TUESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2006 __

                PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

                                ____

The House met at 14:02.

The Speaker took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS – see col 000.

                            ANNOUNCEMENT

The SPEAKER: Hon members, I have to announce that I have received a copy of the President of the Republic’s address, which was delivered at the Joint Sitting on Friday, 3 February 2006. The speech has been printed in the Minutes of the Joint Sitting.

        DEBATE ON THE PRESIDENT’S STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: Madam Speaker, I rise on two points of order, if I may. The first one is that this must be the only democratic parliament in the world, apart from North Korea, where the governing party follows on after the governing party in a debate of this nature. I would like to draw to your attention that there is no provision for the Leader of the Opposition to follow on after the President as it happens in all democratic parliaments.

The SPEAKER: Hon Gibson, this is the matter that, as you are aware, is on the agenda of the NA Rules Committee. You know that that issue was referred there, and it is still under discussion. The Chair intends to go according to the speakers’ list that we have in front of us, and now I really wish to proceed accordingly.

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: Madam, my second point of order is that the Leader of the Opposition is recognised in the Constitution and in the Rules of Parliament, but there is no speaking turn for him here. There is somebody called the Hon A J Leon, and I would like you to instruct whoever is responsible to call the Leader of the Opposition by his correct title in this House.

The SPEAKER: On the speakers’ list I have the second speaker who will be the hon the Leader of the Opposition, a matter which, by the way, is quite controversial among opposition parties, but that is not the point at the moment. [Applause.]

Mr S L TSENOLI: Comrade President, comrade Deputy President, hon members, and esteemed guests . . .

. . . ke isa tlhompho ho lona kaofela jwaloka ha e le tshwanetse. Letsatsing lena re tlilo buisana ka puo e batsi e hlalositseng maemo a ditaba ka hara naha. Re motlotlo, Ntate, ka puo ya hao e akgetseng lesedi le moo maru a neng a thibetse teng.

Re motlotlo ho utlwa hape ka wena hore bafuputsi ba maemo a ditaba ka hara naha, ba nonyang setjhaba maikutlo ka kakaretso, le a ba kgwebo ka nepo, ba tlaleha e le a phahameng, mme batho ba thabetse bokamoso ba naha bo bonahalang bo kganya. Taba tsena di kenyeleditse le hore ditsebi tsa moruo di re moruo ona o bophelong bo botle ho tloha haesale. [Ditlatse.]

Tsena tsohle ke ditholwana tsa mosebetsi o motle wa tsamaiso e matla ya . . . [Malahlelwa.] (Translation of Sesotho paragraphs follows.)

[ . . . with great respect I greet you all. Today we are going to discuss the address that explains the status quo in the country. We pride ourselves, sir, on your address that has brought light where there was obscurity.

We are honoured to hear from you that those who did research with regard to the status quo in the country, who conducted general public hearings and consulted the business sector, reported that it was of a high standard and that the public is happy about the future of the country, which seems to be bright. This includes the report by economists that the economy has never been so healthy. [Applause.]

All these things are the fruits of the good job of powerful leadership . . . [Interjections.]]

Mr M J ELLIS: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, but not related to what the speaker is saying: This is the first speech of the debate on the President’s address, and there is no interpreting, whatsoever. It makes it very difficult for some of us to relate to that.

The SPEAKER: Okay, we are going to attend to the issue of interpreting.

Dr C P MULDER: Madam Speaker, if I can assist the hon member, he will find English on the Sesotho channel. [Laughter.][Applause.]

Mr M J ELLIS: Can I express my eternal gratitude to the hon member from the FF Plus, Madam Speaker.

Mong S L TSENOLI: Tsena tsohle ke ditholwana tsa mosebetsi o motle wa tsamaiso e matla e eteletsweng pele ke wena, Ntate. Re o rolela kgaebane. Katleho ena ebile ditholwana tsa ba ileng ba tela maphelo a bona leratong la naha. Ha re bona naha e kgabile, palesa e le tse ntle ka mebalabala, dishweshwe di kgabile ka bosehlana, ha re hopoleng hore mobu ona o noseditswe ke madi a bahale boBambatha, ya ileng a fenethwa a ba a kgaolwa hlooho dilemong tse lekgolo tse fetileng, a tseka botho. Esitana le boJoe Qabi, ba bolailweng Zimbabwe, jwaloka ha o re hopoditse. (Translation of Sesotho paragraph follows.)

[Mr S L TSENOLI: All these things are the fruits of the good job of powerful leadership under your tutelage, sir. Hats off to you! This success is the fruition of the hard work of those who sacrificed their lives because they loved this country more. When we see the country being decorated with flowers of different colours, some in bright yellow colours, let us be reminded that the soil was irrigated by the blood of martyrs like Bambatha, who was murdered and beheaded a hundred years ago, fighting for humanity - even Joe Qabi, who was killed in Zimbabwe, as you have reminded us.]

The good news throughout our country and the memories we cherish are, however, grounded in the appreciation that this was never meant to be a sprint. It remains a marathon. The pace that we now would like to increase derives from the confidence in the plans your government, sir, is implementing and to which you referred to in your address. It resonates with what people themselves have told us needs to be done.

The interaction between communities and the Presidency, the Ministers, the provincial executives, and the majority of municipalities, including Parliament itself, has cast light on, and given the direction in which our efforts should go in order to improve delivery. It is for that reason that we in the local government community have welcomed your focused attention on this sphere of governance through the President’s Co-ordinating Council - the emphasis you once more point to in your address. The result, we have observed, has been a growing appreciation and level of awareness of the crucial role that the municipalities play in the system of co-operative governance.

The huge progress that has inspired the enthusiasm and optimism, today at large in our country, is partly attributable to the courageous work of councils in our country. More clean water, sanitation, refuse removal and better roads are as a result of the work of municipalities, supported by national and provincial government and by public entities as well.

From the benches in the House, many of us are convinced that government is learning fast to improve co-ordination and levels of collaboration to meet challenges of service delivery. I am sure, sir, more needs to be done in this area.

Recognition of the IDPs as an integrating mechanism of all spheres of government is a lesson that is being learned quickly by officials across the three spheres of government, and also in public entities. This is crucial because these priorities, the IDPs, are influenced by people themselves in the majority of municipalities through ward committees where these committees are alive and well. A lot of work is being done in this area to deepen democracy and local accountability. The many initiatives that today have been conducted to evaluate progress with ward committees and how effectively they function, how and what methods they use to effectively involve people, represent a significant indication that we meant it when we said, “The People Shall Govern”, and that the programmes that we have unleashed to date indicate our determination to ensure that that becomes the standard for how things happen in our country.

Things are always in a state of flux; it is ever changing. Whereas before the IDPs’ formulation was heavily dominated by consultants, today the pendulum is swinging towards less dependence. This will be strengthened if we retain more of those who are now experienced, recruit appropriate capacity and improve the system of mentorship that is evolving today.

Many of the people, who have been in local government so far for the last five years, have gained tremendous experience in understanding the system that has been put in place to ensure the people’s involvement in decision- making. This was a complete departure from previous practice and the previous way in which governance happened in this country.

It is therefore appropriate that we recognise the speed with which people have, despite the difficulties, made progress in this area. Familiarisation with the new system of local government, which is now five years old, was an uphill battle. But now both councils and communities, through a robust process, have come to understand the system. Things can only improve as programmes of capacity-building, including the short-term Project Consolidate, bring about service delivery, which people themselves will proudly observe.

Comrade President, one of the reasons our 10-year-old Constitution is admired is because, among other things, its progressive provisions on local government; especially the relationship it has with the other two spheres described in the Constitution as interrelated, interdependent, yet distinct.

This ability of municipalities using their own resources, supported nationally and provincially, to do what people themselves want to do, using their own assessment, is one of the most important issues in local government that many, for whom local government elsewhere is a creature of legislation, are admiring in our country, as well as admiring how we are doing things here. Our friends throughout the continent tell us that they envy this system, and would like to see it in their own countries.

The significant role municipalities will play in Asgisa is bound to have a major impact. The full economic potential of these structures are yet to blossom. Asgisa looks to us like the right organic fertiliser that will allow municipalities to really flourish to the benefit of local residents. In the manner in which local government operates and prepares IDPs incorporating local economic development, the linkages with the rest of the economy are what will make a big difference in the life of our communities who are entrepreneurial and creative, as long as it is being demonstrated that it is not the monopoly of the private sector or NGOs.

Both qualities are there for the public sector to increasingly show how it is managing the challenges it is facing. We already have best practices in this area. The decisive interventions by the public sector and local government that are envisaged through Asgisa, among other initiatives, will have to be what characterises our interventions during our second decade of freedom.

Our people know what they want. We have heard them. They just need effective support. In the ANC we have our ducks in a row on this score. [Interjections.]

The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Sitting ducks! Sitting ducks!

Mr S L TSENOLI: Even when the municipalities have had problems, we have had enough indicators of success through the Vuna Awards. Even the media, which often is very critical, has been very conscious of two good examples - they have left out others - in the Free State, that have demonstrated the effectiveness of municipalities that work. Even members of the opposition themselves are in trouble, because they have very little, if anything, to raise in those municipalities. [Applause.]

This is evidence that often, because of sensationalism, we miss the hard work that is under way in these communities, that is being done by these municipalities in these areas. And, we are convinced that given the steps that are in place now to effectively and increasingly support learning from the past, we are bound to see major progress in more services and the changes that we have indicated are showing in all of the areas. I thank you. [Applause.]

The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Madam Speaker, Mr President, colleagues, President Mbeki brought South Africa a message of hope in his state of the nation address. He captured the nation’s mood today, abroad and at home. His words were followed yesterday by those of the Deputy President. She revealed South Africa’s plans for economic growth and the World Cup in 2010.

All of us are fully behind the government in its mission to make South Africa a winning nation on and off the field. As the President told us on Friday, South Africa has a bright future. This is indeed the age of hope. However, we face several threats – some superficial and some far more fundamental. Our hope is threatened by corruption. It is threatened by crime and unemployment. It is threatened by failed service delivery. And it is threatened by the ANC’s assault on our Constitution. [Interjections.] And so among the signs of hope, we must also note the signs of warning. The President correctly quoted a Gallup poll to show that South Africans are optimistic about the year ahead – and he did well to mention it. But the same poll also reported that 57% of South Africans expect unemployment to rise in 2006.

The President mentioned in his speech on Friday a Markinor poll. He correctly said that two thirds of South Africans think our country is moving in the right direction. But there are some other numbers in the same poll. Only 32% think the government is doing well in creating and reducing unemployment. Only 46% think the government is doing well on crime. And 48%, as the President indicated, have a negative view of local government, versus only 45% who have a positive view.

And so this is indeed the age of hope - we hope we will have electricity next month, we hope crime will disappear from our streets, we hope we will get the houses we were promised so long ago! It is time to turn the age of hope into the age of delivery. It is time for more action, not more broken promises. It is time to stand up for change.

The President made some new commitments in his address on Friday. One was his promise to introduce a regulatory impact assessment system to measure the effect of laws and regulations on jobs and growth – an altogether excellent idea, which has been the cornerstone of DA economic policy for many years. I’m delighted the President is also of that view.

But the President has also made promises before and, regretfully, he has broken them. For example, last year he promised to complete the system of exemptions for regulations and taxes on small business. In fact, many of the President’s promises last Friday were the same promises for 2005, which have not been met.

Take infrastructure, for example. The President promises new improvements – he did so last year. But in the past 12 months power cuts have continued in Gauteng and have now spread to the Cape. Fuel shortages interrupted cross- country transport in December. There are still not enough classrooms. Children are still learning under trees. Many municipalities and provinces are failing to spend even half of their capital budgets.

In education, the President promised on Friday to eliminate fees for the poorest schools and to improve the output of maths and science graduates – an excellent idea. But the government has been making the same promise on school fees since 2002. And last year, in a survey, it was revealed that only 0,1% of children in formerly black schools and only 3% of children in formerly coloured schools met international benchmarks for literacy and numeracy.

At the local government level the President promised on Friday to ensure municipalities operate - and I use the words from his speech - “effectively and efficiently”. But last year he promised to make sure that failing municipalities would “put their house in order”. Instead we saw thousands of service delivery protests across South Africa – just under 6 000 of them. Even Project Consolidate, the government’s rescue team for local government, has missed its own deadline to fill its own staff complement.

The President also left many things out of his state of the nation address on Friday. We only heard corruption mentioned twice, Aids mentioned once, and Zimbabwe not at all. [Interjections.] Furthermore, the President failed to address the delivery problems that are threatening the lives and wellbeing of all our people. Perhaps he hasn’t seen everything that we have seen.

Last Sunday I was in Soweto at the Old Vista campus at Dlamini Extension 2 – I presume there’s an MP for that area sitting here somewhere – where 500 people are sharing one toilet. I visited families in a squatter camp across from the Orlando High School that have been waiting for houses for seven years. And they have no water and no electricity.

Verlede week het ek in Borchards naby George ’n besoek afgelê by die familie van die 21-jarige Elmarie Gordon, wat verlede maand verkrag en vermoor is. Haar geliefdes het haar nog nie eens te ruste gelê nie of haar vermeende moordenaars is op borgtog vrygelaat. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)

[Last week I was in Borchards near George where I paid a visit to the family of the 21-year-old Elmarie Gordon, who was raped and murdered last month. Her loved ones had not even laid her to rest when her alleged murderers were already released on bail.]

This past Sunday, at the Mahatma Gandhi hospital in Phoenix, I met patients with broken bones who cannot be operated on, because there isn’t a single anaesthetist in that hospital.

In Rustenburg het ek gaan kyk na ’n kragsubstasie wat gedurig breek omdat die regering dit nie wil nie regmaak nie. Die munisipaliteit is bankrot, maar die ANC-burgemeester het R80 000 van die belastingbetaler se geld aan ’n verjaarsdagpartytjie vir homself bestee. [Tussenwerpsels.] Die heel boonste kandidaat op die ANC-lys in Rustenburg is weens aanklagte van korrupsie en intimidasie inhegtenis geneem. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)

[In Rustenburg I went to a power substation which is continually breaking down because the government does not want to fix it. The municipality is bankrupt, but the ANC mayor spent R80 000 of the taxpayers’ money on a birthday party for himself. [Interjections.] The top candidate on the ANC list in Rustenburg has been arrested on charges of corruption and intimidation.] In Leratong Park in Kimberley I visited an area last week where thousands of people still use the bucket system. The President quite correctly promised to replace the 250 000 buckets by next year, but the government has only replaced 11 000 buckets since 2004.

Let’s talk about the Western Cape. It is not because the DA says so, but it is the ANC’s own Patrick McKenzie, member of the provincial parliament and chairman of the provincial housing portfolio committee, who said in the Cape Argus on 13 October 2005: “2005 has been the worst year yet for housing in the Western Cape. We have only built 11 000 houses in the past financial year”. “Today, he continues, “we have people rioting and demonstrating for houses”. “Between 1994 and 2000”, when the NNP-DP coalition ruled, “the department built over 130 000 houses” – over 20 000 per year. “Never in the history of this province”, he concluded, “has it been this bad”.

In Delmas several people died of typhoid last September, because the council refused to invest in proper water purification and sanitation. So, yes, the people are optimistic, but they are optimistic often in spite of major failures by government, and they hope for change.

The President quoted the prophet Isaiah last week. Isaiah had much to say about hope, and the President told us what he said. But the prophet Isaiah also had plenty to say about corruption. In chapter 1, verse 23, he said:

Thy princes are rebellious And companions of thieves: Everyone loveth gifts And followeth after rewards.

Justice Hilary Squires said in a more contemporary milieu: “Corruption can truly be likened to a cancer.” And like cancer, corruption and mismanagement are destroying delivery and spreading at every level of government.

Last week Transparency International released its annual Global Corruption Report. It said, and I quote:

South Africa faces major challenges in combating corruption. Corruption is endemic at the provincial and local government level, negatively affecting the capacity of the public sector to deliver services to the poor.

Now in an infamous moment of insensitivity, the President’s spokesman, Mr Murphy Morobe, said of the controversial Deputy President’s R700 000 trip on the gravy plane that it was “a drop in the ocean”. But in one sense he’s right – R700 000 is nothing compared to what some departments waste. In the last financial year the Department of Safety and Security spent R250 million on hotels, restaurants and travel.

Die Departement van Grondsake het R38 miljoen aan kos, drinkgoed en reisonkoste bestee, in stede daarvan om plase vir grondhervorming aan te koop. [Instead of buying farms for land reform, the Department of Land Affairs spent R38 million on food, drinks and travel costs.]

On Friday former Deputy President Jacob Zuma was an honoured guest in the gallery. Some of us were a little angry about that. [Interjections.] But I completely understand why the Zuma camp claims they are being treated unfairly – because there are dozens of criminally accused in the Travelgate scandal sitting right here in the parliamentary benches, not just in the gallery. [Interjections.] Two MPs who were convicted of fraud last year and, with much ceremony, were removed from the ANC benches, are actually back on the ANC’s lists for the local government elections – one of the them in the number one spot in her municipality.

The problem in some instances, I’m afraid to say, goes right to the top. The President has said nothing about many cases of severe corruption that have happened on his watch. He said nothing about the Oilgate scandal when it emerged last year, and he said nothing about it on Friday.

He said nothing when the Auditor-General was forced to reveal his draft report on the arms deal, proving that the executive did in fact edit the report. And the President, courtesy of Madam Speaker, still refuses to answer questions about whether he met with any companies that were bidding for arms contracts – questions that Jacob Zuma has had to face.

But it’s not that this is something unusual or unexplained. Last May, in this Parliament, the Chief Whip of the ANC admitted right here that his party expects empowerment companies to cough up donations in return for favours from government. [Interjections.] On Friday President Mbeki quoted a passage from Macbeth. But the same passage – if you read further on – sums up the government’s promises on corruption: They are “a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

The President spoke at length about the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiate of South Africa, Asgisa. The goals of Asgisa are excellent, but there are some issues which arise from it which need to be answered. The President said that he has entered into an agreement, or South Africa has, to protect the textile industry from Chinese imports, but that is two years too late. He says that he is going to implement programmes from the growth and development summit, but that happened three years ago. The second national operator for telecommunications is four years too late.

