implementation of collaborative projects. In addition the cluster will set about mobilising social partners where relevant to internalise, support and accelerate implementation.

Key to the cluster's programme will be the leveraging of massive infrastructural investment to promote SMMEs and projects that are of a labour-intensive nature. The cluster will link capex to the growth of strategic industries, such as capital goods, and focus on labour-absorbing sectors and services, such as BPO&O and tourism, as immediate priorities.

The cluster - along with other clusters - is also to focus on developing the second economy and supporting sustainable livelihoods. This will include projects such as the roll-out of finance and support services for small and micro-enterprises and an explicit cluster focus on the informal economy.

The economic cluster's 2006 programme focuses on the joint implementation of 27 strategic, high-impact ASGISA projects. Through coordinated efforts, the implementation of these projects will promote the realisation of ASGISA's objectives. The cluster will further scrutinise all the projects with the aim of strengthening their gender empowerment impact. New projects specifically focused on gender empowerment are also being developed.

The cluster will continue to identify and operationalise further projects in pursuit of accelerated and shared growth. As part of ensuring a professional, coordinated and effective implementation focus, the cluster will be ensuring that it mobilises the relevant social partners to contribute to the process in a manner that ensures optimal results that we, as South Africans, can take pride in.

More Information

• Government Programme of Action

Message from the Editor

Happy 90th Birthday MaMbeki!

Inadvertently and with sincere regret, we failed in our last edition to convey our heartfelt birthday greetings to our President's mother and one of the mothers of our nation, Mama Epainette Mbeki, on the occasion of her 90th birthday, on 16 February 2006. Belatedly, MaMofokeng, understanding that it is never too late to mend, a very happy 90th birthday! May you have many more! We all love you!

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