10 June 2004
MADAME (DEPUTY) SPEAKER, may I start by confirming my support for the proposed budget for 2004/5 for the Department of Trade and Industry.
I want to premise my speech on some of the key words that defines the main business of the department, its agencies and its partners as drawn from the Public and Private Sector.
Firstly, the words of the President, when on the occasion of the State of the Nations address, he committed the executive of the Government of South Africa to more active intervention on behalf of the people who are trapped in the second economy. That instruction to the executive and pledge to the people of South Africa was fully endorsed by the honourable member in this parliament.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, in setting out the mission for the Economic and Employment cluster spoke thus of the second economy.
In their Medium-term Strategic Plan for the next three financial years, the Department of Trade and Industry speaks of their reason for existence as being "to generate public value for South Africa's economic citizens". They say in the strategic plan "Entrepreneurs, investors, exports and importers, consumers" are all economic citizens.
Recalling the earlier description of the citizens of the second economy as the "unemployed and unemployable" poor, it is fair to conclude that the citizens of the second economy are not entrepreneurs, investors, exporter and importers.
What then Madame (Deputy) Speakers, is their main focus. I want to put if to your house that their main concerns of these our fellow citizens is that through their own effort, they should be able to meet the basic needs and cope with the contingencies of life. While grateful for the tremendous core provided by government through various subsidies and social grants, they would want to be able to gain greater control over their lives by accessing the rewards of work, effort or employment.
These citizens of the second economy wish to be able to feed, clothe, develop their productive capacity, educate their children and support their families. They want to participate in the local exchange of goods, service, cash and labour. They want to do so, because they know and feel that if they could achieve these things through own effort, they will have reason to feel dignified and free from dependence.
Their inability to do these things Madame (Deputy) Speaker arises from their exclusion from the more familiar or prominent world of entrepreneurs, investors, and exporters and importers.
The Department has an impressive medium strategic plan and has formidable resources and institutions to provide products and services for the economic citizens. Among these they count policy, legislation, regulation, finance and incentives, information and advice, and partnerships.
Given these resources and services, Madame (Deputy) Speaker, what then has produced the reality of the second economy after our first ten years of freedom?
I wish to put it to your honourable house that the citizens of the first economy - the original inhabitants and those who joined later- have been able to succeed and prosper under the leadership of the Department because they have had the necessary ability to draw down the services and resources of the Department. This ability derives from the generic resources that a citizen would use to access public goods namely the ability to
· enquire or research · mount advocacy campaigns · petition · negotiate · litigate · protest · lobby · withhold support · impose sanctions
Where they have not been able or willing to engage directly in these activities, they have had the means to pay for them. These social, intellectual and financial means have also enabled them to sustain efforts and campaigns over a long time. Very often they have realised their goals of economic relief, service delivery or policy compromise. You will recall how even as they went as high as the constitutional court, they insisted that they were acting as citizens.
Madame (Deputy) Speaker, what has produced the conditions of the second economy is the inability of the citizens of the second economy to do all these things that those of the first economy can do.
I want to suggest therefore that the way we're going to be able to get the Department to break down the barrier between the first and the second economy, is first and foremost by using the medium Term Expenditure budget to strengthen the ability of the cictizens of the second economy to access the service, the rights and the resources of the Department of Trade and Industry.
To that end I want to propose that the department and its agencies - The Council of Trade and Industry-, will have to fund and operationalise a more continuous, accountable and empowering relationship with the citizens of the second economy. The partners, agencies and spheres of government who have programmes aimed at servicing economic citizens, must be compelled to do the same.
The Minister speaks of more the 350 agencies with economic development responsibilities. These agencies include
· 248 local government structures · 100 economic development, regulatory and promotional agencies at local level.
In the Minister's words "We have also recognised that the multiplicity of government- created agencies create confusion for citizens that need to access government services being offered."
It is worth noting that in programme3, a steady increase in budget allocation is projected for the agencies that are aligned with the second economy namely, Ntsika, Khula and National Manufacturing Advisory Centre Co-ordinating Body. I wish to appeal to the department Madame (Deputy) Speaker, that every additional rand be used to:
Madame (Deputy) Speaker, it would help your Honourable house, the Minister, the Department and the citizens of the second economy, if we can in future receive disaggregated reports on the performance of especially programme3. It should be such that we can be able to pick on any community or sector and have a complete and accurate report of the extent to which they have benefited from the refocusing of the Department on the second economy.
Part of the disaggregation will require that we no longer speak of entire provinces as poor or non-poor. It will do us good to recall every pocket of poverty that we came across during the election compaign.
To restate my central theme Madame (Deputy) Speaker, we have arrived at a point where we recognise that we still have two economies in our country because those who have been and were added to the first economy, had the resources to pull towards them the rights, opportunities, services and resources that come with our first ten years of democracy. Those that have found themselves trapped in the second economy, are mainly so because they have had less resources to do as the first economy group did.
It is my submission that in addition to an improvement in numbers and target, the Department should direct more resources towards qualitiative or deeper transformation. The challenge that faces us about the second economy is the extent to which the lack of power and direct leverage of the citizens in relation to the public servants and agencies, especially at a local level. It becomes more important to clarify the ways in which the citizen can have more influence over the performance of the agencies and personnel employed or created for the promotion and expansion of economic opportunities.
The Department will have to elaborate policies and practical programmes "that strengthen the role of the community, family and (voluntary) associations in society." (Etzioni,1994). We have achieved a lot through the pursuit of policies that produced conditions for the expansion and growth of the first economy. This was mainly due to greater competitiveness efficiency, effectiveness and good governance. But to quote Persons "Public policy should not only be concerned with the three E's-economy, efficiency and effectiveness - it is also about the two P's - participation and politics. It is not simply to do with "exit, voice and loyalty", but also "voice, ear and respect."
It is at the points of "participation and politics" as well as "voice, ear and respect" that I believe the Department will break the barrier between the first and the second economy. The second barrier that will be broken, will be for our citizens that are trapped between hopeless dependence on grants and charity and on the one hand and on the other, the dignity of work and a living earned through own effort and sweat.
When we have broken these barriers, especially the second, we shall have addressed the President's concern and warning that "… a society in which large sections depend on social welfare cannot sustain its development." We will then be able to speak of the "People's Contract" with the certainty that the people have the ability to enforce the contract.
Once more Madame (Deputy)Speaker, I support the passing of the budget as submitted under vote 32 for the Department of Trade and Industry.
Thank You