And what about the matter that has involved this Parliament in some of its most controversial moments, and that is the arms deal? Never mind the corruption allegations about the arms deal - what about the promised offsets of the arms deal? The editor of Business Day the other day reminded us that the Saab corporation owes us about R40 billion. That is about 20 new factories and 14 000 new jobs. But half a decade after those deals were signed, I don’t think we’ve seen an offset from Saab.

What about labour reform? There have been nearly 500 000 job losses in agriculture since 2002. Now many would say that is largely because of stringent regulations and conditions. The President said on Sunday night on SABC TV that it was inevitable that farms would have to mechanise, but I don’t think it is inevitable. I think it is often the result of bad labour policies, policies that need to be changed.

And what about changes in the fiscal policy? Many people think South Africa’s taxes are far too high for a developing economy. Maybe this will or maybe it won’t get attention from the new strategy for growth. This is what the Financial Mail had to say late last year:

Judging from government’s dismal track record on service delivery and consistent underspending on capital investments – which Trevor Manuel openly admits – a strong case can be made for that extra government revenue not being spent altogether wisely. Government should have used its fiscal leeway to provide some relief to companies. In the Medium-Term Expenditure Forecast, Minister Manuel poured cold water over tax cuts. That is an extremely short-sighted view and unfortunately reflects the continued mistrust that many in the government have of the private sector.

Meanwhile on Friday, here in Parliament, the President said that he was going to do certain things, and the jury is out as to whether these will encourage more investment or actually drive down investment and growth. Abandoning or reconsidering the willing-buyer, willing-seller principle is, in our view, a bad idea; so is regulating conditions under which foreigners can buy land. The President says that these policies will be carried out in line with international norms and practices. Now he said previously that Canada has certain restrictive views on land ownership. But what about Zimbabwe, which the Deputy President said we could learn a thing or two from in respect of land ownership? [Interjections.]

Nothing will undermine, however, the confidence of investors – and, I believe, of all South Africans – more than the government’s efforts to reduce the independence of the judiciary. And on this subject the President was completely silent on Friday.

It is, once again, not the opposition or the press, but a senior judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals, Justice Carole Lewis, who wrote very recently on 23 January 2006, and I quote from her article:

The proposed Bills undermine the independence of the judiciary in a way in which every South African should be concerned. The proposal of such radical change without a proper process of consultation is contrary to our democratic principles.

She concludes:

The Justice department’s claim that there has been discussion of all the proposed changes is untrue.

I believe when there is a collision between the executive and the judiciary that it is incumbent upon the President to resolve the issue, and I hope he will. The President quite correctly, mentioned, Codesa six times and the Constitution three times in his speech on Friday. But this assault on the judiciary could destroy the spirit of Codesa and undermine the Constitution.

So South Africa is not short of optimism, and the President did well to reflect upon it.

The MINISTER OF FINANCE: Except you, Tony.

The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: What we are short of is clean government, proper service delivery and the deeds to follow the words, Mr Manuel. That is what the President should have told South Africa.

Firstly, we can boost economic growth by getting rid of unnecessary regulations, reforming the labour laws, and privatising state assets. Secondly, we can create truly broad-based black economic empowerment by encouraging companies to give shares to workers, not simply to political cronies.

Thirdly, we can stop the brain drain by making merit, not race, the key. We will improve education by intervening in failing schools, not in successful ones. Fourthly, we can restore public faith in democracy by getting rid of what has become a bargain-basement floor-crossing and by introducing constituencies. [Interjections.]

Fifthly, we can expose corruption by launching proper investigations into the arms deal and Oilgate. We will punish corrupt officials and representatives promptly, especially in Parliament, which has to set the example the rest of the country must follow.

Sixthly, we will protect our Constitution and defend the independence of the judiciary and all public institutions. Seventhly, we will fight crime by creating more municipal and rural police forces. Eighthly, we will roll out more antiretroviral drugs, and teach South Africans that HIV causes Aids.

Nege, ons sal versoening bevorder om skole en universiteite aan te spoor om ons inheemse tale te gebruik in plaas daarvan om na Engels oor te skakel. [Tussenwerpsels.] [Ninthly, we will promote reconciliation in order to encourage schools and universities to use our indigenous languages instead of switching over to English.]

Tenthly, we will respect and uphold human rights in other countries, starting in neighbouring Zimbabwe and Swaziland. Then, I believe, South Africa will be on the path towards fulfilling the true vision of the prophet Isaiah:

Cease to do evil; Learn to do well; Seek judgment; Relieve the oppressed; Judge the fatherless; Plead for the widow.

Then shall thy light rise in obscurity, And thy darkness be as the noonday.

I thank you, Madam Speaker. [Applause.]

Prof B TUROK: Madam Speaker, hon President, hon Deputy President, it is a great pleasure to see a woman at the top of the tree. [Applause.] It is also a pleasure to follow on after the leader of the largest opposition party in Parliament. He is not the leader of the FF Plus, I understand, but the leader of the largest opposition in Parliament. It’s a pleasure to follow on after him because he is so controversial. Let me engage with him, especially on DA economic policy.

I have always believed that it’s important to keep up to date with what the opposition has to say. So yesterday I spent some useful time reading several documents, the election manifestos of the DA of 2004 and 2006. I have them here. Hon Leon, they are not short of promises and unfortunately the chances of you realising these promises are very remote. To quote you, the DA is “a drop in the ocean”. [Applause.]

Let me say that I found the text quite interesting, but what was really curious was that on nearly every page there was a photograph of one man, the hon Tony Leon. [Laughter.]

In the manifesto of 2004 there were 14 photographs and in 2006 there is an improvement, an escalation to 20 photographs. [Laughter.] He appears on nearly every page. [Laughter.] Let me inform the House that he is on pages 1, 2 and 3, pages 4, 7, 9, 11, 12 and on and on - a total of 36 photographs! And I ask myself: Where is the deputy leader? [Laughter.][Applause.] Where on earth was Joe Seremane?

By contrast, this afternoon we received this document. It’s about the state of the nation address by the hon President, and where was the President? He is on page 12. [Laughter.] I think that the DA must learn a bit of modesty. What are we to say about one who seeks such a high profile? Has he a future as a leader of this country? I believe he does not. So, let us ask him to give us copies of all of those pictures and let us put them in the parliamentary basement with all the other legacies of history in South Africa. [Applause.] [Interjections.]

Maybe I’m being unfair to the hon Tony Leon. After all he takes his role very seriously. I’ve seen him on TV, on the stage with all the lights on him, waving his arms and behaving like a man with a mission. This is why Mr Michael Stent said in the Cape Times last week:

Tony Leon shouldn’t jerk his left arm up and down when he is speaking. It creates a bad impression. He looks like the dictator of a small country in Africa.

[Laughter.][Applause.]

But the hon Tony Leon is the leader of a political party, the largest minority party in South Africa; but he is a leader, and we must take him seriously. So, we ask: What does his party really stand for?

Mhlekazi, ndithetha nawe, mamela! [Sir, I am talking to you, listen!]

As part of the answer to the question of the policy of the DA and the future of its leader . . . [Interjections.]

Mamela. [Listen!]

So the hon Zille produced an article in the Cape Times last week on what we might call: “The wisdom of hon Helen Zille”. This is what she wrote, and this is really what is important:

We need to focus less on the colour of skin and more on the colour of money. Let us get race out of the economy. It is not the colour of the people at the top that matters.

So it is not the colour of the people at the top that matters! But you see, the ANC believes that, given our history, race does matter and the colour or race of the people at the top matters a lot. Where there is exclusive white control, such as the DA advocates, it matters very much indeed. [Interjections.] In fact, hon Leon and hon Zille, this principle of who is at the top strikes at the very root of our democratic aspirations as a country.

Today the Cape Times carried an article by a black businesswoman and this is what she says on the continuous dismissal of race as an issue in the Western Cape:

Black businesswomen witness every day how contracts and work are given to white companies who have no inclination to share and transform.

So, for her race matters a lot, and whether the race of the people at the top is an exclusive entity matters a great deal. [Interjections.]

Let me warn the hon Leon and Mrs Zille: If you want to fight an election on the principle that race must get out of the economy and that the present cluster of people at the top can remain unchanged, you will never win an election and Mrs Zille will never be mayor of Cape Town. [Laughter.][Applause.] And even calling upon the corrupt Gerald Morkel to come back as one of your candidates will not help you either.

Last week Business Day carried an article that said: “Local issues are an election trojan horse for Helen.”

Mamela! Thula! [Listen! Keep quiet!] The problem of who is at the top was exposed in the Sunday Times special issue. It was rather a unique piece of writing in the Sunday Times on Christmas day. Some diligent researchers revealed that of the top 70 earners in South Africa, only four are black; and of the wealthiest South Africans, 157, only nine are black. It does matter. [Applause.]

The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: He’s the richest man in Parliament!

Prof B TUROK: For the DA, whose support lies . . . [Interjections.]

Ziphathe kakuhle, mnumzana. Mamela! Thula! [Behave yourself, sir. Listen! Keep quiet!]

So, to get race out of the economy is not possible in South Africa. That is the reason we have BEE, preferential procurement and the rest. [Interjections.]

Madam Speaker, 50 years ago . . . [Interjections.] . . . I have to speak louder because there is a cacophony here. [Laughter.] The trouble is that they can’t speak isiXhosa, you see. They only speak English and Afrikaans as we heard. Fifty years ago I was the national secretary of the Congress of Democrats, a white organisation, which was part of the Congress Alliance led by the ANC, and our rival was the Liberal Party.

In the Congress of Democrats we wanted votes for all and we wanted the Freedom Charter. The Liberal Party wanted votes for the rich and the educated elite. We supported the liberation struggle, the liberation of all black people in South Africa, and the liberals wanted merit. Even on Sunday night the hon Zille said: “Let’s get beyond skin colour.”

The implication is that the only criterion for South Africa is merit. Let me say, in the nutshell, the truth is that what the DA wants is a phoney meritocracy based on past privilege. [Applause.] That’s what they want.

The ANC can’t go along with that, and indeed our Deputy President led the way when she talked yesterday of growth shared by all. But what does the DA manifesto say? In 2004 the DA’s manifesto, this document with all the photographs said: “We want accelerated privatisation.” They wanted to abolish capital gains tax, estate duties and secondary tax on companies. In fact, what they want is to leave the economic power in South Africa where it has always been - no change. [Applause.] And all this in the name of merit, not race; meritocracy and plutocracy, not race.

I have a constructive proposition. [Interjection.] Mamela! [Listen!] I have a constructive proposal to make to you. Let the DA help us to get all South Africans on an equal level in education and skills. Let everybody have the same education and skills, and then we will stop differentiating on the grounds of race. We can do it then, not now, because we have to adjust the legacy of our history. Do you agree with the proposition, hon Leon? [Laughter.] Confess. Equality for all and then we don’t differentiate. Then you can decide whether you can still be a political leader in South Africa.

Let me turn to other aspects of policy - my time is running out. [Interjections.] I really required half an hour to deal with you, but Parliament says I don’t have such time. [Laughter.] But there is one quote I do want to refer to. In the 2006 manifesto, that’s this year’s, it says: “The ANC favours only the few, at the expense of the many.” Let’s have a good laugh. Really! The ANC favours the few, you favour merits, you don’t like race and you want to keep the people at the top so that there is no change in South Africa. I tell you this, to conclude, the ANC will never go along with a meritocracy, which is based on the privileges of the past. We are in a new century, in the new South Africa, and that is what we should do. I thank you. [Applause.]

Prince M G BUTHELEZI: Madam Speaker, Your Excellency the President, Your Excellency the Deputy President and hon members, in his state of the nation address the President has given us a presentation of achievements, challenges and programmes of action. As I listened to him and prepared my response to his words, I was reminded of discussions I used to hold with Inkosi Albert Luthuli. For seven long years I was very close to Inkosi Luthuli, who was my mentor, and I had the privilege of becoming intimately conversant with his thinking which we shared, and it gave direction to our liberation movement at that time. [Interjections.] Yes, I even spoke at his funeral. I delivered the oration.

At that time of our liberation movement we were strong and well organised. When taking cognisance of what our movement had achieved, we were proud and confident that we could move swiftly ahead to overthrow the apartheid regime and establish a non-racial democracy right there and then. Indeed, at the time there were some in our midst who thought in that manner and wanted to accelerate the pace of our engagement.

In those years, Inkosi Luthuli impressed upon me and the others who were willing to listen that we should not look at our points of strength but rather focus on our weaknesses. When admitting to our weaknesses, it became evident that the path we had to endure would necessarily be much longer than the naive amongst us expected. History proved Inkosi Luthuli right and we all now know that any action we could have undertaken 50 years ago would have been futile and counterproductive.

I do not wish to detract much from what our President said in this House last Friday. However, it is incumbent upon me to sound a warning which this House should heed in spite of its coming from me. There are enormous weaknesses in what we are trying to achieve. We must focus on fixing those weaknesses rather than patting ourselves on the shoulder.

The President has correctly prioritised the training and upliftment of our people as a necessary condition for our collective progress, and he did so for many prior years, standing at this podium. We must now admit that this programme has not produced the intended results at the desired pace. A huge and almost unprecedented amount of resources has been employed in a nationwide training effort financed by 1% of the national payroll and yet we do not see our people becoming more competent and more effective in the work place or more informed, knowledgeable and educated at community level.

We must reconsider the statist approach used in conceiving this national training effort. At the time I pointed out in this House the inherent flaws in the Seta system, which reflects the approach of a command economy applied in the field of training. There are more effective ways to bring about effective training and skills for our people, but this requires the willingness to go back to the drawing board and dismantle the huge, ineffective and immensely expensive state apparatus built around Setas.

Also dealing with the issue of skills, one must applaud the President for indicating once again that our country must open its doors to the much- needed foreign skills. Yet, one must also have the humility and courage to admit the unmitigated disaster which has originated from the hasty amendments made by this Parliament to the Immigration Act a mere two months after I left the office of Minister of Home Affairs. [Interjections].

These amendments were made to eliminate as many as possible of the reforms I brought about to our system of immigration control to liberalise access of foreign skills to our country. Two years later the quota system, which I told this House could not be developed by government, has in fact not yet been implemented, creating chaos.

All the elements of privatisation I had introduced to expedite the issuing of permits so that the department could free itself and begin enforcing immigration laws to get rid of the illegal foreigners, have been eliminated, with the end result that it is becoming a nightmare for needed foreigners to get a permit to stay and work in South Africa, while it has become safe and easy for those whom we do not want to stay illegally in our country.

There are weaknesses in our political machinery, which have undermined the structure of our government. I think we must correct these weaknesses because they are going to cause the downfall of our efforts to complete our liberation process. Our people cannot be liberated without an effective, impartial and efficient state apparatus.

We must admit that there are growing levels of corruption and corruptive practices and attitudes in all spheres of government and organs of state. The mind-set of too many of our people in government is wrong. There is a feeding frenzy and a growing notion that service in government is a platform from which to enrich oneself, feather one’s nest for a future job or to help friends and family.

Indeed in the same week during which the President delivered the state of the nation address, an international watchdog organisation, Transparency International, warned about the unacceptable levels of corruption in our country at all levels. Of course, they are not telling us what we ourselves do not know. There is an even more pernicious sense that the state and the ruling party are one and the same thing, and that the state has the duty to consolidate the ruling party and serve its leaders.

Many statements have been made against corruption, but let me speak as an elder brother and a father to some of you and tell you that these things are not going to be changed with statements alone. We must separate the state from political parties at all levels of government. We must stop the looting of state resources. There is a general unwillingness to take painful measures.

Do forgive me for repeating the statements that I have by now made consistently and repeatedly for more than 10 years in this House. My having to repeat them shows the unwillingness to bite the bullet when necessary. For years we have spoken about bringing much-needed flexibility to our labour market, yet no single action has been taken in that direction.

When the general council of the ruling party met in Tshwane in July last year to discuss the inflexible nature of our labour laws, we were all filled with much hope. It is an issue about which I have repeatedly warned in almost every response I have made to the President’s state of the nation address. As we know, the urgent need to address this was swept away by the leadership issues of the party. This also included the reluctance of the partners of the ruling party, the SACP and Cosatu, to deal with our inflexible labour laws.

No less a person than our Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Tito Mboweni, who enacted some of this legislation while he was Minister of Labour, has tried to warn us to reconsider them. I remember him even quoting his American counterpart, Mr Greenspan, who said that making it easy to fire, makes it easier to hire. As long as we do not bite the bullet on these issues, we will not be able to resolve the mystery of why many countries do not see our country as a destination for investment. As long as this is the case, we will not be able to solve the high unemployment rate, which the survey quoted by the President in his address views as a serious problem facing our nation.

For 10 years we have promised to lift obsolete exchange controls, yet this has not been done. Since the time of the launching of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, we have been discussing the development of a serious industrial and technological basis for South Africa so that we can determine now what products and services our country will be bringing to global markets in 20 years to enable it to ensure not only its survival but, indeed, its success.

This long-term vision has not materialised. We are preoccupied with administering what we have with no long-term direction. We are still not training our people to enable them to support our future productive efforts because we do not know what they are. I am mortified at the percentage of young people who receive a matriculation without any basic knowledge of mathematics and by the low rate of black people who are enrolling in our tertiary institutions requiring a background in mathematics. As a nation, we jeopardise our posterity if we do not train our youth in science, technology and mathematics, and prepare it to compete and succeed in the global market of an advanced technological world. I say so notwithstanding my knowledge of how close this subject is to your heart, Your Excellency.

Our liberation movement seems to have lost its long-term vision. I am concerned about the unspoken agenda, you will hear just now which one, that some of us seem to be pursuing. That agenda is not the agenda of our liberation movement, at least not for those who grew up under the shadow of giants of the likes of Inkosi Luthuli.

Our dream was that of transforming South Africa into a country in which, one day, the oppressed black majority could enjoy the same levels of education, progress, prosperity and opportunities once reserved for the white minority. We are not going to achieve these results by strengthening the security apparatus while making them accountable to the ruling party. We are not going to achieve them by infiltrating each and every organ of state and public enterprise to ensure that they may be controlled by and at the whims of the top tiers of the ruling party.

