22 FEBRUARY 1999
Speaker
On Friday, the Premier of this Province opened our legislature in the Western Cape. Now, providing a political report in 1999 was always going to be difficult given the pressure of an election in about 3 months, and the onset of the Millennium in about 10 months. Both of these create great psychological pressures for the Leader of any Government and the temptation is great to exaggerate your achievements and to ignore, or blame others for your failures or weaknesses. This the Premier did with great aplomb.
On the other hand, the Premier was also under pressure to pay his dues to the Millennium and to attempt providing a vision for the Millennium. Here the Premier did less well, preferring instead to buy patience from this Province so that we wait for his vision of a prosperous Province to mature 21 years from now in the year 2020. The citizens of this Province would be justified in reminding the Premier that we’re already endured 48 years of NP rule as the national government, 5 years as the Provincial Government, and we certainly can’t wait for something good to happen 21 years from now in 2020.
I thought about the Premier’s speech over this weekend and wondered why there was something so fundamentally unsubstantial and incoherent about his vision. Why it seemed to miss the point. The vision lacks substance and coherence because, in common with other parties having its genesis in the era of apartheid and white minority rule, the National Party has been entrusted with the responsibility to govern this Province, yet it sees its primary role as being the opposition to the ruling party - the ANC - and central government. In other words, the government of the Western Cape has ceased to govern and has instead become the platform for the opposition to central government.
Is this what the 3,9million citizens of the Western Cape voted for, or did it vote for a Government? In this regard, both the NP and DP have misunderstood the central objective of democratic governance: to transform society and improve the lives of citizens. Opposition is a mechanism of democratic governance and cannot be pursued as a principle in itself. If opposition is elevated to the status of principle then it is, in effect, reduced to contrariness: an instinctive reaction - even hostility - to ideas and people. And when such contrariness occurs from a platform from which a party is supposed to govern, then the citizens of this Province can begin to understand why our Province of the Western Cape has been high on anti-central government rhetoric and low on governance, why we’ve fought against Sidney Mufamadi and not against gangs and terrorists.
A vision for this Province, therefore, has to be about the harmonious, yet critical, interaction between the different spheres of government. We do our citizens great harm when we do not foster co-operative governance, and show a preference for the techniques of competition between spheres of government, and shun the techniques of seeking consensus. Co-operative Governance is the very bedrock of a successful provincial system in a unitary state.
A vision does not exist by itself. It has both backward and forward linkages. To establish the backward linkages a party or a government asks itself: What are the objective conditions of this Province? What is the state of its people? What’s happened to its resource base? It is out of such an assessment that a vision emerges. Then you establish the forward linkages of that vision -the linkages which give form and content to the vision: the evaluation of its implementability, the plan for its realisation, and the programme for its ownership by those it intends to uplift.
These factors distinguish a vision from a dream. And these were the critical missing ingredients from the Premier’s vision. Indeed, if the Premier and his party had been more attentive to the pulse of our citizens, they would not have been able to ignore so completely the tenuous state of racial polarisation and general alienation in our society. There is something perversely glib in dubbing our Province a "Winning Province" when we have the dubious distinctions of being the murder capital and the TB capital of the world, when pipebombs explode around us and civilians and the custodians of our security are being assassinated, when 1,1million of our 1,4million formally employed citizens earn under R 2 500 (of which 800 000 earn less that R 1, 500 per month), when our youth remain trapped in the spiral of drugs, gangs and crime, when our women and children feel completely vulnerable to abuse -even in their own homes ........ We owe it to our citizens to at least understand their pain, and to base our vision on alleviating that pain - not to gloss over their pain with glib references to a "Winning Province".
Who is winning in this Province? It can only be the apartheid elites in the white community who continue to earn household incomes more than twice that of Coloureds and more than thrice that of Africans. Who is winning? It can only be those contractors who for the past 5 years have had the uninterrupted benefit of state tenders while the NP refused to implement Affirmative Procurement Policies. Who is winning in this Province? It can only be the farmowners who have benefitted by the Premier’s party voting against the Extension of Security of Tenure Act and kicking off the farms in the last few months many loyal farmworkers. Who is indeed winning? It can only be those fishing companies, nurtured and protected by NP quotas who today is holding up the allocation from a transformed quota system in the High Court. Who is winning in this Province?
Out of this reality must emerge a new vision for this Province. A vision of a tolerant, non-racial society where we strive actively to cultivate a new humanism - a humanism which gives identity and ownership to the poor in the Coloured and African communities and buys generosity and sensitivity from the privileged among the White communities. A humanism which says that security is indivisible - you cannot be secure in Sea Point if there is insecurity on the Cape Flats. On Friday the Premier quoted Anton Rupert as saying that the greatest danger facing us is the tension between Poverty and Democracy. In 1971 already, Anton Rupert said in words which are chillingly appropriate in our Province today: "If my neighbour across the road doesn’t eat, then I can’t sleep." This goes to the heart of our call to the White community to help us build a future we can share.
I appeal to the White community to turn away from "contrariness" as the motor for political debate, and to help us give every citizen in this Province a stake in this Province. I was horrified to hear of a resident in Claremont, and his crusade to clear parts of Claremont of informal traders and of the support he is receiving from others in Claremont. On the other hand, there are the wonderful early signs that such a humanism may be awakening in our Province: in Bartelsfontein near Mossel Bay, a Mr Muller has handed title deeds to land and houses to his farmworkers; and in Nelson’s Creek, Mr Allan Nelson has entered into a unique partnership with his farmworkers.
