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ANC Today Freedom Charter Special, June 2001 |
This is a compilation of articles on the Freedom Charter that appeared in ANC Today during May and June 2001.
Letter from the President
Let us speak of Freedom
On Tuesday next week, June 26th, we will be observing the 46th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter. To prepare for this event, this journal has been carrying articles on the various clauses of the Charter. Nevertheless, we will perhaps have to take additional measures to familiarise greater numbers of our people with the Freedom Charter. We say this because the Freedom Charter is not merely an historical document. It remains still, an important guide about the direction in which we should all take our country as a consequence of its reconstruction and development.
For years the Freedom Charter has been a living document. Its visionary prescriptions have served as an educational tool for different generations of freedom fighters and the masses of the people of South Africa. For decades its eloquence has adequately answered the question - what kind of South Africa do we want?
Its lack of ambiguity about the nature of the South African problems under apartheid and the clear and pointed way in which it offers solutions has helped a great deal in mobilising millions of people to the cause of freedom. To those who sought to balkanise our country into separate entities as a way of entrenching the ideology and practice of racism, as well as those who thought that this country belongs to one race to the exclusion of others, the Freedom Charter's message is clear and simple - South Africa belongs to all who live in it!
The profound meaning of this correct assertion goes deeper than the legal recognition of citizenship rights. It means that the authority of those who govern the country must be derived from the will of the people. But it also means that all of us who have a legitimate claim to this country, have the responsibility to contribute to its development and progress.
We have to work to ensure that all the people to whom this country belongs are not divided by opulence at one end and squalor on the other, over-indulgence and hunger pains, rich and poor, development and underdevelopment. The first important step in the direction of bringing about a South Africa which belongs to all who live in it, was to fight for political freedom for which thousands of our people selflessly struggled for and laid down their lives.
Given the situation where the majority had been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace, and where our country could not be prosperous because the majority were denied equal rights and opportunities, many patriots and martyrs arrived at the correct determination that to reverse this reality the will of the people must be paramount, hence they proclaimed: The People Shall govern!
Not only did they proclaim this, they conducted a determined, protracted and disciplined struggle to bring democracy to our land. Our democratic government is based on this important assertion made in 1955. When millions of our people patiently waited to cast their votes in two national elections and two local polls, they were giving practical expression to this bold declaration of the Freedom Charter that the people must, in reality, govern.
Today, our people know that every man and every woman has the right to vote for and stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws and govern our country. Our people also know something else. They know that they fought hard and long to realise this fundamental right. Clearly, this is the right they will always defend and consolidate.
Later this year, South Africa will host the United Nations conference to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. Many amongst the peoples of the world expect our country to take a lead in addressing these problems. Our experience, born of the long struggle to rid our country of racism, will prove invaluable to the eradication of racism. As we engage in this struggle, we should be guided by the words of wisdom of the Freedom Charter that: All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
Apart from the contribution that we will be making at the United Nation's conference, we should, as a people, examine the progress that we have made in ensuring that we create representative collectives in the bodies of state, the courts, the schools, the private sector, the media and every public and private institution. We should ensure that we are able to protect and develop all our languages and cultures and begin to build a South African identity, defined amongst others by multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism.
When whites begin to speak fluent Zulu and Sotho and blacks speak Afrikaans like any Afrikaner, then we will know that we have begun to break the barriers of our divided past. There is a challenge facing all our public and private institutions, for these bodies, themselves, constant to carry out an introspection to determine whether they have made any movement away from any form of racism.
But of importance, it is incumbent on the ANC, the Alliance and the entire democratic movement to lead a struggle in which they should assist all of us to accelerate the transformation of this country towards a non-racial and non-sexist society.
Our country is also divided between the rich and the poor. Precisely because of apartheid, the rich are largely white and the poor black. Of course there are today poor whites and rich blacks. But their numbers are so small that they do no affect the aggregate racial imbalance in wealth and income.
Therefore, when the Freedom Charter says; The People Shall Share in the Country's Wealth!, it enjoins us to take conscious and deliberate measures to ensure that the wealth of our country and the benefits of our economy are enjoyed by the people as a whole. Accordingly, government has created and continues to create opportunities for black people to engage in all the economic activities of our country.