The success of our liberation movement does not rely on a power play and enrichment game. Concentrating all political and economic power in a few hands and enriching a few thousand people beyond their wildest dreams is not going to bring about the type of social and economic liberation we once envisaged. Our liberation is about training and educating our people, creating efficient and effective state machinery - one that is not looted by anyone - and promoting an economy that can make the South African enterprise succeed in the next 20 years.

I appreciate that the President is taking pride in today’s positive economic results. Yet, none of us can tell where South Africa will be in 20 years. We must admit that we have made little investment to ensure a long- term future. We must invest more in emerging technology and in assisting long-term industries. The development of small and medium enterprises is surely important, but by itself does not ensure progress and prosperity for our children and grandchildren.

We must have the courage to finally tackle the issue of crime and lawlessness. This is not just a question of safety and security but first and foremost it is a national training and education issue. Crime is not just about law enforcement, but also about finally delivering massive programmes of civic education.

We must look at the greatest of all weaknesses in our present situation and acknowledge them. Migration from rural to urban areas is creating explosive situations in our country. There are some leaders in our midst who may see that as a possible benefit to accelerating the pace of our liberation. People are migrating to urban areas because they feel that only there are they able to receive the benefits of services and assistance delivered by government.

We must seriously reprioritise our spatial development initiatives in order to concentrate the delivery of education, training, assistance and services to rural areas. It might be necessary to build rural hamlets as centres of growth and development away from the established urban areas. People from rural areas could bring their dreams and entrepreneurial spirit to those emerging markets close to home, rather than migrating to urban areas to sink into a life of despair.

The riots that are taking place in many parts of our country are reminiscent of those that our people staged to fight apartheid rulers. They cannot just be swept under the carpet merely for us to feel good. Everything in the garden is not as rosy as we might wish it to be, and that is not to diminish or dismiss quite a lot that our government has accomplished in the last 11 years. We must have the modesty to accept that these efforts, admirable as they are, are far from enough to complete the real liberation of our people from the evils of crime, unemployment, HIV/Aids and corruption.

There are many other weaknesses we must acknowledge, the biggest of all being the leadership crisis within our nation. Our liberation movement will not succeed without moral guidance from leaders of stature. Perhaps we may need to accept that democratic dynamics may not soon produce leaders of the stature of Inkosi Albert Luthuli, Canon James Calata, Dr Zami Conco, Bishop Alpheus Zulu, Mr Robert Sobukwe, Mr Oliver Tambo, and several others, too numerous to list here.

Yet, this is the time to hold the country together and ensure the unity of our people. All the weaknesses I have mentioned and many others, which I do not have the time to list, are going to be immensely compounded by this crisis of leadership and moral credibility.

The American president who followed after the tragic death of Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, said that the hardest task of a leader is not doing what is right, but knowing what is right. This is a time in which history demands of us to rise above the petty division in politics, career interests, and infighting within parties, so that leaders may become statesmen and command respect, which our people expect of them and deserve. Dlamini! [Applause].

The MINISTER OF TRANSPORT: Madam Deputy Speaker, President, Deputy President, hon members, 100 years ago in April 1906, the great mentor of national unity and co-founder of the ANC, Pixley ka Isaka Seme declared that: The brighter day is rising upon Africa. Already I seem to see her chains dissolved, her desert plains red with harvest, her Abyssinia and her Zululand the seats of science and religion, reflecting the glory of the rising sun from the spires of their churches and universities. Her Congo and her Gambia whitened with commerce, her crowded cities sending forth the hum of business and all her sons employed in advancing the victories of peace, greater and more abiding than the spoils of war.

Seme wrote in the long shadow of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik’s military victory over Italy at Adowa 10 years earlier. Bambata’s fighters were confronting injustice in KwaZulu. To the north of us, the Ovambo and Herero, and the Maji-Maji rebels rose against German butchery. But Seme wrote before the vicious decapitation of Bambata scarcely a month later, in May, and just before the other rebellions were crushed. A few months later Gandhi would launch his passive resistance campaign, and the pendulum of resistance would swing once more. Across the century of change and unthinkable horrors, the ANC continued to work in the interests of the poor and the marginalised. We remain as firm as ever, challenging the obstacles head-on, despite resistance.

The state of the nation address defines the strategic moment of a nation in the making. It re-establishes the common, binding vision of a shared future for all South Africans; it defines the specific tasks people need to undertake in partnership with this democratic government. It also reaffirms the core values and strategic objectives that underpin the very process of social transformation.

The state’s enabling and catalytic role at every level in this process is very clear. On the back of explicit and visible progress recorded over the past 12 years, we South Africans still tend to be overcritical of ourselves as much as we sometimes take many of our achievements for granted. But whatever else can be said, the people’s continued march to freedom is firmly on course.

As we carry out our tasks, we need to give proper meaning to the overwhelming sense of optimism amongst our people. Mr President, the English expression that “Hope springs eternal from the breasts of men!” is meant to describe an almost irrational optimism in the face of many of life’s challenges.

But our definition of hope is based on the concrete realities of the present, as reflected in the state of our economy and society. For our people, democratic government is an instrument to improve their conditions of life; it is a vehicle through which the concrete expression of the people’s demands for social change, freedom and human dignity are advanced and realised. And thus our people express their hopes through their own movement, the ANC, and their government, not the opportunistic wish lists of our most vocal critics. The ANC and its allies remain the only true agents of change in our country.

The ANC has never made empty promises about houses, jobs, and health, because the needs for which we produce our programmes cannot, in fact, be met with promises. This can only be done through hard work and the commitment of all stakeholders and citizens. It is a responsibility of government, at every level and in every sphere, to deliver on the programmes the people have endorsed. But again, we should not take for granted the confidence and trust placed in them by the people.

Asgisa is a catalytic instrument aimed at specific interventions across all sectors. It reflects the consistency of the ANC’s policy positions in respect of social and economic transformation from Ready to Govern and the RDP. Economics is about the equality of life of all the people of South Africa, of the need to sustain and extend the link between growth and development. It has everything to do with their access to clean water, houses, jobs, transport, health and education.

Today, the ongoing restructuring of our economy has created the necessary conditions for increased public-sector-led investment in infrastructure. An important contributing factor to this was the reduction of public sector debt from 64% of GDP in 1994 to about 50% in 2004, assisted by the receipt of over R34 billion through the restructuring of state-owned enterprises in that period. We can now accelerate the increases in investment in both economic and social infrastructure we began to make in 2001.

That infrastructure will lay the solid foundation for sustainable growth towards, and beyond 6%, and boost our economic development. Our developmental state seeks fundamentally to transform unequal power relations in society and create the conditions where the majority of our people have the skills and access to the means to take control of their own lives. The potential of all South Africans will be fully realised through redistributing resources and investing in infrastructure and in our people as a key resource for the reconstruction and development of South African society.

The Asgisa projects include large and small ones; multisector and departmentally or provincially-based projects. Asgisa’s success in unblocking the network of constraints on our economy will contribute hugely to the success of other ongoing initiatives conducted at departmental and local levels.

We recognise that many of our people still live in abject poverty, leading desperate lives and are unable to meet their basic demands. But, the past 12 years bear testimony to our efforts to address the conditions of those in desperate conditions. From Nelson Mandela’s first state of the nation address calling for free health care for pregnant mothers and children under the age of six to the school feeding scheme, we can today see expanded investment in the wellbeing of South Africans that addresses the conditions that give rise to desperation among the poor.

Mr President, just before the formal establishment of the ANC in 1912, John Langalibele Dube suggested to chiefs and elders in Zululand that unity in action was the major purpose of the new organisation that would carry forward the struggle for freedom. A member of the audience then called out: “I thank Bambata. I thank Bambata very much. I do not mean the Bambata of the bush who perished at Nkandla, but I mean this new spirit, which we have just heard explained.”

What we believe that echo from the past means to us today, is that the people expect the ANC to strive through action to honour the vision and yearning of our ancestors and those who have gone before. Our role in government is to provide the muscle and the means to fulfil our people’s dream in this age of hope.

South Africa has embarked on a journey that gives flesh to the immortal words of Patrice Lumumba, that -

History will one day have its say; it will not be the history taught in the UN, Washington, Paris or Brussels, however, but the history taught in the countries that have rid themselves of colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and both north and south of the Sahara it will be a history full of glory and dignity.

In the 1960s, economic growth was premised on repression and aimed at entrenching an undemocratic society, riven by inequality and injustice. It failed gloriously as a growth path to prosperity. The current growth surge is built on and fed by a democratic state striving to reduce poverty and inequality. We are confident that the age of hope will mature into an era of prosperity, on the solid foundations of the collective work of countless millions of our people. As we prove ourselves a winning nation, rest assured that we intend to be a nation that not only wins, but a nation that excels, a nation proud of our success, but humble in our contribution to development as a whole. Re a leboga. [I thank you]. [Applause.]

Mr W J SEREMANE: Madam Deputy Speaker, the hon President, Deputy President, so much for the hon Uncle Big Ben Turok on the loud noise he made. I am not tempted to say that he must release the wealth that has been stashed away, wherever he has put it, for distribution amongst the people who really need it. I am not going to tell you that “umde ngeentonga” [your works are taller than your stature] because you know why you are raving so; perhaps it is because of your height. Let me not play the man but play the ball.

I would like to preface my response to the President’s state of the nation address by quoting yet again Abraham Lincoln, who said: Those who deny others freedom or justice deserve it not for themselves and cannot under a just God long retain that freedom.

We observe too that justice is a double-edged sword. It can never be justice if it is selective or driven by racism, ethnicity or tribalism, sectarianism or so-called “national vindictiveness”.

The DA welcomes the National Prosecuting Authority amendment of the prosecuting policy, which sets out the directives for the prosecution of apartheid-era human rights offenders.

On 15 April 2003, President Mbeki told this House that there would be no general amnesty for perpetrators of apartheid-era violations as this would be unconstitutional and it would also undermine the spirit of the TRC process.

However, we must not be complacent. I believe that the TRC process was never meant to be a replica of the Nuremberg trials or some punitive process but a process that sought to encourage disclosure sans the burden of retribution in order to bring closure to the hurts and conflicts of that dark patch of our history.

We must not fall into the trap of reigniting the old conflicts despite the fact that the dark era should not be forgotten; if for no other reason than to remind us constantly to never again walk that sordid and brutal road. The ANC National Executive Committee said, in its response to the Motsuenyane commission and its final report to the TRC, that “violations of human rights must always be condemned, no matter by who against whom.” That is the principle that should guide the National Prosecuting Authority.

The head of the NPA, the hon Vusi Pikoli, in a recent interview asserted that there were “two sides to conflict” . . . [Interjections.] It is not your reserved right to be called honourable. He also said:

All the people who were refused amnesty or did not go to the TRC are exposed to possible prosecution. People must be made to account for their actions.

He noted too that:

As prosecutors they have to display their impartiality.

The foregoing suggests that justice and not selective justice has to take its course.

Cases, including the poisoning of Rev Frank Chikane, the abduction and slaying of the Pebco Three, and the murder of the Cradock Four by security forces need to be prosecuted to extract full disclosure and obtain closure in these matters. This is very important for the realisation of peace, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation for our nation. Equally important is the need to resolve the unfinished business of prosecuting and encouraging full disclosure of, and finding closure to, the gross human rights violations perpetrated in the name of liberation in South Africa and abroad.

There are quite a number of people in this country who want to be part of the process of justice, forgiveness, peace and reconciliation, but cannot do so easily because they know not what happened to their kith and kin, their flesh and blood or, simply, the remains of their dear ones. We must bring to an end their nightmare.

The NPA’s discretion to prosecute requires even-handedness and political balance. We must guard against the danger and the temptation of using prosecutions to settle old scores. Mr President, I believe that you and all of us must grapple with these difficult notions of forgiveness and reconciliation. I thank you. [Time expired.]

The MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: Hon Madam Deputy Speaker, President Mbeki, Deputy President, members of Parliament and fellow South Africans, on Friday, Mr President, you presented firm evidence that our country has entered what was referred to as an “age of hope”. It is appropriate that we dwell on this today.

The hope that can be deduced from the confidence and optimism expressed by the South African people in various recent opinion surveys is not a misguided sense of self-deception and hallucination that all problems of our divided and socially unjust society has been solved in little more than a decade. The hope expressed is, however, a realistic assessment that we are working towards realising a dream that we in the ANC have had and lived for in this country for many decades. This dream that we have is about bringing about a democratic and just South Africa in place of what we had: colonialism, apartheid, exclusion and discrimination.

We have systematically worked towards getting rid of an old evil system. In a formal sense, we achieved this in April 1994. However, we also knew that those first elections were little more than the beginning of a new stage of our struggle - a hard struggle that we are still continuing in the second decade of our democracy. It is the struggle of building a new society that embraces and displays the values that we hold dear and which will tangibly wipe out the injustices of the past.

Václav Havel, the author, activist and first Czech President after the transition, wrote on the issue of hope, and I quote:

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are doing well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

This is something that is clearly not understood by the Leader of the Opposition. But what do we expect of someone of his nature?

This is the kind of hope that we as South Africans have. It is an unwavering hope - even in the realisation that much room remains for improvement in our efforts and that the road to realising our dream is a long one - because we are convinced that the society we are creating is one that is essentially good. It is a society that because of the way in which it has expressed its ideals in its Constitution, which will be ten years old this year, is recognised as the most progressive in the world. That is where our ideals are expressed.

It embraces an internationally recognised human rights agenda and as such it is in the forefront of engaging with issues pertaining to social justice in the global arena and democracy and good governance on the African continent. It is one that acknowledges the importance of a developmental agenda that is not only one of an economic nature, but that is truly founded on the empowerment of our people.

The ANC tripartite alliance and South Africans in general are steeped in a history of where people have displayed this kind of hope even in the face of severe adversity and most trying circumstances because they knew that they were working towards realising something good. This was the hope that the women who marched on the Union Buildings in 1956 had when they refused to be subjugated to the whims of the apartheid government.

This was the hope the youth felt during and after the 1976 Soweto uprising. This was the hope that allowed our freedom fighters to continue the struggle with determination and resilience even after raids such as the one at Matola and assassinations such as that of Joe Gqabi at the hands of apartheid assassins in 1981.

In 1994 the ANC made a commitment to the people of our country that our agenda is one of creating a better life for all. And our ANC-led government has already achieved much in terms of that commitment. Let’s just remind everyone that between 1994 and 2004, over 1 200 new clinics were built and a further 252 clinics underwent major upgrading; 2 298 clinics also received new equipment and/or underwent minor upgradings. [Applause.]

At a primary health care level, we stepped up services in terms of immunisation, communicable and endemic disease prevention, maternity care, integrated management of childhood illnesses and child health care, youth health services, assisting with taking care of the chronically ill, family planning and so forth.

Since 1994 up to March 2004, more than 1,8 million houses were actually completed or were under construction. The average annual rate of construction of housing under the ANC leadership between 1994 and March 2005 is 166 533, well over the 50 000 which the previous government mustered. We set ourselves ambitious targets.

However, it still falls short of the 300 000 units which the RDP had foreseen, therefore there has been a massive increase in our efforts since 2004 because we don’t shy away from saying we want to achieve the impossible. We are going to make that happen. We have gone a long way. The social housing policy that we pursue creates an enabling environment for both private and public investments in social housing policy. This policy also supports urban regeneration, integration and densification initiatives that promote greater urban efficiency.

In 1994 we inherited a backlog of 14 million people that did not enjoy access to clean, safe water. By the end of November 2004, and noticing the increase in population figures, we had managed to whittle down the number of people still lacking access to clean water to 5 million. Although this is unacceptably high since our target is not a single person without such access, we are on target to eradicating the backlog in water, as well as sanitation facilities by 2008 and 2010 respectively. We have also already exceeded the Millennium Development Goals in this respect, because we don’t just engage in the rhetoric or suggest no hope where we have not reached those. We are saying we will get there, look at our record. With the announcement of the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative the SA, we are intent on responding to the problem that, notwithstanding our efforts hitherto, we have not managed to close the gap between the rich and the poor. By driving specific key initiatives, we are intent on embarking on a road where we can realise the ideal of sharing the growth and wealth of our country among all people. In this initiative we creatively combine the requirements of economic and social development. We believe that the one without the other will not optimise the situation for all our citizens.

We will continue to place the wellbeing of our people in the centre and thus there is a great emphasis on skills development in Asgisa, on removing impediments to people to helping themselves and putting the necessary social and economic infrastructure in place that will allow all people to achieve an improvement in their situation, so that systematically we remove the huge chasm between the rich and the poor.

The state, however, does not abandon its responsibility of providing a social net to those who are in desperate need. The extent of the social grant support, which the government currently provides, stands testimony to this commitment. We believe, however, that fundamentally ours should be a situation in which the population is empowered and can thrive on its own creations, given the right circumstances rather than having a large-scale dependency relationship on social security grants. We are working towards ensuring that both happen.

In the Freedom Charter we have stated that “The People Shall Govern”. Two concepts are central in this phrase: “people”, and not merely jobs, enterprises, legal personae, etc; and “govern”, that is, the willingness to take decisions and authoritatively allocate the state resources to achieve some state policy goals, and not about withering away the state and the market and taking the hindmost, as some would do.

The act of voting and the opportunity of elections in a formal sense allow people to identify the political party that will govern on their behalf. During the past rounds of elections, both at national, provincial and local government levels, the people of our country have chosen to trust the ANC. They have placed their hope in our hands because they know that, notwithstanding our imperfections, we represent an agenda - together with them - that is good. The 1 March 2006 elections offer one more opportunity to our people to categorically place their confidence in the ANC to represent them for a further term in every local council across the country. [Applause.]

The ANC’s commitment to democracy, however, goes much deeper than only choosing representatives. We consciously seek to involve our people directly in the governance process wherever the opportunity allows for it: in community policing forums, in school governing bodies, and in health committees.

We do so in decision-making processes where we agree on priorities. Note for example the inclusive processes that we have created through legislation and in terms of the Integrated Development Planning at the local level, or in public hearings here in Parliament, or when Parliament goes out to meet the people, or the process of Parliament going to communities. And then some chose to stay away when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, something that was much greater than the ANC, something owned by the people of our country. But those who don’t believe in the people’s participation chose to withdraw. [Applause.] Can you trust such people to represent you?