These are the actions which give people ownership of our Province so that they are not so alienated from it that vigilantes and gangsters stand cold in the face of lost investment opportunities and tourism revenue -and feel a certain impunity in endangering these important sources of growth.
As a Provincial Government, the ANC would speed the process of transferring ownership of rented houses and flats to the thousands of citizens on the Cape Flats who have paid rent for 20 to 30 years already. We need a fair pricing policy that takes this into account. But we must give our citizens a stake in this Province.
In the same way, the manner in which we grow our economy has to provide citizens with a stake in that economy and simultaneously provide material benefits across the racial divides. Coloureds and Africans, for example, cannot forever remain visitors to our tourist destinations, where they do not even find jobs as waiters.
Of course Cape Town and the Western Cape must be a prime destination for tourists from across the world, and from within our country -for the entire year. This is the objective of the ANC. But marketting ourselves as this prime destination cannot be an isolated activity.
The ANC is ready to take on the challenge of developing and broadening the tourism infrastructure. The world comes to Africa, South Africa and the Western Cape to escape the virtual reality of theme parks. We, therefore, have to move beyond simply appreciating our scenic beauty and, in fact, move towards the more aggressive protection of our environment - in recognition of our potential for eco-tourism. Our environment has to be regarded as our main, sustainable resource for development and job creation. Development, therefore, has to be defined in the image of our sustainable environment.
We cannot, in environmental terms, be selling off the family jewelry or take short term decisions, which undermine the sustainability of our most important resource. Similarly our cultural heritage - in all its diversity -should be developed as an important base for the tourism industry. If tourism is to be a major growth point of our economy then we must be in a position to intervene in the service industry in this Province. We cannot fold our arms while inefficiencies persist in the banking sector, in foreign exchange, in the catering sector, in transport, etc.
So while Captour is doing an excellent job in promoting the Western Cape as a tourist destination, an ANC government in the Western Cape would put together an agency for the development of the tourism product ie. Eco-tourism and cultural tourism; and to maintain pressure on improved service delivery.
We must make the Western Cape hospitable to its visitors. But it must be habitable to its citizens. Otherwise it will be neither.
This is the point that the Premier missed when he hardly dealt with the most important challenge faced by our Province: how we deal with Crime and Terror. This Province and the NP lost the initiative on Crime and Terror when after 4½ years of blaming and complaining, the Central Government intervened. Now, predictably, the complaint is about long distance management.
The people of this Province need us to win the battle against crime and terror - irrespective of who leads the fight. In this spirit the ANC is proud to announce that it has so far recruited 203 volunteer reservists as part of our target of 500 by 01 April 1999. We are in discussion with Minister Manuel to extend the indemnity coverage for the Rent-a-Cop scheme so that more security are put on the streets, and we are insisting that the Rent-a-Cop facility be extended to black areas and we are confident that Mr Chris Joubert will ensure that the Athlone CBD and Nyanga Junction will enjoy priority. With the onset of the Unicity, the path towards a Metropolitan Police Force should be cleared and this is an initiative which would enjoy priority from the ANC. Similarly, the ANC will prioritise the eleven Cape Flats police stations which we have identified already for special resourcing and to benefit from a reprioritised policing programme so thaty areas with the worst crimje statistics enjoy greater protection.
Looking after the safety of our citizens will make the Western Cape more habitable for all of us.
While we ensure the safety and security of our citizens, we need to work hard and tirelessly to fight the poverty to which the majority of Coloured and African citizens are subjected.
The ANC would see the following actions as critical to its programme as a government:
1. In the spirit of co-operative government we must now already position ourselves so that our youth - who in their unemployment turn to crime - can benefit from the Umzimbomvu Fund. The main objective must be to start turning back the tide of gangsterism and crime and we must now already work out how many youth are affected, which programmes are suitable for them and to stake a claim for our share of that fund. We must set the example for contributions to the job creation fund, and the ANC caucus has decided that every ANC MPL will contribute at least R 500 as our day’s salary to this Fund.
2. We need an urgent intervention to stem the tide of hunger among our people and an ANC Government would do an audit of all municipal land out on lease with a view to creating access to families or communities for the establishment of food gardens.
3. In recognition of the fact that women play pivotal roles in the survival of families - in fact many households are either single parent families or the women are the breadwinners, a provincial government should find ways - through a greater investment in preschool/creche facilities - to free women to play an active role in the economy. Safety for women at all levels - in the house, on the street, at the workplace - must be a priority. At the same time, a provincial government must enter into discussion with employers and unions in the Clothing and Textile industries to help them meet the challenges of our country’s entry into the global economy. After all, these industries employ mostly a skilled and experienced sector of women - and we must help minimise the negative impact of international competition.
4. We need a new vision for what education must do for our society in the Western Cape. We do not simply face the challenge of unemployment for school leavers, but indeed their unemployability ie. the inability of our economy to absorb them. Our schools are not - especially in the African and Coloured public schools - preparing our children for the new technological and computer age. So, in addition to racial redress - which must be embarked upon speedily, yet sensitively (and I don’t believe that 90% of R 17million will do so) - we need also to increase the education budget to about R 3,8billion so that we can begin the process to reorient our education system to overcome the phenomenon of unemployability.
These have to be the basis of the New Humanism - a humanism which will build the Western Cape which is hospitable to its visitors and habitable to its citizens - not in the year 2020, but as the new Millenium dawns.