10 May 2003
National Leader of the NNP, Mr Martinus van Schalkwyk
Gauteng NNP Leader, Mr Johan Killian
Distinguished Guests
Delegates
I am honoured to have been invited to attend this congress and deliver a message from the Gauteng Provincial Government and the African National Congress.
On Monday one of the founding fathers of our freedom and democracy, Walter Sisulu, left us.
Walter Sisulu was a true African patriot whose heroism, humility and leadership earned him the respect and love of the millions of our people. I am sure that all of us will agree that he was the architect of the new nation which we are in the process of building.
While we are all saddened by his departure we find solace in the knowledge that he has left us a legacy which will live on in the millions who continue to defend and advance the freedoms for which he stood.
The building of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa remains our common objective. Walter Sisulu describes non-racialism as the leitmotif of our struggle while Nelson Mandela said: "those who help to perpetuate white supremacy are enemies of the people, even if they are black, while those who oppose all forms of racism form part of the people irrespective of their colour".
It is this common objective that should guide our relationship and engagement in our province. I hope this provincial congress will, among other things, agree on how the New National Party will contribute towards hastening the advance towards a better South Africa.
During the past nine years we have made significant progress towards the building of the new South Africa in which all the people enjoy equal rights and lead a better quality of life. We have created a new legacy of freedom and democracy.
Today South Africans enjoy equal human rights and dignity. Each of our communities is free to express its linguistic and cultural identity in conditions of diversity and assume equal space within our new nation without discrimination. We can all proudly say: South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
Our constitution guarantees the right for every South African to speak freely, to organise freely and to criticise freely without fear of arrest or persecution.
We have been able to make this progress because once we agreed on the model of the new South Africa we decided to focus our attention and energies on the work of building it and moving forward rather than on staying in the past which we all agreed was terrible and inhumane.
When some among us tried to take us back where we came from we remained unflinching in our resolve to march forward to the new South Africa. Even when some lunatic fringe were spreading lies among white South Africans that the new South Africa which we are all building is anti-white our people refused to be misled because they knew that what we are building is a better South Africa for all, black and white.
We are all aware that while we have made significant progress thus far, the journey to our common destination, a better South Africa for all, is still to be completed. There are still many challenges facing all of us.
Dire poverty continues to exist, with black people, women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly being worst affected.
The majority of black South Africans still participate in the economy as no more than labourers and consumers of goods and services. The rate of unemployment is still too high.
New challenges have also emerged which we now have to confront which were not factors at the time when we started the process to reconstruct and develop our country.
We are called upon to continue to work even harder to eradicate poverty, underdevelopment, racial inequalities and socio-economic disparities.
In June 1999, at the beginning of our term of office, we called for a new spirit of commitment by everyone in Gauteng to work together for the success of our province and country. We said such a commitment should not be a blind one where people pay an unquestioning allegiance to government.
In his response, Mr Killian said the New National Party would unconditionally support government in its efforts to improve the quality of lives of the people of Gauteng. He further said that the NNP would constructively criticise where it felt that government was not acting according to its mandate.
I am proud to say that Mr Killian kept his commitment. The NNP has been a very constructive opposition party in the Gauteng Legislature. Where Mr Killian and his colleagues came across information that showed that things were going wrong in certain government departments they brought it to our attention. Their aim was not to seek glory or score political points but to help us correct the situation.
This kind of co-operation and commitment to create a better life should transcend the precinct of the provincial legislature. It must be entrenched in the communities and everywhere where our parties co-exist. Our member must understand that while we are not one organisation it is possible to share a common destiny as a people and work together towards it.
The African National Congress will continue to build and strengthen co-operation with the NNP for the success of our province and the country as a whole.
On behalf of the African National Congress I congratulate Mr Killian on his re-election as the Gauteng Leader of the NNP. We look forward to continued co-operation in the legislature and in the communities throughout Gauteng.
I wish this Gauteng New National Party Congress success in its deliberations.