We do so by asking the community to become full and constructive players in the provision of our many public services; for example, through school- feeding schemes, as community health workers and community-based care and support workers, other participants in our Extended Public Works Initiatives or Letsema/Vukuzenzele initiatives to mention but a few.

But even more important, we involve our people in assisting with oversight monitoring and evaluation activities. We want them to help us in keeping our public servants accountable. We want them to tell us when corruption takes place. We want them to tell us when our officials are slacking off, or when they infringe on the democratic rights of our people. We have created mechanisms for all of these. There are izimbizo. We have created a host of constitutionally independent institutions that the public can access to help with the above: the Human Rights Commission, the Public Protector, the Gender Commission, the Public Service Commission – to mention but a few. We also want the community to assist the executive and the duly elected political representatives in bringing pressure to bear on and communicating the urgency for delivery to the bureaucracy, which in instances when left to their own devices are inclined to let this slide.

We can proudly say that the system we have created is truly a people’s democracy. We have entered into a social contract with the people of this country - all the people - black and white, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic and all other orientations; rich, middle class and poor; urban and rural. This contract bestows rights and obligations on government and the people.

In the state of the nation address on Friday, our President gave further effect to the ANC’s commitment to assuming the role of the developmental state, where the state will use its resources to achieve social justice. We have demonstrated our commitment to responsibly distribute and redistribute the wealth of this nation. And much of this distribution and redistribution takes place through the extension of social infrastructure and services to sectors of the previously underserviced population. We have chosen to actively advance the cause of the poor, particularly women and youth. We are deliberately targeting resources in that direction.

We have lived up to our ideal, as expressed in the RDP for health care for women and children, to provide free health care by introducing our free health care policy for pregnant women and children under the age of six. All of these initiatives strive to increase access to health service for the large majority of people who were historically underserviced, but at the same time very appropriately targeted to benefit women and children.

We have made significant progress in terms of implementing our policy on access to free basic services. After the most recent non-financial Stats SA census of South Africa’s municipalities dated 2004, Africa one could report that almost 8,5 million households now receive free basic water; close to 7 million receive free sewerage and sanitation; 6,5 million benefit from free solid waste management; and we are well on our way to where 5 million households will benefit from free electricity.

The impact that access to these free basic services has on the immediate quality of life of a significant proportion of our population should not be underestimated. But there is still that house that we need to reach – the single house the Leader of the Opposition goes to and he forgets about the many that have been reached. [Applause.]

On Friday the President also indicated that we will review our willing buyer, willing seller policy – a policy that, in the way it is meeting with delay, seems to suggest that it is holding the ability of the state to redistribute land in substantially large measures to ransom. Across all historical divisions, we have come to terms with some of the sacrifices that will have to be made in the interest of building a stronger and more unified nation over the longer term. We have to recognise the interdependency that exists and the absence of true security and wellbeing that will result if some are excluded from the available resources and riches of our country.

In this respect, in terms of the new urban housing development, we are intent on redetermining the spatial settlement patterns that came about as a consequence of apartheid. These are unsuitable and detrimental to the development that will allow the poor to flourish and have greater access to job opportunities and the market. We have, and will continue to use the regulatory powers available to the state to achieve these objectives. I thank you, Deputy Speaker. [Time expired.][Applause.]

Mr B H HOLOMISA: Madam Deputy Speaker, hon President and hon Deputy President, colleagues, the points you have raised, Mr President, are generally favourable if unsurprising. We support many of the initiatives you have spoken of and we would be contradicting ourselves if we were to say otherwise.

We have called for the government to do more, and thus responsible interventions on land, skills and infrastructure are welcomed. South Africa must build its own economy, utilising its own resources, and thus avoid being dictated to by outside forces that flood our markets.

The UDM also supports your position on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology for peaceful means. It is high time that the UN, in particular the Security Council, realise that if they want to succeed with their nonproliferation agenda they should be even-handed. It is hypocritical for the Security Council to do little about the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and even Israel and their nuclear warfare capabilities, but to isolate one country, which insists that it is only pursuing peaceful nuclear use.

Last year the hon Minister of Finance announced R370 billion in the Mid- Term Budget Policy Statement for infrastructure projects. Then the ANC’s 8 January statement, according to the media, spoke of R400 billion for local government infrastructure development. And yesterday the hon Deputy President announced that R372 billion in spending would underpin Asgisa.

Any reasonable South African would have noted these announcements over the past six months and felt optimistic that so many thousands of billions of our taxpayers’ money was being ploughed back into the community. For the purposes of clarity I would appreciate it if the hon President could explain in his response whether they are all separate amounts for separate programmes, or whether this is the same amount that is being talked about every time.

My input today will be to contribute to two specific issues that I believe will improve the benefits that the democratic state should be providing to all its citizens. The hon President has spoken of an age of hope and, yes, many South Africans, sir, are optimistic about the future. But that hope is a fragile thing that is regularly dented and undermined by embarrassing incidents.

The first specific issue that needs attention is the different kinds of community protests, with underlying party-political tones, which we are seeing with increasing regularity. At times these protests give expression to internal tripartite-alliance squabbles. This constitutes a broader threat to our democracy, I submit, emanating from within the ruling party and alliance. And it is an undeniable feature of the state of the nation.

Indeed, I can say without fear of contradiction that it formed the basis of the most sustained and prominent public debate of the past year. It was not us, of course, who embroiled the upper echelons of the state intelligence and other state departments in an unseemly struggle for power. These matters affect the state of the nation like few other matters do at the moment.

For instance in the Eastern Cape, in the last couple of years, we have witnessed how these political undertones and divisions have affected the provincial government and service delivery. If a particular premier comes to power, the Cabinet and senior administrators who are viewed as loyal to the previous administration are purged, thereby destroying continuity and management experience. Similarly, there will be those from the old provincial administration who remain behind purely to undermine the efforts of the incoming administration. These divisions have threatened the stability of government.

There is the example of the ANC councillors in the Qawukeni Municipality who shot each other in the municipal offices, or there is the well- documented role of the ruling party’s alliance partner, the SACP, in Khutsong.

Who would have thought that a decade into democracy, in which no-go areas operated by political parties had finally become a thing of the past, that there would be areas where you could not put up election posters, including even the ruling party itself? Who would have thought that this resistance to democracy would be led by a ruling party alliance partner?

The SACP needs to be reminded that they have never had the guts to fight an election on their own. If they want to ride the coat-tails of the ANC, that is their right. And if the ANC doesn’t mind the burden of dragging them and their other alliance partners along, that is also their full right.

The ANC must handle its alliance arrangement as it sees fit, but it cannot forget that it is the party with the mandate of the voters and it should deliver to them and not be held to ransom by its alliance partners. I am referring here to more than the local protests that they have fomented, if you didn’t know.

Members of the ruling party alliance have taken their internal squabbles and campaigns into the Public Service and disrupted the work of key institutions of the state. They have openly campaigned against independent institutions of the democratic state, and they have even vilified the judiciary for daring to remark upon the behaviour of their political darlings. And these embarrassing incidents continue to happen.

Just recently another election-shy, coat-tail server of the ANC, called Sanco, advocated the amendment of the Constitution to allow a third term of office for the hon President. For now that debate has been quashed by the hon President, who said that the ANC would respect the Constitution.

We still need to address this issue, because it throws up a very important issue for the citizens of this country that goes far wider than ANC internal power struggles. These questions keep cropping up, because those in the ruling alliance are concerned about who the hon President’s successor will be. But why should this be their concern solely? Has the time not arrived for all South Africans - and not just the most powerful faction in the ANC or in the alliance - to decide who their President will be? Thank you. [Time expired.]

Mr S D MONTSITSI: Madam Speaker, President of the Republic and hon members . . .

Mhlekazi, i-African National Congress nomfelandawonye azitsho ukuthi amalungu omfelandawonye . . . [Sir, the ANC and the alliance are not saying their members . . . ]

. . . cannot engage in other issues. Members of the alliance have the right to pronounce themselves on a variety of issues. But the only thing is that the ANC is clear on the issue of the Constitution. I thank you, baba [sir]. Thank you, tata [sir].

Tracing our history from the advent of democracy serves to contextualise the current optimism, said the President. It is therefore natural and logical for the young people of our country to vote for the ANC in the coming local elections.

In tracing this history, we travel along a path in reflecting upon the stark contrast between South Africa today and South Africa yesterday.

The South Africa of yesterday, 30 years ago, presented a very gloomy picture, in particular in the education arena – my pet subject. The explosion that shook the country reverberated with the echoes of demands for a better education across the length and breadth of our township schools - the demand to scrap Afrikaans as the medium of instruction; the demand to abolish Bantu Education; the demand for a free and compulsory education system; the demand for the recognition of student representative councils, SRCs; the demand for parents to participate in the education of their children; the demand for equal rights; and indeed the demand to abolish apartheid as a political system. These demands were conceived by young people after a series of meetings.

The I D Mkhize Secondary School in Guguletu was used as a meeting spot for student representatives. It was under the leadership of a student leader called Dapepe from the Langa High School, Zakes from the same school, and a girl student called Ntombintombi Ngezela. The Langa High School was used as the common venue for convening mass meetings of students from the various schools and townships of Cape Town.

Therefore, the June 16 explosion took place on 11 August 1976 in Cape Town. The first casualty was Xolile Musi. These were the same demands, which the students made in Soweto, which the students made in the Free State, which the students made in the north in Galeshewe, which the students made in Pietersburg, and which the students made, again, in Natal.

The advent of our democracy in 1994 ushered in hope and optimism. All gloom and doom was relegated to the dustbin of history, as the South African Schools Act was passed in November 1996. The demands made by the Cosas students’ generation of the 1980s, led by Ephraim Mogale, Shepard Mati and Lulu Johnson, were also met by the South African Schools Act.

As far as the issue of the language policy is concerned, sections 6(2) and 6(3) state that the governing body of a public school may determine the language policy of the school, and no form of racial discrimination may be practised.

Bantu Education was abolished; it was replaced by a universal and equitable system of outcomes-based education. With regard to compulsory education, section 3(1) states that every parent must cause every learner for whom he or she is responsible to attend school. Any parent without just cause who fails to comply with this provision is guilty of an offence. Therefore, the onus rests on the parent. The move therefore towards free education indicates that no learner may be refused admission to a public school on the grounds of his or her parents being unable to pay the fees.

The present policy of the Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, is to identify poverty quantile areas with the objective of declaring schools in those areas no-fee schools. Section 11(1) states that a representative council of learners at the school must be established. Such a council is the only recognised and legitimate representative council of learners.

These are the demands that were placed throughout the length and breadth of our country, and these are the demands that were accepted by the present government as part of our national programme to entrench democracy. It is therefore the duty of the young people of today to vote for the ANC, as they owe it to themselves and to the their forebears and student martyrs, like Siphiwe Mthimkhulu.

This year is the 30th anniversary of June 16. The DA, as usual, is going to jump onto the bandwagon. This is the party that rejected the South African Schools Act, the very Act for whom so many students lost their lives. [Interjections.] In November 1996, when the South African Schools Bill was passed, the DA opposed it. The portfolio committee passed this Bill with a majority, while the DA staged a walk-out from a meeting that adjourned at 11pm in the evening.

This Act is a beacon of hope for many young South Africans that celebrate it. You, the DA, what will you be celebrating? You opposed the very Act that embodied the spirit of the demands of the students. When you call small groups of young people to come to honour your meetings, what will you be telling those students? [Interjections.] Why do you have to celebrate June 16 when you do not abide by the spirit of June 16? Why? [Interjections.]

I cannot see Helen Zille here. As an MEC in the Western Cape legislature, she passed a provincial Act, attempting to undermine the South African Schools Act. She didn’t get very far, because it was dismissed by the Constitutional Court.

Baba Buthelezi, uyazi siyakuthanda kakhulu kodwa sisakhumbula ukuthi ngonyaka ka-1983 abantwana bashaywa kakhulu laphayana eNyuvesi yasoNgoye. [Ihlombe.] Abanye babo bashona kwathi abanye balimala kakhulu kodwa sithi baba siyakuthanda futhi siyafisa ukuthi ngelinye ilanga izinto ziguquke sikubone usuhleli nathi ngapha. [Ihlombe.] (Translation of isiZulu paragraph follows.)

[Hon Buthelezi, you know that we love you, but we remember that students were beaten at the University of Zululand in 1983. [Applause.] Some of them passed away and some of them were seriously injured. We are saying we love you. We wish to see changes one day and see you on our side. [Applause.]]

We, who are coming of age like Comrade Cwele, Comrade Zo Kota, Comrade Hlengiwe Mgabadeli, Comrade Suzanne Shabangu and others, always wipe away our sorrow and tears with a copy of the South African Schools Act on our way to the June 16 celebrations. I thank you. [Applause.]

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Hon members, I’m now going to suspend proceedings for 10 minutes to allow members a body break. The bells will be rung to announce the resumption of proceedings. Proceedings are now suspended.

Business suspended at 15:59 and resumed at 16:13.

Mrs P DE LILLE: Madam Deputy Speaker, Madam Deputy President, Mr President, South Africans may indeed be optimistic about the future, but do we all have the same vision as to what that future should be? The ID’s vision is one where the destructive divides of our society are bridged. We will only succeed as a nation if we recognise the problems that are faced by all our communities and are prepared to make the necessary compromises needed to address them.

The problems of the poor are the problems of the rich and the challenge of building social cohesion rests on the shoulders of all of us. The task at hand cannot be restricted to the government alone and the ID would like to see a hand being extended to our citizens, making them partners in our development. Citizens are not just consumers but active participants in our economy and we need to encourage them to play this role.

Unfortunately, the divides in our society often lead to the poor having to compete for scarce resources. This also leads to unscrupulous political parties exploiting these divides for short-term political gain. We have graphically seen this in the campaigns that some parties have chosen to run in this city, for instance. The theme for this year’s address was “equality”, which seems ironic, given that South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. Inequality threatens all of our achievements and makes the job of uniting our country an impossible task. As many economic models show, reducing inequality in the country will, in fact, provide a more sustainable economic base and allow us to achieve that elusive 6% growth rate.

The ID is happy to see that the term “Shared” is included in the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative. We hope that this finally leads to benefits going to all our people. The infrastructure is clearly not in place for benefits to trickle down to the poor. What we need now is for those benefits to bubble up. Many of the poorest communities live in the rural areas and the ID has constantly been arguing for a comprehensive rural development strategy that will improve their actual livelihoods. The government must partner with these communities and address their real needs for basic services and training in subsistence plus agriculture.

It is also depressing to see our children in rural areas being educated in broken and mud structures without any form of electricity, water or sanitation. This is despite your promise two years ago that no child would have to suffer this indignity.

Hon President, if we do not address the educational divide in this country, we will inherit a divided future. The ID has always supported the concept of a developmental state. Only a fool can’t see that he needs to play an active role in addressing the huge socioeconomic challenges that confront us. This developmental state also needs to become a partner to business and put a necessary investment into key growth areas. The ID welcomes the agreement that has been reached with China on the protection of our clothing and textile industry. Is this not a bit too late, though? We have already seen the closure of many factories around the country and over a quarter of a million people being put out of work due to the government removing protection too quickly.

This is not the only industry in which the government has destroyed the livelihoods of people through its actions. Many poor fishing communities are currently being torn apart by unjust policies that deny fisherpeople their right to practise a centuries-old tradition. To them the age of hope has become an age of despair. Although we need a strong developmental state, our current Public Service is weak. Capacity is often quoted as the excuse. The government had 11 years to build capacity and failure to do so is holding the entire country back. By putting in political appointments you have undermined the Public Service and made it a less attractive place for people to work.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Hon members, I don’t think that we are going to continue to have that kind of heckling between you two. You know who you two are. Do that once more and I am going to call you by name and order you out of the Chamber. If you have any differences, outside is the place to air them. Here we are going to respect this Chamber and anyone who is at the podium, speaking. [Applause.]

Mrs P DE LILLE: The Public Service needs to become a prestigious institution where skilled people compete to find work and vacancies are nonexistent. Corruption also plays a huge role in preventing the Public Service from delivering on promises. There are a few corrupt people in government who are making a mockery of our attempts to deliver quality service. The ID wants to help you, Mr President, in rooting out this corruption so that we can all be served better.

The ID welcomes the Gipsa initiative but we hope that it is able to succeed where the National Skills Authority has not. We support your stand against budget rollovers but we would like to see strong action taken against those Ministers who are unable to spend their budgets. In a country that has such enormous socioeconomic backlogs, it is a crime for us not to be able to spend our budgets. The ID hopes for the day when government departments are able to spend their money as efficiently as Sars is able to collect it.

Hon President, when you talk of the age of hope, you talk about our future. Those who will inherit the future are our children but it is their present reality that we have to worry about. Seven out of 10 children in South Africa live in poverty and those that live in poverty are four times more likely to die. This is a shocking statistic. We should all be ashamed of it. It has gotten worse over the last 11 years. Hope and the promise of sanitation will not prevent these children from dying of diarrhoea. Hope and the promise of clean water will not prevent these children from dying of gastroenteritis. What these children really need is the delivery of basic services now. Your age of hope will become nothing but a pipe dream unless we put the needs of our children first in this country.

HIV-Aids is a major contributing factor to child mortality in South Africa. It is one thing to state that we have one of the largest antiretroviral roll out programmes in the world but we also have the largest number of HIV- positive people. Our programme is currently only reaching 5% of the actual need in the country. Almost 3 million South Africans are in stages 3 and 4 of the disease and need these lifesaving drugs now. The ID had to march on the Department of Health in Pongola to get the regional hospital to deliver ARVs.

This is not the time for us to pat ourselves on the back, nor is it the time to be creating political divisions over the issue. We need to give South Africans hope, both those who are positive and those who are still too scared to go for the test. Only in this way will we be able to confront one of our greatest challenges.

In conclusion, the ID wants to warn the executive not to interfere with the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary. The transformation that is desperately needed in our judiciary is justice to be made accessible to the poor. I thank you. [Applause.]

Ms H C MGABADELI: “We must, constrained by and yet regardless of the accumulated effect of our historical burdens, seize the time to define for ourselves what we want to make of our shared destiny.”