However, government does not have sufficient resources to ensure large-scale participation of black people at all levels of the economy. We therefore urge that business should be partners in this effort, by taking very serious steps to make sure that black economic empowerment is not postponed for another day.
As government, we have taken appropriate steps to redress the land dispossession of the African people. We have been true to the Freedom Charter call: The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It! We are working hard to ensure that land ownership based on race is banished forever. Through a number of laws that we have passed, we have improved the tenure rights of those who live on farms, while the land restitution process has gathered pace.
The criminal justice system has made many important advances in restructuring our courts, our police and every part of the law enforcement agencies. Although change takes time, gradually our courts are becoming more representative. Because we have implemented the demand of the Freedom Charter, All Shall be Equal before the Law, and ensured that everyone is given a fair trial, there have been many instances when criminals have taken advantage of our new legal framework. Parliament has passed a number of important laws to make it difficult for criminals to get easy bail and exploit our criminal justice system. Better co-ordination and determination to root out crime will ensure that criminals have nowhere to hide.
Those who were privileged to participate in the drafting of the Freedom Charter will agree that because of the clause, All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!, we have made such strides that there is no doubt that we are amongst the leading nations where there are a pervasive freedoms of speech, assembly, expression and worship. We have to be vigilant, though, that none amongst us abuses these rights.
We will all agree that one the biggest challenges facing our democracy is the need to expand the economy and create more jobs. We have made steady progress in this regard and while there has been shedding of jobs in some economic sectors, there have been advances in others. We will spare no effort in our struggle to make real the call made 46 years ago that: There Shall be Work and Security!
Many will be aware that since 1994, enrolment in schools has gone up, meaning that many of our children are now afforded an opportunity to realise their dreams. There are still many challenges in our struggle to turn our schools into centres of excellence where 'cultural treasures of mankind shall be opened to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands'. Yet, we have made impressive advances in fighting illiteracy and with the collaboration of the private sector, we are introducing our scholars and students to modern technology.
When we say, The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!, we also mean that in the current context, we should open the doors of the information and communication technology. We need to master this technology so that our country is not left behind in this age of the Internet.
Furthermore, government has in the past seven years built more than one million houses, provided water to more than 8 million people and connected electricity to many homes. We are building many clinics in the communities that have been neglected for many years. Everyday new roads are being constructed and tarred. We do all these and more, because we are guided by the advise that: There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
Finally, we are part of the African countries that have been assigned to elaborate a vision of the renewal of our continent. One of the first conditions for this renewal is that we must never again expose our people to the cruelty and indecency of war and conflict, because the Freedom Charter taught us long time ago that: There Shall be Peace and Friendship. We have to achieve this stability so that we can embark on the important programmes of developing all our countries, so that sooner rather than later, we should banish poverty, hunger, disease and underdevelopment from the face of the African soil.
As we celebrate the Freedom Charter, let us do what we used to do in the past - go door to door and talk to our people about the Freedom Charter. Let us report back to our people about the progress that we have made in realising the demands of the Charter and explain the obstacles responsible for some of the delays. Let us do this clearly, patiently and honestly.
From ANC Today Volume 1, No. 22 • 22 - 28 June 2001
South Africa belongs to all who live in it
The answer to racism and sexism in South Africa
When the Congress of the People declared in 1955 that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white", they issued a resonant call for the end of racial oppression in this country.
As South Africa celebrates on 26 June the forty-sixth anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter, this non-racial vision remains a viable antidote to continuing racial and gender discrimination and inequality.
The process of developing the Freedom Charter was itself a triumph of non-racialism. Writing in 1956 in Liberation, the newspaper of the Congress Movement, Nelson Mandela said: "For the first time in the history of our country the democratic forces irrespective of race, ideological conviction, party affiliation or religious belief have renounced and discarded racialism in all its ramifications, clearly defined their aims and objects and united in a common programme of action."
A non-racial, non-sexist South Africa remains at the heart of the objectives of the ANC. In the face of the severest persecution and repression, the majority of South Africans have consistently struggled for a non-racial and non-sexist society in which racial discrimination and inequality is eradicated, and in which the diversity of South Africans is acknowledged, affirmed and valued.
Racism continues to be a daily reality for the vast majority of black South Africans. The legacy of apartheid continues throughout South Africa's institutions, communities and attitudes, affecting black people in general and africans in particular. Unequal access to wealth, services and opportunities denies black people the opportunity to exercise their constitutional rights.
Gender discrimination - specifically the oppression of women - is part of this apartheid legacy. Black women experience the effects of both racial and gender inequality, having the least access to resources and opportunities. African women, in particular, constitute the majority of the poor, particularly in rural areas. They are found in the lowest paid jobs and continue to bear the brunt of poverty, illiteracy and poor health, including HIV/Aids.
The ANC's non-racial tradition is founded on a commitment to rid South Africa of all the barriers that have been constructed to separate white from black. Many of these barriers have been broken down. A democratic constitution is now in place, with a Bill of Rights guaranteeing freedoms equally to all South Africans. Apartheid laws have been scrapped and are being replaced by a volume of progressive, developmental legislation. The security forces have been integrated. The public service is becoming more representative.
But not all the barriers have been broken down - a point made by ANC President Thabo Mbeki in a speech to parliament in 1998 when he characterised South Africa as a country of 'two nations'. This is not to abandon the desire for, nor the possibility of, a common nationhood. Rather it is to simply state the reality of South African society - that it is comprised of a small group of people enjoying relatively high levels of wealth and opportunity and a larger group who live in poverty. The smaller group is overwhelmingly white and the larger group is overwhelmingly black.
Every second South African born today with a black skin is likely to be poor. A South African born with a white skin, by contrast, has a one in a hundred chance of being poor. This reality of race in South Africa is perpetuated, among other things, by ongoing manifestations of racism in society - whether in the form of the mistreatment by white farmers of their workers, the refusal of banks to finance loans in certain residential areas or the failure of the private sector to address in any meaningful way the extremely skewed representation of blacks and women within its ranks.
Racism does not only take the form of isolated assaults or murders. The killing of Tshepo Matloha in the Northern Province earlier this year was an abhorrent act condemned by South Africans across the political and colour spectrum. Yet the event opened the lid on a town sharply divided by continuing racism. This racism is reflected in the distribution of resources within the town, by power relations between black and white and by the contempt with which black residents are daily treated by their white counterparts.
By bringing all forms of racism and sexism to light, exchanging views and allowing people to express themselves South Africa can make progress in addressing these forms of discrimination. South Africans need to struggle against racist and sexist attitudes and develop an approach of 'zero-tolerance' to sexist and racist practices.
It is necessary to address racial and gender discrimination and inequality in its many institutional and social forms. This includes changing the skewed distribution of resources through the equitable distribution of state funds, a programme of black economic empowerment (including women's economic empowerment), affirmative action, land reform and social development. It requires the transformation, in terms of composition, culture and focus, of institutions like the judiciary, public service, private sector, police service, security forces and parastatals. Essential to this are programmes to promote multi-culturalism, multi-lingualism and tolerance in all our educational institutions and other important sites of social development.
To this day, the Freedom Charter remains the clearest, most concise and most enduring expression of a programme to end racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination in South Africa.
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All shall enjoy equal human rights
The seventy year struggle for a bill of rights
The inclusion of a Bill of Rights in South Africa's democratic Constitution was a concrete expression of key demands of the Freedom Charter. It was also the implementation of a seven decade-old resolution.
The 1923 annual convention of the ANC, then known as the South African Native National Congress, adopted the first 'bill of rights' in South Africa, "respectfully urging members of the great European races of the Union to take the whole question into their serious consideration".
Couched in the restrained language of the time, the main themes of the bill were that human rights should be universal, that all South Africans had a god-given right to ownership of land, that there should be equality before the law and equal political rights and finally that all should be able to have an equal share in government.