Chairperson, hon President, members of the executive, hon members and fellow citizens, when Comrade President Thabo Mbeki, in his state of the nation address on 3 February 2006, decided to revisit these words, as they were pronounced by the former President of the Republic of South Africa, Comrade Nelson Mandela, in May 1994, it became the reality that we ourselves and nobody else will define what we want to make of our shared destiny.

This is indeed a heavy responsibility that demands unity, love, tolerance, co-ordinated minds and, above all, a high level of patriotism based largely on respect for our Constitution, our policies, as well as our institutions as instruments for ensuring that delivery is of a high quality.

We will seize the time and celebrate the lives and ideals of our forbearers who never rested but who became the path-finders of the process of critical thinking, on behalf of the whole nation when the colonisers, together with those colonisers of the special type, were introducing what was, in years to come, going to lead to landlessness, cheap labour, uprooting and resettling, family disunity, etc.

Through their barbaric actions of raping the economic independence, an African agriculturist and pastoralist, Inkosi uMbhambatha ka ma Cinsa, saw it coming that, in years to come, we would be sitting like this, saying, “Let us review what has happened to our land. Why are foreigners the ones who are now in possession of 97% of our land, etc?”

Colonisers, in partnership with colonisers of the special type, driven by capitalistic greed, were quick in finding painful ways of impoverishing the once-rich Zulus, by forcing them to succumb to the Poll Tax Act, which was two pounds per head for an adult man. This meant going to the mines, as a man, to get these two pounds, leaving your riches behind, unguarded, your family unprotected, in search of two pounds. The Zulu nation, led by Inkosi uBhambatha in particular, left the indelible history, which will forever be celebrated by generations to come.

Hence, 16 June 2006 will be the celebration of the centenary of that occasion, as the President shared with the country on 3 February. We still say, “constrained by and yet regardless of the accumulated effects of our historical burdens”.

We will celebrate this centenary and think critically in order for us to define for ourselves what we want to make out of that celebration.

Through such thinking together, guided largely by this history and others, we will find the solution to questionable uneven ownership of land, family disunity, the socioeconomic state of rural areas, as well as the socioeconomic state of pseudo-urban areas where they’re “urban”, as they term it, but still use the bucket system type of toilets.

The likes of Tony Leon have got constituencies in those areas. They are using the bucket system, yet it is called an urban area. How urban is that?

Indeed, we are continually seizing the time and we are continually trying hard to bring about an undivided South Africa, with one nation sharing a common citizenship, patriotism and loyalty, pursuing, amidst our diversity, freedom, equality and security for all irrespective of race, colour, sex or creed; a country free from apartheid or any other form of discrimination or domination. That is what the Codesa declaration of intent, as was revisited by the President, tells us.

Unfortunately some people who are permanent tourists in our country are not even celebrating our humbleness for even forgetting and forgiving them for what they have said. [Interjections.] Shut up.

The fruits of such a commitment are innumerable . . . [Interjections.] . . . I am like you . . . but one will highlight the following areas, among other things, using KwaZulu-Natal that was ravished by violence prior to and after the Codesa declaration.

These fruits are the following: Exposure programmes, particularly on issues of environment and agriculture. Through these programmes, working relationships with countries like India, Germany and others have led to the identified areas that need special attention to make the environment and agriculture an answer to empty stomachs, eg there has to be water provision, and low-cost irrigation techniques suitable for mass production.

The third fruit is the Maphophoma maize project where 1 450 hectares are producing between six and seven tonnes of maize per hectare. The fourth is the rehabilitation of the irrigation scheme, and R1,8 million has been invested for the purchase of seeds, fertilizers and other inputs, and the planting of high-income crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc.

There was the investment of R400 000 for processing equipment to add value to the crop. Already, 300 people are employed full time in this project. There is also the cotton growers’ scheme in Makhathini, and the on-going purchasing of Nguni cattle to bring back the lost dignity and pride of the Zulus, which I have already spoken about in particular.

There are the mushroom and the dry-land rice projects at the launch of the Empangeni project. This is something that the nation needs to applaud. After only one year of the democratically elected people in that province, not in the country now, all these and others have been celebrated. Indeed, siyavuna, we are harvesting. The nation is winning.

Local government elections are coming at a time when sober-minded South Africans from the KwaZulu-Natal province in particular are able to separate rebuilding and reconstruction for a better life for all from fighting for individual gains.

It is, however, sad that, though we try hard as a nation to concretise the whole concept of three tiers of government so that service delivery can be a source of hope to the masses of our people so that it is possible for all of Africa to hear mountains and the hills singing before them, at local level, poverty is seen and not heard.

We still have leaders like those in the Vryheid, uMvoti and Harding municipalities to cite but a few. Here delivery is robbery. Delivery is the suppression of human rights and a suppression of peaceful solutions.

Let me tell you about Vryheid. In 2005, just when the people of Baqulusi were trying to make their shared destiny by critically looking at the need to investigate the unauthorised use of municipal property, corruption mismanagement, etc, the matter of instituting an investigation was put to a vote. Those members who voted for the investigation were fired, and this action led to a division within the IFP ranks.

Why would people be fired when they are exercising their rights, when they are practically being the eyes and ears of the masses of Vryheid? When they are closely monitoring developments in order to identify all factors threatening to derail the process in Vryheid, and to issue early warnings accordingly, why are they being fired?

The IFP lost the case in court, which in turn resulted in a reinstatement of the dismissed IFP councillors. This, economically, meant paying salaries for two IFP members, two deputy mayors and two speakers. That is double the salary bill. Tensions were forever and ever gaining momentum.

A R1 million budget for the building of a stadium in Mondlo Township, which was never built and the money not accounted for, as well as other issues, led to the intervention of the provincial government.

If only these things were not covered up, for the provincial government surely was not going to intervene. [Time expired.] [Applause.]

Rev K R J MESHOE: Hon Deputy President, hon President, Deputy Speaker, hon members, the President surprised most people in this nation by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah not only once, but three times. His speech, which was well received by most of us, instilled hope and optimism, and raised the expectations of our people.

I was asked by Tim Modise on his show why I thought the President chose to quote from the Prophet Isaiah and not from the other prophets, and what I thought was the significance of the quote. While not knowing his real reasons for doing it, I nevertheless expressed my appreciation for the President doing that, and gave Tim my thoughts about the matter, which includes the following: The name Isaiah means Jehovah saves or salvation of Jehovah. I hope the quotation of Isaiah simply means that the President, like me, hopes for the salvation of Jehovah. The fact is, Mr President, we need God’s help to make our nation a truly winning nation. You did the right thing, sir. And I hope you will continue to search for answers in God’s word.

May I remind the hon President and members of this House that before the nation can go out with joy and be led forth in peace, and before the mountains and hills shall break forth into singing, there are conditions that the Prophet Isaiah referred to in the same chapter containing the verses quoted by the hon President, which must be met.

The three conditions I have time to mention are, firstly, to seek the Lord while he may be found; secondly, to let the wicked forsake their way and the evil men’s thoughts; and thirdly, that we return to the Lord who will have mercy on us and will pardon us.

Now I want to focus on areas in which I believe the President’s speech fell short. Firstly, the President only mentioned HIV/Aids once in his speech and thereby failed to deal with this pandemic as a national priority. The ACDP believes that HIV/Aids has to be included in government’s priority lists alongside poverty and unemployment. It is not good enough to be told that about a hundred thousand patients are receiving antiretroviral treatment. According to the Actuarial Society of South Africa, another 520 000 HIV-positive people urgently need treatment. The government must address the problem of HIV/Aids much more aggressively, and we believe the President must take the lead in that.

Government must have a clear policy of not only providing treatment for those who need it but also have programmes to help those who are HIV- negative to stay negative. I know that on paper government does refer to their ABC strategy, which they do not seem to be convinced about. Government has to urgently do something to prevent predictions that 5,8 million South Africans will be infected with the Aids virus by 2010 from coming to pass.

The most reliable way of ensuring that children do not easily get infected with the Aids virus is to teach them to refrain from sex until marriage. While it is primarily parents’ responsibility to teach their children to abstain from premarital sex, we believe that schools must teach the same thing.

The President had an opportunity to endorse Education Minister Naledi Pandor’s call to schoolchildren to abstain from sex and focus on their studies, and the President didn’t do that.

The ACDP hereby endorses the Education Minister’s call. I know that it will not be easy to convince some schoolchildren and the nation to abstain from premarital sex while they are bombarded with pornography every day of their lives. Our country is losing the fight against child pornography and the rape of children because this Parliament does not want to outlaw pornography that is damaging the minds of our children. [Interjections.]

I knew you were going to say that, Professor. It is the children who look like me who are being raped, not those who look like you.

Where on earth do you hear of an 11-year-old girl being raped in a classroom in front of other children, while 10-year-old boys are pinning her legs and arms down to help the rapist? Where on the continent of Africa have you heard of a 13-year-old schoolgirl being raped by 18 boys, many of them her schoolmates, as was reported in the media two weeks ago? Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice.

Mr President, if you truly want the nation to go out with joy and be led out in peace, and the mountains and hills to break forth into singing, then you should not support any future move that this Parliament might want to make to amend the Marriage Act in order to include same-sex marriages.

All nations, tribes and religious groups and cultures worldwide believe marriage should only be between a man and a woman. This Parliament must be seen to be promoting and protecting our children, families and the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman only, and not undermining it.

I agree with you, sir, in your quotation of former President, hon Nelson Mandela, that, “We must seize the time to define for ourselves what we want to make of our shared destiny.” What the ACDP wants to make of our shared destiny is to have a prosperous nation that embraces the plan of God and enjoys His blessings and not one that rebels against Him. The so-called homosexual marriage is nothing but rebellion against God the Almighty, and the ACDP will oppose it with every fibre of its being.

We truly want this nation to go out with joy and be led out in peace and hear the mountains and hills breaking forth into singing before us. We want all the trees of the field to clap their hands, as the Prophet Isaiah said, but for this to happen, Mr President, we must not be seen to be challenging God’s authority or fighting him - because the nation, if it does that, will lose badly which will be much worse than seeing Bafana Bafana losing all their games.

From what many business leaders and economists are saying, it looks as if unemployment will remain this nation’s greatest challenge for many decades to come. While they agree that the economy is creating some jobs, they believe that job creation is not happening fast enough to drastically reduce the high unemployment rate. Many have blamed the economy’s failure to create sufficient jobs on the country’s rigid labour laws, which make it difficult for employers to fire nonperforming employees. The ACDP agrees that the labour laws must be relaxed, and that regulatory reforms must be put in place to bring more flexibility into the labour market.

The unwilling and unproductive workers must know that they will be replaced if they stay away from work without valid reasons, and that for the economy to grow, they must make a greater effort and choose to be more productive. They must know that if they do not perform, they will be replaced by other keen and industrious workers who know that having a job is a privilege and not a right, and hence have to give their maximum output.

If government manages to root out corruption, drastically reduce crime and manage to instil a culture of hard work and productivity in our people, then we will be on our way to ending jobless economic growth, as domestic investors will be encouraged to invest more in this beautiful country.

Then, Mr President, we will go out with joy and will be led forth in peace, and the mountains and the hills will break forth into singing before us. When that happens, South Africa will truly be a shining model among nations of the world in the true sense of the word. I hope, Mr President, that that is going to happen. Ke a leboga. [Thank you.] [Applause.]

Mr T S DODOVU: Madam Deputy Speaker, Comrade President and Deputy President, today I feel elevated by the honour bestowed on me to be one of the participants in the state of the nation debate.

I am indeed proud to present the perspectives of our movement, the ANC, as we mark the year of mobilisation of the people’s power through democratic local government.

I will preface my contribution in this debate by noting with disbelief and consternation the manner in which the Official Opposition in particular is prevaricating and waffling instead of entering into constructive engagement on the strategic perspective that the President outlined on Friday.

Unfortunately, the Official Opposition chooses to pour venom, make direct vitriolic attacks and pander to cheap populism. It wants to pull us down to its level so that it can beat us with its experience: an experience full of negativity, arrogance, pessimism and political right-wing politics. If we allow the DA to pull us down to its level, it will definitely beat us with experience. We dare not allow it space to pull us down to its level.

Having noted the above matters, I believe that the principal challenge that is facing all of us is to be mindful of the profound responsibility we bear to continue the struggle to transform our society and to achieve the strategic objectives of the national democratic revolution.

What propels us should be a burning desire to satisfy the spiritual and material wellbeing of our people. We must be steadfast in our commitment to better the lives of our people. In fact, what underpins our conviction should be an unflinching commitment to create a new set of opportunities for and challenges to the cause of social transformation in South Africa.

We say without any fear of contradiction that the confluence of encouraging possibilities we see today, are as a result of strategic and tactical choices that the ANC-led government made since 1994. As we walk along the same path and along a solid foundation laid by President Mandela since 1994, we owe him a special debt of gratitude because he has enriched our lives with the magic of his words, the enchantment of his images, the acuity of his insights and the magnitude of his vision.

Today we are deeply inspired to witness his equally illustrious successor, President Mbeki, continuing along the same path with undiminished vitality and determination. His activities, interests and pronouncements remain, for millions of our people, a constant source of hope and encouragement.

In the North West province, for example, we are convinced and confident that the ANC government is on course in terms of giving practical meaning and substance to the basic political commitment that, “The People shall Govern.” As we speak today, more people than ever before in the cities of Matlosana and Potchefstroom have access to clean water and have electricity in their homes.

The government has promoted the interests of children, persons with disabilities, youth, women and older people in Madibeng and Moses Kotane better than before. More people in Mafikeng and Ditsobotla have opportunities to improve their lives, to become better educated and acquire skills and to help build better communities where they live.

The economy of Rustenburg, for example, is one of the fastest growing in the country, and the discovery of more platinum is creating jobs and enabling poverty reduction in the area. More people in the areas of Ventersdorp, Taung, Vryburg and Makwassie have gained access to housing, land and education; and the services in the clinics are improving.

Project Consolidate, a hands-on local government support initiative, focusing on the service delivery challenges and capacity constraints, is beginning to yield positive results in the 14 targeted municipalities of the North West province. In all municipalities across the province, more than 90% of the ward committees that promote community participation have been set up and are functioning very well.

A plan of action of the North West government to achieve higher rates of economic growth and development, improve the quality of life of our people and consolidate our social cohesion is bearing positive results. The Expanded Public Works Programme focusing on providing training, work experience and temporary income, especially to women and youth, has been intensified.

However, as the ANC, we observe that despite the monumental achievements mentioned above, there are still daunting challenges facing the province which need our immediate attention. These include the complete eradication of the bucket system and the curbing of the proliferation of informal settlements.

During December last year, this Parliament passed the Cross-Boundaries Municipalities Law Repeals Act, which among other things effectively incorporated the Merafong Municipality into the North West province. This decision was met with some dissatisfaction from some sections of the community who felt that their interests would have been better served if the whole municipality were to be incorporated into Gauteng.

We in the ANC reaffirm our strategic objective of creating a united and democratic state because we know no boundaries. We believe that we are one country, one people who share a common destiny as envisaged by President Mandela.

We in the ANC are traditionally and fundamentally attached to the ideals of peace and freedom. We share the perspectives of creating a nonracial and nonsexist society and this is what we have fought for over 94 years.

It is in this context that we deplore and record our deep sorrow at the tragic incidents of violence and arson that are occurring in Merafong, especially in the Khutsong area. We send our deepest sympathy to those who are affected, and we are committed to ensuring that the law should deal with those who choose violence to further their own political ends. At this juncture, we shall implore the North West government, together with the Merafong municipality, to enhance and deepen local democracy, to qualitatively improve the participation of residents in the decision-making processes and to provide effective service delivery to the communities of Merafong.

In conclusion, there are those amongst us - especially the DA members - who are the self-professed genuine mouthpieces of our people who pursue a blind, cheap popularity that has nothing to do with our interests and those of the overwhelming majority of people. At a time when the government is contending with serious challenges of governance, these opportunists, such as the hon Mr Leon, attempt to gain popularity on the basis of radical sounding but impractical propositions by exploiting the situation in Merafong. They need votes like predators who smell blood. [Time expired.][Applause.]

Dr J T DELPORT: Agb Adjunkspeaker, agb President, ons is met rede trots op ons regstaat. Min dinge is egter so negatief vir die volle ontplooiing van ’n regstaat as ’n konfrontasie of selfs maar net spanning en wantroue tussen die regbank en die uitvoerende gesag. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)

[Hon Deputy Speaker, hon President, we are justly proud of our constitutional state. However, few things are as detrimental to the development of a constitutional state as a confrontation or even merely tension and distrust between the judiciary and the executive authority.]

The Constitutional Court has made it crystal clear that judicial independence entails much more than a mere noninterference in judgments by other state forces. The court stated clearly that the key aspects of judicial independence included institutional independence -

. . . as well as judicial control over administrative decisions that bear directly and immediately on the exercise of the judicial function.

Ten spyte hiervan vind ons die 14de wysiging aan die Grondwet ter tafel, wat gewoon verklaar dat die Minister van Justisie gesag sal uitoefen oor die administrasie en begroting van alle howe. Die Konstitusionele Hof eis judisiële kontrole oor administratiewe besluite; die 14de wysiging gee juis daardie kontrole aan die Minister. Ongekwalifiseerd soos dit staan, beteken dit dat die Minister ook oor die hofkalender, die resesse, die dag-tot-dag- hofrol en die toewysing van bepaalde sake aan bepaalde regters sal kan beslis. Dit kan nie.

Die 14de wysiging gaan egter verder en beperk die inherente reg van die Konstitusionele Hof om die inwerkingtreding van ’n wet wat na hul oordeel in botsing is met die Grondwet, op te skort. Onwillekeurig moet ’n mens die vraag vra: is ons dan nou op pad terug na die idee van parlementêre soewereiniteit? Ek kan nie verder in die beperkte tyd praat oor die ander probleme in die meelopende wetsontwerp oor die Hooggeregshof nie.

Genoeg om te sê dat die Algemene Balieraad reeds sy ernstige bedenkinge uitgespreek het. Die Balieraad sê hierdie wetgewing “interferes fundamentally with the independence of the courts”. Regslui, insluitende baie regters, steun hierdie siening.