Three decades later these themes were evident among the thousands of demands collated into the Freedom Charter and adopted by the Congress of the People on 26 June 1955. "All shall enjoy equal human rights," declares the Charter. It was a response to decades of human rights violations. "The Charter was line by line the direct outcome of conditions which obtain: harsh, oppressive and unjust conditions," then ANC President Albert Luthuli wrote.
Although outspoken members of the legal profession played an important role in the following decades in establishing the need for a Bill of Rights in South Africa, the main agency for finally creating a rights consciousness was popular struggle around the Freedom Charter. In 1987, the ANC National Executive Committee formally accepted the need for South Africa to have a justiciable Bill of Rights enshrining universally accepted fundamental rights and freedoms.
This was the organisation's answer to those who were insisting on racial group rights as the foundation of constitutional development. The ANC was able to draw on half a century of campaigning for human rights as the foundation for its claim for equal citizenship in a united country. This human rights foundation is at the centre of the new Constitution adopted by the Constitutional Assembly in 1996.
The declaration of the Freedom Charter that "the rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex" - sentiments for which 156 leaders were subsequently charged with high treason - now underpins South Africa's constitutional and institutional order. In addition to the constitution, the establishment of the Constitutional Court has established sound foundations for constitutional and human rights jurisprudence.
The Freedom Charter says that the law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children.
The right to form a political party, to campaign for a political party and to participate in its activities are guaranteed by the Constitution, as is the right to education, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and freedom of association.
The Charter demands that all shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad: "Pass laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished." Section 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of movement, the right to leave the Republic and the right of every citizen to enter, remain in and to reside anywhere in the Republic.
A right taken for granted in many parts of the world, freedom of movement and residence is a necessary assertion that all parts of South Africa belong to all its people. It is an unambiguous rejection of apartheid spatial planning.
The Charter demands that all national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride. The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime. The right to equality is protected by Section 9 of the Constitution. To give effect to this right, the ANC-led government implemented the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act. The Act prohibits unfair discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and disability and places a duty on the state to promote equality.
The Constitution provides for a Human Rights Commission, which was established in 1996, with the task of monitoring the application of human rights and creating public awareness about human rights as part of the ongoing struggle, initiated in 1923, to entrench a human rights culture in South Africa.
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All shall be equal before the law
The transformation of the South African legal system
The transformation of the South African legal system, currently underway, is guided in large part by the clause of the Freedom Charter that "All Shall Be Equal Before The Law".
It says that no one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial. Section 35 of the Constitution protects the rights of arrested, detained and accused persons. To give effect to the right to a fair trial the ANC-led government enacted the Criminal Procedure Amendment in 1996, which made provision for an accused to be informed of his or her right to legal representation and for court appointed legal representation for unrepresented accused. The Act also regulates the cross-examination and re-examination of witnesses.
The Charter says that no one shall be condemned by the order of any government official. South Africa has suffered from a long history of the abuse of executive power and the subordination of the rights of individuals to the arbitrary will of officialdom. The right to just administrative action is guaranteed by Section 33 of the Constitution. The government enacted the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act in 2000 which provided that administrative action must be lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair. The Act provided measures for the review of administrative action and for the state to provide written reasons for such actions.
The Charter calls for the courts to be representative of all the people, highlighting the domination of white men in the composition of the judiciary and magistracy. Under the current dispensation there are more black and female judges and magistrates than ever before. At the last judicial colloquium it was resolved that this process must continue to make the bench truly representative of all the people.
The Charter demands that imprisonment shall only be for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education not vengeance. In accordance with a Constitutional Court finding in 1995, the ANC-led government enacted the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 which made provision for the setting aside of all death sentences and their substitution by lawful punishments. The Parole and Correctional Supervision Act of 1997 provided for the establishment of parole boards and regulated the placement of prisoners on correctional supervision.
The ANC in government continues to enact legislation to give effect to the rights contained in the Constitution and to rectify the harsh, oppressive and unjust conditions that existed at the time of the creation of the Freedom Charter.
This is part of the broader of the broader vision of liberation contained in the Freedom Charter. "If the Charter is examined it will be seen that freedom means the opening up of the opportunity to all South Africans to live full and abundant lives in terms of country, community and individual," Albert Luthuli said.
The doors of learning and culture shall be opened
Education in South Africa since the Congress of the People
The Freedom Charter's vision for education contained in the clause, The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened, must be seen within the context of the Charter's overall vision of a South Africa based on the principles of democracy, equality, justice, inclusivity and non-discrimination.
When the Charter was adopted in 1955, the notorious Bantu Education System had just been introduced. Separate institutions existed for different racial groups or were in the process of being established, with vast disparities in the resources allocated to the different groupings. Most black children still had no access to schooling. Justifying the inferior education for blacks, then Minister of Native Affairs Hendrick Verwoerd, said giving 'the Bantu' the same education as a white person, "misled him by showing him the green pastures of European society in which he was not allowed to graze". Verwoerd limited financial allocations for African education and introduced pay scales for African teachers which were lower than those of similarly qualified whites.
In contrast to this oppressive reality, the Freedom Charter offered a vision of free and compulsory schooling of high quality for all children, with higher education and technical training available to all on the basis of merit through the provision of state financial assistance. Adult illiteracy would be ended through 'a mass state education plan.' All racial discrimination in education, sports and culture would be abolished. Teachers, the Charter says, should have the same rights as other citizens, organising themselves and participating in political life. The state would nurture national talent in all spheres of education and culture and encourage the interaction of ideas with all humanity, as well as encouraging values of patriotism, internationalism, liberty and peace.
South Africa has made important progress in achieving the ideals of the Charter in education, although much still needs to be done. Access to education has been increased at all levels. Schooling has been made compulsory for all children and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme is making it possible for increasing numbers of poor students to attend higher education. Early childhood and further education are being expanded and developed. Teachers now have strong organisations which look after their members' interests and participate in the development of education policy.
Racial segregation is no longer permitted and formerly whites-only schools, colleges, technikons and universities now cater for all population groups. The apartheid curriculum has been swept away and the advent of Curriculum 2005 is introducing greater enlightenment to our classrooms, encouraging critical thinking, creativity, multilingualism and democratic values. Greater democracy has been introduced into the education system with the establishment of elected governing bodies at all schools and the democratisation of governance structures at further and higher education institutions.
Despite these and other achievements, major challenges still confront us. The scourge of mass illiteracy remains, with nearly half our adult population being unable to read and write. The recent establishment of the South African National Literacy Initiative seeks to redress this by mounting a large-scale assault on illiteracy.
Even though schooling has been made compulsory for all children, we still have some way to go before it is genuinely free. While it is parents who decide whether schools should charge fees, in practice nearly all schools do charge fees as state funding is inadequate to provide them all with their needs. The Norms and Standards for School Funding ensure that schools in poorer communities get a greater share of state resources to help them raise their standards of provision. However, we need to recognise that the private resources, mainly through school fees, available to schools in wealthier communities have ensured the gap between rich and the poor schools has not narrowed to the extent anticipated nor desired.
The quality of education in many of our institutions still remains a concern. The Higher Education Quality Committee as well as the whole school evaluation and systemic evaluation initiatives for schooling are among the measures put in place to undertake the task of the improving educational quality.
Steadfast in its commitment to the ideals of the Freedom Charter, the ANC continues to seek ways to overcome the remaining obstacles to bring about a genuinely enabling and liberating education system for all our people.
The doors of learning and culture II
The key to building a winning nation
Since the 1994 democratic elections, the ANC has been at the head of tangible and far-reaching changes in South Africa's education system in pursuit of the vision described in the Freedom Charter.
Two years ago, in his State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki said "education and training must constitute the decisive driver in our efforts to build a winning nation". It is in this spirit that the development of education and training has been placed at the centre of government's transformation programme.
In 1994, the pre-democratic government was spending five times as much per white learner than, for example, a black learner in the Transkei. Since 1994, government has succeeded in reducing the differential between provinces by more than 50 percent. Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go in achieving equity in the schooling system.
The government has been successful in bringing the number of learners per educator down to an average of 34 nationally. The rationalisation process has resulted in over 30 000 teachers being moved to new posts in schools where they are most needed, without a single forced retrenchment. This has made a dramatic difference in many poorer schools. The School Funding Norms and Standards policy, which took effect in 1999, mandates a "poverty-targeted" approach to budgeting for non-personnel expenditure by the provinces. This means the poorest schools get, on average, seven times more funding than the richest ones.