Die vraag ontstaan egter: waarom hierdie wysigings? Blykbaar is die departement - of die regering, ek weet nie – nie tevrede met die wyse waarop die howe funksioneer nie; veral nie, so lei ek af, met die produktiwiteit in die howe nie. As dit so is, lê die remedie elders. Die remedie lê nie daarin om die administrasie van die howe aan die Minister en natuurlik sy amptenare oor te dra nie. Dit is nie die antwoord nie.

As die administrasie van die howe verbeter moet word, moet ’n ondersteunende raamwerk geskep word wat funksioneer onder toesig en leiding van die Hoofregter en, waar gepas, die Regterlike Dienskommissie. Dit is die instansies wat moet regstel wat verkeerd is. Soos dit nou staan, is die 14de wysiging en meelopende wetsontwerp ’n resep vir agterdog en spanning wat tot ’n konstitusionele konfrontasie kan ontwikkel. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)

[In spite of this, we find tabled the 14th amendment to the Constitution, which simply states that the Minister for Justice shall exercise authority over the administration and budget of all courts. The Constitutional Court demands judicial control over administrative decisions; the 14th amendment gives precisely that control to the Minister. Unqualified as it is, this means that the Minister can also determine the court calendar, recesses, the day-to-day court roll and the allocation of specific cases to specific judges. That cannot be.

However, the 14th amendment goes further and limits the inherent right of the Constitutional Court to suspend the commencement of an Act that in their judgement clashes with the Constitution. One cannot help but ask: Are we returning to the idea of parliamentary sovereignty? In the limited time given to me I cannot further discuss the other problems in the accompanying Bill on the High Court.

Suffice it to say that the General Council of the Bar has already expressed serious doubts. The Council of the Bar states that this legislation “interferes fundamentally with the independence of the courts”. Legal practitioners, including many judges, support this view.

However, the question arises as to why we have these amendments. Apparently the department – or government, I don’t know – is not satisfied with the manner in which the courts are functioning, even less so, I gather, with productivity in courts. If that is so, the remedy lies elsewhere. The remedy does not lie in handing over the administration of courts to the Minister and, of course, his officials. That is not the solution.

If the administration of the courts is to be improved, a supportive framework should be created which functions under the supervision and guidance of the Chief Justice and, where applicable, the Judicial Service Commission. These are the institutions that have to rectify what is wrong. As it is currently, the 14th amendment and accompanying Bill are a recipe for distrust and tension that could develop into a constitutional confrontation.]

May I address the hon President directly? You are ill advised, sir, on this issue. Avoid distrust in you government’s commitment to the independence of the judiciary and request the portfolio committee to map an alternative course that will build confidence and stability. It is possible to do just that. [Time expired.]

Ms A VAN WYK: Madam Deputy Speaker, hon President, hon Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members . . .

. . . dit is ironies dat mnr Delport hier staan en praat oor die onafhanklikheid van die reg terwyl hy deel was van die party wat in die vyftigerjare van die 20ste eeu die Appèlhof genader het om bruinmense van die kiesersrol te verwyder. [Tussenwerpsels.] Verder het sy leier drie uur gelede hier gestaan en die regstelsel gekritiseer wat borgtog aan mense gegee het. [Tussenwerpsels.] (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)

[. . . it is ironic that Mr Delport stands here and speaks about the independence of the legal system while he was a member of the party who approached the Appeal Court in the fifties of the 20th century to remove Coloureds from the voters’ roll. [Interjections.] Furthermore, his leader stood here three hours ago and criticised the legal system that granted people bail. [Interjections.]]

In opening his address to the nation on the 3rd of February, President Mbeki took us back to 24 May 1994 and reiterated the challenge put to the nation by the then President Mandela. President Mbeki then expanded on his speech and reminded us about the sense of hope that the ANC government brought to the majority of our people: to define, ourselves, what we want to make of our shared history.

The enormity of this challenge and the immense responsibility that comes with it can and should never be underestimated. Our 12 years of shared history since our first democratic elections have brought us to the age of hope; yet 12 years are, in fact, like the blink of an eye in the history of a nation. The past 12 years have brought us to the dawn of the age of hope; and of that we need to be proud collectively as South Africans.

The bigger challenge now remains, namely what it is that we are going to do with this age of hope. How are we going to apply it so that we continue to define, ourselves, what we want to make of our shared history? Whether you are king or servant, rich or poor, man or woman, young or old, in government or opposition, we are all co-authors writing this shared history, artists drawing the outlines of the picture that will be coloured by generations to follow, for, yes, we have entered the age of hope, and hope is the pillar that holds up the world, the dream of a waking man.

The age of hope is another instrument given to us to define, ourselves, what we want to make of our shared history. The fields have been worked, the seed has been sown, the rain fallen, and the crops are growing. All that remains is for us to ensure that every South African shares in the reaping so as to reach their full potential.

Elkeen van ons staan stewig in die era van hoop, maar wat elkeen van ons met hierdie geleentheid gaan maak, bly ons individuele keuses. Die oorgrote meerderheid Suid-Afrikaners, ongeag ras, het reeds deur woord en daad aangedui dat hulle met entoesiasme en ywer saamwerk om ons gedeelde geskiedenis te bepaal.

Daar is egter steeds klein groepies wat hulself rangeer tot randeiers en om beperkte emosionele redes nie entoesiasties deel in die nuwe geleenthede wat oopgaan en wat die demokrasie en die ontwikkeling van ons land ons bied nie. Hierdie groepies vind ons oor die hele land, maar veral ook in die Wes- Kaap.

Baie van die mense wat hulle as deel van hierdie groepies bevind, doen so uit eie keuse. Baie ander doen dit as gevolg van die stappe van ander en leuens wat versprei word. Nóg ander is daar weens ongegronde vrese. Wat ook al die rede, die mense vorm steeds nie deel van ’n geïntegreerde Suid- Afrika nie. Ek wil my vandag tot hierdie groep wend.

Op 1 Maart het hierdie mense die geleentheid om hulle vir eens en altyd te bevry van die kettings van die verlede en deel te word van en te deel in die suksesse van ’n demokratiese Suid-Afrika. Moenie toelaat dat julle langer aan die neus rondgelei word nie. Kyk klinies na die feite en vorm ’n oordeel gebaseer, nie op emosie nie, maar op werklikhede. Vra die nodige vrae wanneer iets aan jou voorgehou word en oordeel dan volgens die feite waar jy jou stem gaan uitbring. Die tyd het aangebreek om vir jouself te definieer - nie volgens die verlede nie, maar volgens die hede en die toekoms - die rol wat jy kies om te speel in ’n vrye, demokratiese Suid- Afrika. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)

[Each of us stands firmly in the era of hope, but what each of us is going to do with this opportunity remains our individual choice. The vast majority of South Africans, regardless of race, have already indicated by word and deed that they are working together with enthusiasm and diligence in order to determine our shared history.

There are, however, still small groups who relegate themselves to being outsiders and who, for limited emotional reasons, do not participate enthusiastically in the new opportunities that arise and that the democracy and development of our country offer us. We find these small groups throughout the country, but especially also in the Western Cape.

Many people who find themselves part of these small groups do so by their own choice. Many others do it as a result of the actions of others and lies that are spread. Still others are there as a result of unfounded fears. Whatever the reason, these people still do not form part of an integrated South Africa. I want to address myself to this group today.

On 1 March these people have the opportunity to free themselves once and for all from the shackles of the past and become part of and share in the successes of a democratic South Africa. Do not allow yourselves to be led by the nose any longer. Look at the facts in a clinical way and form an opinion based not on emotion, but on the realities. Ask the necessary questions when something is put to you, and then judge, according to the facts, for whom you are going to vote. The time has come for you to define for yourself - not according to the past, but according to the present and the future - the role you choose to play in a free, democratic South Africa.]

The ANC is a nonracial organisation. For any organisation to brand the ANC as racist is for that organisation to expose itself as one that lacks policy and direction. [Applause.] A party that focuses on the upliftment of the poor and the improvement of the lives of all, even those who are privileged, cannot be seen as racist. To have policies in place such as broad-based black economic empowerment cannot be seen as being racist.

What the ANC does is to deal with the reality of our country, it’s history and our people. Broad-based black economic empowerment is necessary to level the playing fields economically, as well as socially. What we have in South Africa . . . [Interjections.] If you listen you might learn. What we have in South Africa is a situation that can be compared to a marathon. A certain group of people were only allowed to join the race when it was already halfway under way. We now need measures that can allow them to make up for lost time and lost ground.

That is in essence what broad-based black economic empowerment sets out to achieve. Not only is it the policy of the ANC, but it is a requirement of the very Constitution that mr Delport came to defend here in the Bill of Rights, where it ensures equality for all.

In this House we all share a responsibility to assist the people who elected us to serve them, to ensure that they know about and are able to access the many programmes that have been put in place by the ANC government to improve their lives. The housing policy does not differentiate between races, but has only the economic status of the beneficiary as a national departing criterion; so too have social grant programmes and free basic services.

Too often in our work with the electorate we come across people who have been told by people serving in this House that government programmes are only there to benefit a specific racial group.

Maybe the time has arrived for the presiding officers to look into the possibility of members of Parliament not only reporting back to their political parties regarding the work that they have done during constituency periods, but maybe Parliament should also develop a mechanism of reporting to Parliament itself what it is that we as representatives have done to ensure that government programmes are brought to the attention of the people and that they are assisted to access those programmes. [Applause.] It is, after all, through money provided by Parliament that we are enabled to open constituency offices throughout the country.

While playing the race card may earn a policy-deprived political party cheap political points in the short term, it is dangerous and irresponsible in the long term. No responsible public representative can be seen to encourage a group of one race to act against a group of another race, moving into an area like we have seen happening in Bokmakierie in Cape Town.

This morning we also saw newspaper reports of a radio advertisement that clearly incites racial tension, aimed at a certain sector of the working class, telling them that they are not African enough to benefit from the ANC government. [Interjections.] The listeners to the station called in and complained that the advertisement was inciting racial tension. [Interjections.]

The MINISTER OF FINANCE: [Inaudible.]

Ms A VAN WYK: Despite this the DA defends it and continues with it. The working class and the poor are not as gullible as the DA wants to believe. They know what was done for them and by whom. They know because they see it in the improvement of services that are delivered to them. They know that the ANC has ended the deliberate underfunding of disadvantaged areas and now . . . [Interjections.]

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: Madam Speaker, on a point of order: The hon Minister of Finance said, “Tony Leon is a racist”. I maintain that that is unparliamentary and he should be instructed to withdraw that comment.

The SPEAKER: Hon Manuel, did you say that? If you did, I’d like you to withdraw.

The MINISTER OF FINANCE: No, the ad that the hon member is referring to uses the voice of the hon leader of the DA, and the ad is fundamentally racist! It is the most offensive ad I’ve ever heard. It is a racist ad by the leader of a racist party! What am I to do; ignore the fact that the ad is on the radio? I’m sorry, Madam Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Hon Manuel, did you call the hon Leon a racist? If you did and you did it here in the House, I’d like you to withdraw it, because it is . . . [Interjections.]

The MINISTER OF FINANCE: I said it was the racism of Tony Leon. I didn’t call him a racist. [Interjections.]

The SPEAKER: Hon members, I will actually go and look at the Hansard to see what the hon Minister said, and then I will take it forward.

Ms A VAN WYK: They know that the ANC has ended the deliberate underfunding of disadvantaged areas and now has a propoor policy in place.

They know that you cannot be serious about representing the poor when you have the same candidates standing in four or five wards. They will choose to become an integral part of the age of hope and turn their back on those who want to exploit them in the crudest and most deplorable way. In the words of Abraham Heschel –

Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

The elections on 1 March will long be over, the councillors in their positions, hon Zille back in this House, but if race has been the rallying point to gain support, the dangers and feelings that it provokes will still remain on the ground, leaving a volatile situation. The City of Cape Town starkly contrasts the divides that still exist in our country. While a lot has been achieved in the short time in which the ANC has governed the province and the city, a lot still remains to be done. Many people living and working in Cape Town still feel like visitors in their own city. In this regard policies of the past such as the approval of R3 million in 2002 by the DA for the building of a Berlin-type wall between the white and black residents . . . [Time expired.]

Dr G G WOODS: Madam Speaker, hon President, colleagues, while the President’s speech engaged many of the more important issues facing the country, we found its scope somewhat limited; in broad terms, this was dominated by aspects of economic policy. The state of the nation, in our opinion, however, also concerns the political and social state of affairs of the country.

In the South African reality these two are areas of dramatic transformation and are areas that are significantly influenced by government policy. For example, we would have wished to learn of the President’s thoughts on the democratic health of the nation and, as importantly, we would have been interested in his views on the evolving postapartheid society and how government is trying to facilitate a more unified nation. We see the progress that has been made towards social integration over the past 12 years as quite exceptional against the world experience, and would have been encouraged to hear that the President also sees it in the same way.

Even when focusing his speech on the economy the President narrowed it by limiting his terms of reference to the more formal, urban-based economy. I think this highlights government’s ongoing weakness regarding rural development, and this is the area in which Nadeco would like to make some specific comments this afternoon.

This fact that over 40% of South Africans live in rural areas, where poverty and unemployment are considerably worse than in the urban areas, therefore requires greater policy attention. It is where most of the so- called second economy exists. It is where Gallup and Markinor pollsters don’t go when surveying public opinion. It is where worsening poverty and growing basic needs problems therefore often go unnoticed.

Would it be unfair to deduce from the President’s speech that the rural economy is somewhat incidental to government’s bigger scheme of policy themes and that in the main it is to rely on the trickle-down or redistributive effort flowing from a growing mainstream economy? If this is the case it would indicate a disturbingly lopsided approach to the realisation of government’s developmental state. If anything, government initiative and leadership should, in Nadeco’s opinion, prioritise the shortcomings in the rural quality of life.

And so we would have wished to hear the President speak on the rural predicaments that have grown over the past decade and, with that, we wish to hear him give more specific attention to government action in this regard. In fact, given the seriousness of the rural situation, we would wish for more than specific policies; we would wish for a well-strategised and comprehensive rural development plan. A plan, which, amongst other things, tries to address questions such as what should be done to get more fixed investment into rural areas; in other words, what must be done to make such an investment a viable proposition for the investors.

Clearly, municipal infrastructure plans, private-public partnerships, Expanded Public Works Programmes, and spatial development initiatives, in themselves, do not go nearly far enough and are not likely, in themselves, to coax private-sector investment to follow. And then the question: What is being done to develop and retain the relevant economic-related skills in the rural areas? Of course, we appreciate the difficulty of keeping sought- after skills in the rural areas when there is a shortage of the same skills in the cities.

Support for emerging farmers is welcomed. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that it is not an industrial area or one where a major growth potential exists. For the same reason, land reform, while necessary, is not a significant part of the answer. Housing developments near rural towns, like the Expanded Public Works Programmes, bring only passing income opportunities and for relatively few, and therefore are not likely to stimulate meaningful rural economic activity. Then, of course, there is the problem of unemployed people being unable to meet the financial commitments that come with owning these houses.

So, it is not that we do not acknowledge the government initiatives that there are; it is that we see these as too few, too narrow and too incremental, given the nature and the magnitude of the rural developmental problems.

In addition to the weaknesses of the rural economy, as has been raised by other speakers, there are also issues surrounding poor delivery of social services to these communities. Here, however, in areas such as health, education and grant distributions, we are happy to acknowledge the renewed efforts of government and, indeed, to acknowledge improvements that are now being achieved in such areas of service delivery. We are also pleased to see the wide-ranging interventions at various levels of government intended to bring new levels of competence and efficiency into the municipalities.

While expressing our reservations about government’s rural development policies and approaches we, like most other parties, appreciate your state of the nation address, both in substance and style, and we share your optimism regarding the country’s overall economy. We feel that Asgisa has its finger on most of the critical pulses, and that the soon-to-be-reached 6% growth will be well earned through the policy approach of your government. Thank you. [Applause.]

Mr J P CRONIN: Madam Speaker, Comrades, President and Deputy President, Comrade President, as you noted in your address to us on Friday, there has been economic growth averaging some 3% per year since 1994.

This sustained growth and the current high levels of business and consumer confidence present us with an ideal platform from which to confidently define for ourselves what it is we want to make of our shared destiny. There are real opportunities, but also challenges. The present growth is not necessarily sustainable. No one can be sure just for how long the international commodity prices will remain buoyant. The domestic demand-led growth is based on burgeoning credit and it also draws in imports. Shadowing all of this, there is deep-seated poverty and high levels of unemployment.

As Parliament, as government and as South Africans, as we take stock of the positive opportunities and challenges of our situation, we should remind ourselves, I think, that there have been other periods of growth in our country.

In the last quarter of the 19th century and into the first decades of the 20th century, South Africa, or at least what was to become South Africa, experienced massive and accelerated growth. There was a mining revolution, booming growth, infrastructural investment in cutting-edge technology for deep-level mining, and massive logistic infrastructure investments in rail lines and port expansion.

Constraints were swept aside. Among them was the lingering existence of some still unconquered independent African societies and two Boer republics that had been solemnly recognised by Britain in the 1850s. Colonial conquest and the Anglo-Boer War quickly removed these constraints within a matter of decades.

Then there was the matter of the labour market, and its so-called constraints. The labour market was deemed to be “insufficiently flexible”. Defeated African societies still had access to some land and to some livestock, and were reluctant to abandon themselves to the tender mercies of a cash-based labour market. The poll tax, for instance, that was imposed in Natal, and which resulted in the Bambata Rebellion, whose centenary we marked this year, was informed of course by an inhumane and racist colonial ideology.

But it also had a perfectly logical, level-headed, market-based rationality about it. Accelerated growth, driven by the mining sector, could not be sustained unless the constraint of a large pool of potential labourers remained outside of a money economy, and that had to be forcibly ended from the perspective of that particular kind of growth.

There have also been other periods of economic growth. There is a tendency these days to remember apartheid as if it were simply a market distortion. True, in its last decade, apartheid was indeed experienced by big capital as a hindrance to profitability and as a source of instability. But, in the granite years of apartheid, between 1963 and 1972, there was nearly a decade of sustained growth, and it reached 6% and 8% on average between those years.

After the Sharpeville massacre, business confidence plummeted. The decolonising winds of change seemed to be blowing through our continent, and the days of white minority rule seemed numbered. There was a significant outflow of capital between 1960 and 1962, but as the apartheid regime responded with increased brutality and the liberation movement suffered a major strategic defeat with its leadership killed, imprisoned or exiled, lo and behold, business confidence revived.