In 1996 the Department of Education undertook the first ever school infrastructure survey. From that first survey to the most recent, in 2000:
The backlog is still huge and the difference between rich and poor schools within the public system still unacceptable. Under the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) education is to receive R1.5 billion in additional funds as a conditional grant for physical infrastructure. While three years ago the department spent around R200 million on learner support material, this year it will be spending just over R1 billion.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has facilitated the entry of large numbers of students who would otherwise simply not have been able to go to university or technikon. Since 1996 government's contribution to the scheme has been over R2 billion to the benefit of well over 200 000 students. In this budget alone, R 450 million is earmarked for the NSFAS with at least an additional R150 million recouped from loan repayments from past students.
Enrolment in schools has increased dramatically. Compared to other developing countries, South Africa currently has one of the highest enrolment rates for children of school-going age. Over twelve million students are in school, representing more than 90 percent of all children between the ages of seven and fifteen years. Most of the gains have been among poor, African and rural children. South Africa's participation rate for girls is among the highest in the world. The matric pass rate for 2000 increased by 9 percent, and a further minimum of 5 percent is expected in 2001, with improvements particularly among the worst performing schools to which special attention is being paid. This year the department will also target mathematics, science, technology and history and ensure there are trainers on the ground from next year for maths and science.
Much work still needs to be done to provide education to learners in a safe and productive environment. To this end, the department has made school effectiveness, school management and teacher professionalism one of its chief priorities. It is also focusing on the review and streamlined implementation of the new outcomes-based curriculum, Curriculum 2005. This approach to education is aimed, to borrow the words of Prof Edward Said, at the activation rather than the stuffing of minds.
Adopted in 1997, the government's policy on language in education in says "being multilingual should be a defining characteristic of being South African". This requires putting into place dual-medium education and ensuring all South Africans, regardless of their mother tongues, learn at least one other South African language well enough to be able to communicate fluently and effectively in them.
Literacy
Government is determined to "break the back" of illiteracy in South Africa by 2004. There are about 6 million functionally illiterate adults in the country. When the first national audit of public adult learning centres was published in July 2000 there were 2,226 public adult learning centres and 13,628 teachers. But there were only 271,701 students, mainly at further education and training levels. Implementation of a strategic plan to address this will begin in June 2001 in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal and later during the year expanded to the 18 rural and urban development nodes throughout the country.
HIV/Aids
Education is central to counteract HIV/AIDS. Most children enter the education system HIV-negative; an unacceptable number leave school HIV-positive, and many more become HIV-positive shortly after leaving. If the education system were able to influence children's' ideas about sex and relationships even before these start, it would play a key role in changing the course of the epidemic.
The education department's response to HIV/AIDS has been declared the "priority which underlies all priorities". This response includes a number of key projects: HIV/AIDS within and across the curriculum; workplace policies and programmes for all staff including educators; the development of a national plan that aligns planning and management systems; and the development of a system of responding to the needs of the ever increasing numbers of orphans and learners in distress or with special needs due to HIV/AIDS.
Introducing the education budget vote in parliament last week, Education Minister Kader Asmal said his department was never satisfied: "If we are to live up to the public claims of cherishing all the children of the nation equally, then we must work in unity, with professionalism and with passion to achieve this moral imperative."
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There shall be houses, security and comfort
The bricks and mortar of a better life for all
When the delegates to the Congress of the People in 1955 said all people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed and to bring up their families in comfort and security they effectively defined the programme of the ANC into the 21st century.
The Congress of the People was the culmination of months of consultation involving thousands of volunteers who crossed the country collecting the demands of the people of South Africa. The Freedom Charter, adopted at the Congress of the People, remains the basic guiding document of the liberation movement in South Africa.
Central among the demands of the people was decent, affordable housing built close to work opportunities, "where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches and social centres".
The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), adopted in 1994 as the ANC's plan for transformation, noted the lack of adequate housing in urban townships and rural settlements had reached crisis proportions. In 1990 the urban housing backlog was conservatively estimated at 1,3 million units, rising to three million units if hostels and rural areas were included. It estimated this would increase by an additional 200 000 households each year.
In the first seven years of office, the ANC-led government housed nearly five million people with 1,2 million houses built or under construction. This has largely been achieved through the Housing Subsidy Scheme which provides a housing subsidy of R16 000 to households earning less than R3 500 a month. The scheme has provided beneficiary households with security of tenure, and access to shelter, sanitation, water, roads, and other services such as electricity and telecommunications.
The problem of informal settlements is also highlighted in the Freedom Charter, which says "slums shall be demolished and new suburbs built". The number and size of informal settlements in South Africa has grown dramatically since the Congress of the People as a result of rapid urbanisation and population growth, unemployment, unequal wealth distribution and the scarcity of affordable land for low cost housing.
The government has responded with the informal settlement upgrading programme to convert shacks to proper homes and provide adequate infrastructure and services. Close to 232 000 households have so far been beneficiaries of this programme in around 300 projects nationwide. In some instances, informal settlements are situated on land that cannot be developed, such as in flood plains, riversides and dumping grounds. This requires the acquisition of new land and the relocation of communities from sometimes potentially dangerous areas.
It is estimated the approximately R3bn which government spends annually through its housing programme sustains 45 000 jobs in the building industry. An additional 43 000 jobs are sustained indirectly in the building materials and components markets.
While housing provision continues, a major challenge still remains the location of new housing closer to employment opportunities and economic and social services. The prohibitive cost of land in many areas has undermined the viability of constructing affordable housing in central areas. Spatial planning at local level needs to more effectively integrate communities racially and economically to effectively undo the effects of apartheid planning. This is being accompanied by an accelerated strategy for the release for development of well located state land.
Health
The preventive health scheme envisaged in the Freedom Charter, "with special care for mothers and young children", has taken shape over the last seven years with the development of an integrated national health system providing accessible health care services to all South Africans.
Focusing on the provision of primary health care, the new district health system has been able to bring health services within easier reach of about six million people by building 500 new clinics in largely under-served areas.
Health care is free to pregnant women and children under the age of six years. Other programmes to promote women's health include safe terminations of pregnancy, the development of guidelines on screening for cervical cancer, training of forensic nurses to enhance capacity to deal with rape victims, plans to improve access to contraceptive services and enquiry into maternal deaths in childbirth.
Community service for medical students and the strategic use of foreign doctor are among the programmes to address the problem of limited access of rural and urban informal settlements to medical doctors.
Government's efforts to make health care more accessible to millions of poor South Africans includes measures like generic substitution, compulsory licensing and parallel importation to significantly lower the cost of medicines.
While the majority of South Africans in 1955 had ample experience of poverty and poor access to health care, they could not have foreseen how these problems would be exacerbated by the HIV/Aids epidemic. The challenges for the health sector are now so much greater, requiring in addition to socio-economic development and strengthening the health sector, the development of strong preventive programme, aggressive treatment of opportunistic infections and targeted and appropriate use of anti-retrovirals. The HIV/Aids epidemic has demonstrated more clearly than anything else the importance to health care of social and economic upliftment across society.
Social development
The Freedom Charter maintains the state needs to play a central role in the protecting and caring for vulnerable groups in society, including "the aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick". This is at the forefront of current work to develop a comprehensive social security system which will address gaps in government's approach to issues of social inequality, income poverty and food security.
Already government plays a substantial role in alleviating poverty through social security and development programmes. It provides social grants to over 3.5 million people, representing income support for a large number of poor households. The number of caregivers who receive child support grants continues to rise dramatically - more than 1.2 million by May. The government is committed to reaching three million children by 2003.
Pilot projects have been established for unemployed women with children under five years to provide economic and developmental opportunities. They are targeted at women living in deep rural areas and previously disadvantaged informal settlements. Other programmes focus on household food security through the establishment of food production clusters in poor communities, provision of social support structures in communities badly affected by HIV/Aids and poverty, and broadening the skills base and promotion of work opportunities for young people.
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