A key turning point came when the Anglo-American Corporation persuaded the US company, Engelhard, in the face of calls for sanctions, to make a major investment in Anglo itself. Anglo-American also practically gave away the General Mining and Finance Corporation, later known as Gencor, to emerging Afrikaner capital, the better to integrate the agenda of big mining capital with the political elite of that day.

For nearly a decade, in the midst of these granite years of apartheid, an exceptionally investor-friendly climate was created. British capital averaged annual returns of 11% to 12%, considerably better than anywhere else in the world.

I make these points to underline the fact that where there is growth, you can be sure that somebody is benefiting. But growth in itself is not necessarily a benefit to all. How we assess growth, and what we identify as constraints to that growth, are not class or race or ideologically neutral realities.

As we take forward our own contribution here in Parliament to the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, we will need to be very clear about this. There will be a tendency, from some quarters, to interpret the initiative as being almost entirely about accelerated growth, with the word “Shared” disappearing or being relegated to a second movement, a trickle-down consequence of somebody else’s growth somewhere else.

The Asgisa that is being driven by our Deputy President, and that was outlined by you, President, in your address to us on Friday, is, I believe, a qualitatively different kind of growth. It is a growth process that will have to be inherently systemically shared. If we fail to do this, we risk history repeating itself.

Earlier growth periods, like the golden years of apartheid, saw wealth accumulated, power realities consolidated and the syndrome of growth of a first economy and simultaneous deepening underdevelopment of a second economy further entrenched.

Those realities are still with us today, and it would be naive to believe that simply removing racism from the Statute Book and leaving the rest to the market would overcome these systemic realities. In this context, we in the ANC welcome government’s commitment to review, for instance, the willing-seller, willing-buyer approach to land reform. Such a review does not herald an imminent and anarchic land seizure. A sustainable agrarian reform that is capable of sharing growth and of helping to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014 is not going to be delivered by anarchic land seizures, or by the untrammelled market forces.

Comrade President, in your address to us on Friday you said, “The years of freedom have been very good for business.” You went on to say:

I believe that this should have convinced the investor community by now that, in its own interest and as part of the national effort, it has to invest in the expansion of that freedom.

I have read that verbatim, but admit, with a different intonation and emphasis to the way in which the original was delivered. I don’t have to be presidential! [Laughter.]

Clearly and quite correctly, Asgisa requires that government should work constructively with all of its social partners, including business. Clearly, we must address the bottlenecks in our export/import freight logistics system, for instance. We must help to lower the cost of doing business, for yes, big business. But we must never forget that for the poor, logistics infrastructure is a rural road, or a pedestrian-friendly pavement or reliable and affordable public transport.

If we are to prevent the “Shared” in Asgisa from being marginalised, we will need to address both dimensions equally. This will require a determined, active and developmental state. It will also require very active support from Parliament, hopefully from all parties, but certainly from those of us in the majority party.

In particular, as parliamentarians and as public – not corporate – representatives, we will need to be supportive of and vigilant about those elements that have the capacity to begin to shift our growth path out of where the late 19th century mining revolution has left us - out of a growth trajectory that tends to be excessively primary commodity export-oriented and import-dependent; that constrains our national market by marginalising millions of our people into poverty; that fails to develop skills and that, in more recent decades, has become excessively capital intensive and labour shedding; and that reproduces acute social, economic and spatial polarisation locally, nationally and even throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

The key elements of Asgisa that work against the grain of a century and a quarter of habit, of short-term profit-taking for the few, include: a major focus on skills development, not least the commitment to use our state- owned enterprises to train tens of thousands of new artisans; a key focus on local economic development, ensuring the use of labour-intensive methods in infrastructure construction wherever is possible; support for co- operatives and micro businesses, ensuring that they can access capital and markets for sustainable livelihoods and communities; ensuring that the financial sector commits to social investment, and that there is no more foot-dragging, as there seemingly is, with the R42 billion pledged for housing at the financial sector summit.

As we approach our work in committees and constituencies, as MPs, I believe, we need to pay particular attention to these and other transformational elements embedded in Asgisa. In line with the Freedom Charter vision that the wealth shall be shared, in line with the RDP vision that growth and development have to be inextricably linked, let’s keep the fist “S” in Asgisa firmly on the agenda. There is no other sustainable route to accelerated growth in our South African reality. [Applause.]

Mr I S MFUNDISI: Madam Speaker, President and hon members, there is every truth in the adage, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”. When one listens to any state of the nation address, the government of the day puts across its wish list through such a vehicle.

The speech is delivered because it has to be. In other instances, it is delivered with the full knowledge that human and financial resources may not be sufficient, while in other instances it is done to set the pace to be followed by the country.

In our case, we know the greatest constraint may be human resources. That is why the government is looking to the East for people to come to our aid. We hope the register of skilled yet unemployed graduates will remain open to be updated from time to time. The retention of people in the Public Service simply because they have been involved in the struggle against apartheid, at one time or another, has to be reviewed. Only productive people should be kept in government.

We have noted that the Public Service is set to burgeon with the incorporation of those in municipal service. The UCDP has always maintained that we should keep a lean, mean Public Service that will respond promptly to the needs of the people. There is inadequate service delivery because most public servants, contrary to sections 30 and 36 of the Public Service Act of 1994, are more politicians than state employees. This has to be discontinued, as no one can be a referee and a player at the same time. It is contrary to the Constitution, which demands that public servants should serve the public without fear, favour or prejudice. Then we can speak of Batho Pele.

A reflection on the wishes that were spelled out from this podium two years ago amidst great excitement such as the Transnet investments in Durban and Cape Town harbours, the launch of the national Social Security Agency and a pledge to expand the number of police areas for focused multidisciplinary interventions have yet to see the light of day.

The country has been led into yet another ambitious programme, named the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, which seeks to take us to our economic Canaan and get us out of the grinding bondage of poverty. We take the point, and our word of advice is that the government should not fear to take unpopular decisions, even when it comes to ridding itself of deadwood that stalls service delivery.

Service delivery will be compromised by the unhealthy chemistry within government or state departments. The contradictory statements by members of the North West executive council on the question of the department of agriculture in that province will do great harm to all the intended good work. What becomes even scarier is the situation that is playing itself out between the SA Police Service and the National Prosecuting Authority around the question of witness protection. The results are too ghastly to contemplate if the situation is not harnessed in time.

The controversy flies in the face of the President’s address to the effect that aggressive measures have to be taken with regard to the criminal justice system to improve the safety and security of our people. The improvement, we hope, will result in policing areas serving the people in their locality. People nearer the Nietverdien police station should not have their cases investigated by officers at Motswedi, while Braklaagte people have to drive through Zeerust for their cases to be heard at Welbedacht. There is no doubt that if this situation at these places, and elsewhere where it still occurs, can be set right, people will really go out and break into singing and clap their hands.

The dream that there will soon be no classes under trees will remain an inaccessible mirage for as long as the Departments of Public Works and Education do not sing the same song from the same score.

Grinding poverty and lack of infrastructure in the rural areas, as articulated by the first lady and the ANC Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, will remain with us despite the billions of rands being bandied about if people are not prepared to work hard. Only hard work will make us prosper as a nation, and thus make Asgisa a success. Incompetence and ineptitude in some government departments that should provide the basis for Asgisa have to be faced squarely and phased out. The Expanded Public Works Programme has to be invigorated to offer employment to people in townships such as Braam Fischer and Tshepisong in Gauteng, Khuma and the sprawling informal settlements in Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp where people go to bed without anything to eat. The less said about the rural areas, the better, as they are the worst hit by deprivation. This is despite what the statistics say about the age of hope. For some people, they seem to be reliving Charles Dickens’ times, and characterise this age as one of despair, incredulity and the worst of times.

It has to be borne in mind that there are two sides to every story, and this is the picture we depict: Amidst splendour in some areas, there are expanses of shortages and hunger which will cause people to have no peace, and not break into singing and clapping their hands.

We have noted the veiled threat in an open letter by one Willie Marais, leader of some fringe right-wing party, the Herstigte Nasionale Party, to the effect that they do not recognise the democratically elected government of this country. We in the UCDP dare them to jump into the nearest sea. Until they stand for elections, they should not hope to have control of any centimetre of this country.

The UCDP looks forward to the celebration of Codesa, because we are one of the parties that played midwife on the occasion of the birth of the child called democracy. It is fitting that the portrait of the UCDP leader and his negotiating team at the time is one of only three that adorn the walls of this Parliament.

We may differ in our outlook to life, and the extent to which the glass is half full or half empty, but all we know is that we shall prosper, the Lord being our helper. Thank you. [Applause.]

Ms M M SOTYU: Mofumahadi Spikara, Ntate Mfundisi, ke tla kopa hore o ke o tsamaye dikopano tsa dikomiti tsa Polokeho le Tshireletso, e le hore o tle o tsebe phapang pakeng tsa Puo ya Setjhaba le vouto ya bajete. Le hore o tle o tsebe hore Thaba Nchu, mane moo Ntate Mangope a neng a laola teng, re ntse re lwantshana le manyofonyofo a phepelo ya ditshebeletso ka hara Thaba Nchu. Ho thata hore re sebetse. [Ditlatse.] (Translation of Sesotho paragraph follows.)

[Ms M M SOTYU: Mr Mfundisi, I would like to request you to attend meetings of the safety and security committee, in order for you to know the difference between the state of the nation and the Budget Vote. Then you can also know that in Thaba Nchu, where Mr Mangope once governed, we are still struggling with the effects of corruption in service delivery. This makes it difficult for us to work.]

Hon President and members of Parliament, the ANC in its Ready to Govern document stated, and I quote:

Underdevelopment, poverty and abuse of human rights are regarded as grave threats to the security of people since they give rise to conflict between individuals, communities and countries. They threaten security of the state as well.

Because of the above statement, our response to the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment that the President spoke about should be understood within the context of promoting security, peace and stability in our country and beyond.

Even before the 1994 democratic breakthrough, we stated in the Ready to Govern document that the ANC believes that national and regional security should not be restricted to military, police and intelligence matters but should reflect political, economic and environmental dimensions.

In giving effect to the people’s contract, the ANC will continue to mobilise all our communities in the fight against crime. It will also work to strengthen our community policing forums and give support to our law- enforcement agencies. The President indicated that we needed to strengthen our intelligence structures. This is necessary to provide security for our state and its people.

The ANC Stellenbosch conference unequivocally expressed a decisive view that the elimination of poverty and unemployment and an improvement in living standards will ultimately minimise crime, especially amongst the youth.

While the current overcrowding in South African prisons cannot be viewed as a creation of our democratic state but as a product of the apartheid past, our government continues to seek solutions to the problems of overcrowding, which compromises the human dignity of the inmates. Therefore the building of four additional correctional facilities and the reduction of the number of children in custody that the President announced purport to address overcrowding in our prisons.

Former President Mandela, when he opened Emthonjeni Youth Centre in 1998, had this to say, and I quote:

Offenders are human beings too. They are our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters who have disappointed us.

Hence our treatment of the prison population must be based on our Constitution. The ANC seeks to give effect to the resolutions of the Stellenbosch conference, where our democratic movement resolved to intensify campaigns at all levels to reduce crime, especially the proliferation of illegal firearms, drugs, corruption and fraudulent activities, the abuse of women and children and the elderly; as well as to focus on implementing social crime-prevention measures.

The commitment made by the President on the need to speed up the processing of firearm licences and reduce drug trafficking is a bold step forward in our ongoing fight against serious crimes. Because of the endemic criminal activity and corruption, which continue to undermine our constitutional democracy, President Mbeki also made reference to the critical challenge of further improving our criminal justice system and the processing of legislation concerning the rationalisation of our courts. This is in line with the Mafikeng conference resolution wherein our movement resolved to rationalise the High Court system in our country so as to promote access to justice for all and to provide a High Court in each province.

With regard to continental and international issues, our democratic movement believes that South Africa’s peace and stability within its own borders can be threatened by instability on the continent. Our commitment to Africa is to ensure that there is peace and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan. This includes our intervention in international conflicts relating to Israel and Palestine, and Iran. As we heard, the opposition does not care about Palestine and Israel; their concern is Zimbabwe only.

The Freedom Charter requires South Africa to strive to maintain world peace and to settle all international disputes by negotiations. Therefore our quest for a better Africa and a better world derives from the internationalist tradition of our democratic movement, hence our commitment to the pursuit of negotiated agreements.

We welcome the emphasis on increasing our conviction rates to strengthen the message that crime does not pay, as stated by the President.

Urhulumente okhokelwa yi-ANC ngurhulumente wabantu ngabantu. Ndiza kuthanda ukubhengeza kuluntu luphela ukuba masibhinqele phezulu, silwe olu lwaphulo- mthetho. Amazwe onke ajonge kuthi ngokubhekisele kukhuseleko lwabemi bawo njengoko silungiselela ukusingatha ukhuphiswano lweNdebe yeHlabathi kwiBhola ekhatywayo ngonyaka ka-2010.

Siyakubulela, Dlamini, ngendima oyidlalayo ukumisela uxolo kumazwe angaphandle, ngakumbi lawo simelene nawo. Masiyeke ukuthi singabemi boMzantsi Afrika sihambe sizibiza ngokuba siliqela eliphikisayo, sihamba sichaza ukuba ilizwe lethu linobundlobongela kuba sifuna ukugxotha abantu abazisa utyalo-mali eMzantsi Afrika. Ndiyabulela. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)

[The ANC-led Government is the government for all. I would like to appeal to everyone that we should pull up our socks in the fight against crime. All nations are looking at us concerning the safety of their citizens as we make preparations to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010.

We thank you, Dlamini, for the role you played in bringing about peace in other countries, especially our neighbouring states. As South African citizens, let us stop calling ourselves the opposition party, telling the world that crime is rife in our country because we want to chase potential investors away from South Africa. I thank you. [Applause.]]

Moulana M R SAYEDALI-SHAH: Madam Speaker, hon members, your Excellency the President, Madam Deputy President, before I say anything further I wish to remind the hon Ben Turok that he was directly involved in the collectivisation of agriculture in Tanzania, which led to that country becoming the poorest country in the world. He is thus personally an accomplice in impoverishing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa. They probably do not find him so funny.

Now, for some serious business, Mr President . . . [Interjections.] Mamela! Thula! [Keep quite and listen!] You deserve that treatment, because that is how you treat us. If you listen, you learn. South Africa will never be able to roll back the frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment as long as corruption continues to pervade our society. Corruption enriches the few at the expense of many, and corrodes the proper functioning of our public and private institutions.

Therefore, Mr President, it is heartening that you have committed your government to rooting out this cancer from our society. However, in order for this commitment to become reality there is a desperate need for government to take swift and decisive action against those who engage in corrupt activities.

It is in this context of matching words with deeds that the government is failing dismally. Any commitment given to fighting corruption will remain empty rhetoric as long as those guilty of corrupt activities go unpunished. Furthermore, any commitment to fighting corruption must be measured against the litany of examples showing that the ANC tends to protect its own at all costs.

Why have only 21 MPs been prosecuted in the Travelgate scam? What about the 100 who still sit in this House? Mr President, you yourself have acknowledged that, and I quote:

The ranks of our movement are being corrupted by a self-seeking spirit that leads some among us to view membership of our organisation as a stepping stone to accessing state power, which they would use corruptly to plunder the people’s resources for their personal benefit. Therefore, Mr President, if the ANC is serious about fighting corruption, it should remove from its election list in the Ugu District Municipality the disgraced former MP Ruth Ntshulana-Bengu, who pleaded guilty to her role in the Travelgate scandal, because if elected, she will again be in charge of taxpayers’ money.

Through her previous conduct she has shown herself to be wholly unsuitable for such a responsibility. If the government is serious about fighting corruption, then it should slay the ghost of Oilgate once and for all. For the government to see nothing wrong with the ANC pocketing what is effectively R11 million worth of taxpayers’ money illustrates a moral bankruptcy of the worst kind.

If the government were serious about fighting corruption, then it would not drag its feet in response to the Oil-for-food scandal. It has now been 13 weeks since the release of the UN report on the matter and the government has yet to indicate what steps it is going to take to deal with the various serious allegations of wrongdoing contained in that UN report.

There are still a number of outstanding questions surrounding the ill-fated arms deal, and in particular the role you played in this regard. This is because of the unsatisfactory answer you gave, with all due respect, with regard to whether you attended a meeting in secret in Paris in December 1998, during a critically sensitive stage of the arms procurement process. As long as such questions remain unanswered about this incident, then the entire fight against corruption will be undermined. It is time that this government showed that it is in touch with the needs of the people of South Africa. It is an indictment that the Deputy President can spend over R700 000 worth of taxpayers’ money on a private holiday and then wish it away as merely a drop in the ocean. I mean, how many books could you not have bought for some poor students at school.

The fight against corruption and abuse of state resources at the top is unacceptable and therefore there is an urgent need for you, sir, and Madam Deputy President, to set the right example and to send out a message that the ANC government is prepared to fight corruption even when it is not politically expedient for it to do so. I thank you. [Applause.]

Adv S P HOLOMISA: Mhlalingaphambili, uya kundixolela andikwazi ukuxoxa nenkcenkce ekhenkcezayo njengeli lungu lisuka apha, kuba imbongi yesizwe, uMqhayi waseNtabozuko, yayitshilo ukuba: “Abakhalazayo abazange baphela. Abakrokrayo basazalwa nanamhla oku. Bathe nqo ngezisu; bathe ga ngemisimelelo. Abayazi into abayenzayo.” Thina ke ‘nto zaziyo apha kwi-ANC, ithambo lenyoka elihlaba abayizondayo, asothuki xa sidibana nabanjalo.

Liyinyaniso, nje ngamanye amaninzi, ilizwi elithethwe nguMongameli, iZizi elimnyama neenkomo zalo, elithi “namhlanje kungcono kunayizolo.” Kanti ke siqinisekile ukuba ngomso kuza kuba ngcono kunanamhlanje.

Le nyaniso ingqinwa ngabo bonke abaqiqayo, abasixhasayo nabangasixhasiyo, abo sele bexhamle kwiziqhabo zenkululeko; kanti nabo bangekaxhamli kuzo. Bayazi ukuba isixeko saseRoma asizange sakhiwe ngosuku.

Ndiwenza la mazwi ndiphuma, kwaye ndibhekise kwiphondo leMpuma Koloni, elidume ngendlala nentswela ngenxa yokuphathwa kwalo kakubi ngexesha lengcinezelo. Nam nditsho ndithi namhlanje kungcono kunayizolo; kanti ke ngomso kuza kuba ngcono kunanamhlanje, kanye ngoku ndaziyo ukuba base baninzi abantu abaswele imisebenzi. Mininzi imizi engekabi nawo umbane, engakabi nawo amanzi aphuma empompeni; zaye zininzi neelali ezineendlela ezihambeka nzima.

Nditsho ndisazi ukuba zisezininzi izikolo ezakhiwe ngezitena zodaka, zafulelwa ngengca. Nditsho kuba ngale nkululeko siyixhamlayo, yonk’ imizi iyaqhumis’ eziko ngeemali zezibonelelo zikarhulumente. Mininzi imizi esele inayo imibane, kanti zininzi iilali ezinamanzi aphuma empompeni. Zikwaninzi neelali ezineendlela ezityeneneziweyo. Zingamakhulu-khulu izikolo ezakhiwe kule minyaka yenkululeko ezikumgangatho wala maxesha. Kwabo bangekabi nazo ezi mpawu zokuxhanyulwa kwenkululeko, ithemba likhulu lokuba ngomso kuza kuba ngcono. [Kwaqhwatywa.]

Nditsho kamnandi kuba isizwe sakowethu, samaHegebe, sinexhala lokuba kazi baza kuwafumana phi na abantu amatanki okugcina umbona wesivuno salo nyaka. Kaloku iSebe lezoLimo, lihlangene norhulumente wela phondo, lilizalisekisile iphupha labo ngokuthi xa kuqala ukulinywa kulo nyaka uphelileyo lisiphe okwentonga yomnquma iiteletele ezine, inye ihamba namakhuba, isikofolo, izicoli-magada, isixhobo sokutyala, kunye nesikhotshi sayo. Ezi zixhobo zolimo phofu zongeza kwiiteletele ezimbini nezixhobo zazo esasikwaziphiwe yiBhanki yoPhuhliso yoMzantsi Afrika.

Sinombulelo. Izicwangciso zorhulumente wela phondo kungoku nje kukusebenzela ukuba kungabikho xesha apha enyakeni apho amasimi aza kulala, kube kungekho nto ilinyiweyo okanye evunwayo kuwo.

Eli phulo liza kwenziwa ngokuthi onke amasimi abiyelwe ngocingo. Lawo ami phezu kwemilambo aza kufakelwa izixhobo zonkcenkcesho, khon’ ukuze nangexesha lembalela kusebenzeke. Kanti ke kolunye uhlangothi oomasipala bezithili, ngakumbi abaseMathole nase O R Tambo, nabo bamaxhaphetsu, bahambela phezulu bencedisa abantu ngolimo.

Izikimu zonkcenkcesho ebezikhe zahleleleka ngenxa yomoya wenguqu ziyavuselelwa. Amasimi eepayinapile ayalinywa kwakhona. Kunyaka ophelileyo uMasipala weSithili saseMathole unikezele ngeeteletele ezingama-51 kunye nezixhobo zazo kwiilali ngeelali, evuselela ulimo. [Kwaqhwatywa.] Kwisithuba esingangeenyanga ezintathu uluntu olo lubonelelwe ngedizili nangezixhobo zokulungisa iiteletele ezo, kanti ngaphezulu banikwe imbewu nezichumiso ukuze bakwazi ukuqalisa ukulima. Kulo uphezulu unyaka e-O R Tambo naseMathole isebe lezolimo laseMpuma Koloni liza kunikezela ngama-27 eeteletele nezixhobo zazo kumakomkhulu ukuze zisebenzele uluntu. [Kwaqhwatywa.]

Kwicala lemfuyo, iigusha, iibhokhwe neenkomo zohlobo nazo ziyaphuhliswa, kanti neembongolo ziyasetyenziswa ukuncedisa ekulimeni kwiindawo ezingamageduka. Xa bencediswa ngolu hlobo ke abantu bakuthi bangangangqini njani ukuba namhlanje kungcono kunayizolo kwaye baqiniseke ukuba ngomso kuza kuba ngcono kunanamhlanje? [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)

[Adv S P HOLOMISA: Chairperson, I would like to ask you to pardon me for I am unable to engage with empty vessels such as the hon member who just spoke. Mqhayi of Ntabozuko, the national poet, said that those who complain never stop. Sceptics are born every day. Their bellies are extended. They do not have a purpose in life. In the ANC, those of us who know are not surprised, for the bone of a snake pricks the one you hate.

What was said by the hon President, son of the amaZizi clan, that today is better than yesterday, is true. We are also certain that tomorrow will be even better.

This is a fact supported by everybody who can use their brains, those who support us, those who are our opposition, those who have benefited from the fruits of our freedom and those who are yet to benefit from the fruits of our freedom. They know that Rome was not built in a day.

I am on my way to the Eastern Cape, a province well known for its poverty status because it experienced severe maladministration during the apartheid years; and I hail from there. I agree that today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be even better, and that view I maintain even though there may be quite a lot of people who are unemployed. Many households do not have access to free basic water yet, and it is difficult to get to certain areas because of the poor road infrastructure.

I know that there are still a number of a mud schools with thatched roofs. I also know that all houses have been electrified and many households are now able to feed themselves because of the grants that the government provides. Many rural areas have access to clean, potable water. Roads in some areas have also been constructed. Hundreds of schools of a very high standard have been built in the past few years in the new dispensation. Those who have not yet benefited from these developmental processes will soon do so. [Applause.]

This I say with pride because some people among Hegebe clan are already concerned about where we shall keep this year’s harvest. The Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs presented us with four tractors accompanied by all the equipment necessary for working the soil. They are additional to the two tractors that the Development Bank of South Africa donated to us a while ago.

We are grateful. The provincial government is working hard to ensure that fields are utilised maximally throughout the year.

Ploughing fields will be fenced through this programme. Irrigation equipment will be installed in those fields that are situated on riverbanks for easy access to water should there be drought. District municipalities, especially the Mathole and OR Tambo District Municipalities, continually assist people in their farming activities.

Irrigation schemes have been underfunded, and are now being revitalised and rehabilitated. Pineapple fields are being ploughed for commercial farming again. Last year the Mathole District Municipality sponsored several villages with 51 tractors, thereby revitalising farming. [Applause.]

In a period of three months, communities have been provided with diesel and maintenance material and equipment for the sponsored tractors, on top of the seeds and fertilisers, in order that they can begin to cultivate the land. During the current year the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs in the OR Tambo and Mathole District Municipalities will hand over 27 tractors and the necessary equipment to the House of Traditional Leaders for use by community members. [Applause.]

Sheep, goat and cattle farming are being encouraged and donkeys are used extensively to assist in areas where there is no infrastructure. How could our people not attest to the fact that things are better than yesterday when support is being offered to them in this manner? [Applause.]]

“Freedom has been good for business”, utshilo uMongameli. [. . . so said the President.] You could say almost too good, if you consider the fact that the greatest bulk of the economy is still in the hands of a small minority.

The means of production as well as the wealth so created must be shared by the people of our land. It is for this reason that the poor and the landless are overjoyed to learn that their voice has been heard regarding the need for a review of the principle of willing-buyer, willing-seller as a determinant of land redistribution. There are more willing buyers than there are willing sellers.

The prices asked by most of the current landowners tend to be too high even for government and other prospective buyers to afford. It has to be remembered that according to African culture, it is immoral for any family not to have land on which to build itself a home and on which to produce food for itself.

Intertribal wars were fought for the acquisition of land. For hundreds of years wars of resistance were fought by Africans against the marauding hoards of foreign invaders in defence of the land. The formation of the ANC was precipitated by the prospect of the passage of the 1913 Land Act the sole aim of which was to legalise the land robbery, which had occurred in the course of the previous wars of dispossession.

In spite of the injustices of the past on the land question, our own form of land redistribution is informed by the rules of fairness and justice, with the payment of equitable compensation to those whose land has been found to be required for redistribution being the guiding principle.

We have no evidence to show that anywhere in the world has the so-called free market ever brought justice to those who had lost their land as a result of colonialism. [Applause.] We set out to address the imbalances of the past confident in the belief that our magnanimity as the historically dispossessed would be reciprocated with enthusiasm by the beneficiaries of colonialism and apartheid. Alas, that was not to be!

Also to be welcomed wholeheartedly is the announcement of a review of the sale of South African land to foreigners. This is a matter that calls for urgent action, if we are to avoid waking up one day to find ourselves living on foreign-owned land. [Interjections.] We need foreign investment, but it must not come at the cost of our land and our sovereignty.

Zizi, siyabulela ngentetho yakho eyakhayo nephilisayo. Usizobele umfanekiso onguwo nonika ithemba ngemeko nekamva lesizwe sethu. Namhlanje kungcono kunayizolo. Saye siqinisekile ukuba ngomso kuza kuba ngcono kunanamhlanje. Siqhwab’ izandla njengemithi yasendle. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)

[Thank you, Zizi, for your encouraging speech. You have drawn us a picture that gives us hope and direction for the future of our country. Today is better than yesterday. We are certain that tomorrow will be better than today. We clap our hands like the trees of the forest. [Applause.]]

Mr M DIKO: Madam Speaker, hon President and Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, the UIF would like to take advantage of this occasion and thank the hon President of the Republic for further committing the government to accelerating economic growth with the announcement of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa, known as Asgisa.

Although details about this initiative are still sketchy, the UIF hopes that with proper implementation, careful monitoring processes and point indicators to identify problem areas and challenges, this initiative will be a success.

Mr President, the UIF urges your office and that of the Deputy President to monitor the process and ensure that the economic growth we are talking about will not be a jobless economic growth that enriches the few, as we have seen in the past. It must be aimed at speeding up poverty alleviation programmes and social development for all.

The UIF noted with enchantment last Friday when President Mbeki, in his state of the nation address in this House, said, “Land reform and restitution are critical to the transformation of our society”. We were further encouraged to hear this morning that the Land Claims Commission is ready to proceed with expropriation of land in certain provinces where stakeholders have not fully co-operated with government’s land reform programme.

The UIF believes that the current skewed ownership of national resources in our country, especially land, hampers every effort of accelerating growth and development for all and that therefore the government must intervene unashamedly.

Abantu, Mongameli, mabazive okokuba le nkululeko yeyabo ngenene nangenyaniso; akukho mntu ubanjelweyo kuyo. [President, people must feel that this freedom is rightfully theirs and that nobody is being rewarded.]

A co-ordinated approach is further needed in the sphere of local government if we are to achieve the government’s goal of eliminating the duality of living spaces inherited from apartheid. Housing development, since the advent of democracy in 1994, has not contributed positively to this objective. In fact, what we have seen was and is, to a large extent, the continuation of separate development in which the poor continue to live on the outskirts of our cities and far from their workplaces. The UIF hopes that the agreement between the Housing Ministry and Salga will go a long way in addressing this as a matter of urgency.

While the president has again set out targets and deadlines for government’s delivery programme, the UIF is concerned that some of these targets, such as the eradication of the bucket toilet system by 2007 - given the challenges facing a number of municipalities that are tasked with these responsibilities - will once again be failures.

We all know by now, Mr President, that once the deadline has been missed, the term “accountability” quickly loses its meaning and relevance and that desperate attempts to conceal shortcomings begin. The UIF hopes that, unlike the deadlines you set in this House before that were not all met, you will lead by example and come back and account so that those responsible for their implementation can follow in your footsteps.

The UIF believes that all government officials must account for their failures to deliver on each and every mandate. We therefore propose, Mr President, that a proper performance management system for councillors and council officials and improved project management and technical skills in areas such as engineering be put in place in order to ensure that deadlines are adhered to.

As Asgisa has identified other constraints to growth and development, apart from the shortage of skills, the UIF is concerned that details are missing as to how existing programmes such as the Umsobomvu Youth Fund will be streamlined to ensure that they contribute to the economic development of our youth. Lack of access to capital is the main obstacle for many of our youth.

Through our consultative process with different youth structures across the country, we have established that the Umsobomvu Youth Fund is still not accessible to all, especially to those living in rural underdeveloped areas. These young people, who are supposed to be economically active in their respective communities, continue to be on the sideline of their fast- developing counterparts in cities and developed areas.

Those who identify with this unequal access to opportunities flock to the cities as their last resort, leaving their communities even poorer and, at the same time, contributing to the unemployment statistics in our cities. The necessary resources for the development of our youth, including those in rural areas, should be made available to all in order to ease the burden on government and the private sector in creating jobs and employment for the youth.

While Asgisa is an initiative with noble intentions, the UIF has noted with great concern the lack of details in the working relations between the elected municipal officials and traditional leaders especially on integrated rural development. Our experience has shown that rural development cannot succeed when traditional leadership is not on board. Here the government needs to outline their roles and their powers so that there can be greater co-operation that will result in the genuine development of our people.

Everyone’s stake and role in the country’s development is important and therefore should be spelt out and respected. So, leaving out the institution of traditional leadership is one of the gravest mistakes that might rob the rural communities of much-needed socioeconomic development, Mr President.

Lastly, as the President failed to give more details about the government’s plan to tackle corruption, we wonder how pledges alone can deter people from continuing to steal from the poor. The UIF believes that the President should have shared with the nation how his government intends to intensify the fight against corruption, as some senior leaders within his organisation continue to disregard his efforts in this regard, thereby perfectly fueling the long-held view of two sets of laws that govern our country – one for the ANC that protects comrades at all costs, and the other for the rest of the country. We thank you.

Mrs L S CHIKUNGA: Madam Speaker, hon President, Deputy President, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, an African proverb says, “Tomorrow belongs to people who build it today”. This simply means we have to continue to come up with the right strategies so that tomorrow is better than today.

Comrade President, you are right to say that South Africans have a lot to celebrate in this second decade of freedom. And, yes, you are also right to say that as South Africans we must take collective responsibility to define for ourselves what kind of society we want to establish.

The ship is indeed on course, as many of us would agree. Our scorecard makes for interesting reading. Owing to time constraints, I will just give a brief outline about what the growing economy means for ordinary South Africans.

As we are all aware, tourism makes up a significant part of South Africa’s economy, especially in the new democratic dispensation. According to Asgisa, it is among the priority and readily implementable development sectors. Statistics from SA Tourism reveal that, for instance, Mpumalanga province alone, received about R6,1 billion revenue from both domestic and international tourism activities in June 2003.

Direct spending by international tourists amounted to R4,5 billion, with the main source of visitors being from Europe, particularly the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, as well as other countries. This simply means that as a country we are continually creating a very conducive physical, political and social environment for our tourists in terms of tourist attractions, thus becoming a leading tourist destination. This sector continues to create job opportunities in most parts of the country. For instance, in Mpumalanga alone, it provided direct and indirect employment to about 331 000 people and it has managed to produce 85 black tourism product owners to date, compared to two in 2000 and none in 1993.

It thus follows that today tourism is a major contributor to our economy. It is therefore correct for Asgisa to suggest that tourism remains very relevant for poverty alleviation and job creation in areas where shared growth is desperately needed.

In the state of the nation address, the President mentioned that five months from now the Fifa World Cup tournament would come to an end and that, from then onwards, all of the world’s countries would focus on us.

One can assume that the soccer fans will surely not wait for 2010 to come to South Africa, but may want to visit us earlier and, it is hoped, even post 2010. This shows the potential tourism has of growing even bigger and actually contributing towards putting our country in the international arena and further creating jobs and wealth.

There are challenges, which include further transformation of the sector in terms of broadening the participation by those from previously marginalised communities. For instance, in Mpumalanga of about 1 000 tourist guides, only 285 are black, and this situation may apply to other provinces. We now have to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks, which may include the cost of doing business in this sector, access to finance and no financial assistance for small entrepreneurs and a lack of business skills and its impact on job creation, and we must continue to address them. We further need to sharpen our local business industry strategy.

We have a contract with the people of South Africa to provide work and fight poverty. Mining is another sector that plays a key role. Our country is rich in minerals such as platinum, diamonds, coal, gold and others. Rich as this country is in minerals, historically minerals have not benefited the majority of our people. Only this government has continued to take concrete steps towards ensuring that the wealth of this country is shared amongst its people.

Some mines in KwaZulu-Natal were mothballed in the past. We think that recommissioning them should be considered. For instance, the three coalmines being recommissioned in Mpumalanga, which are Camden, Grootvlei and Komati, will create about 2 400 permanent jobs and 600 contract jobs. We think that such job opportunities can be created in other parts of the country, but it should be mentioned that between 1995 and 2002 jobs in the formal economy increased by 1,6 million to total 11,2 million, thanks to our democratic government.

One of the challenges we are faced with, as a nation in the mining and energy sector, is first and foremost a shortage of skills. Eskom alone states that if it were to meet its expansion demands, it would have to employ at least two skilled staff every day, with one being a woman engineer, as its recruitment plan calls for 1 000 extra staff each year until 2010.

We also have to fast-track support for small-scale miners. There is an urgent need for a review of broad-based black economic empowerment to be truly broadly based, particularly in the mining sector, because the challenge for the small-scale miner are the old, big captains of this industry.

We have to broaden the participation of blacks in general and Africans in particular. The participation of women, particularly rural women, is still a challenge. What is encouraging, though, is the fact that we have policies that are beginning to bear fruit and we are continually improving them.

The present economic upswing is not a flash in the pan. All sectors, all of us, have to power it. Hence, I say we have a lot to celebrate in this second decade of our freedom.

Somlomo, libuyile eloobawomkhulu. [Hon Speaker, the land of our forefathers has been restored.]

Coming from Mpumalanga, I just want to say something about typhoid in Delmas. It is regrettable that people in Mpumalanga and Delmas died of typhoid, and that can never be underplayed. But I want to say further that yesterday typhoid was defined as a water-borne disease affecting the low socioeconomic groups. Today, as the ANC, we are saying that we define it as a preventable condition. And, it is for this reason that if it happens we all become worried, because we know it is preventable and that people should not die from it. That was not the case yesterday. I thank you. [Applause.]

Rre G G BOINAMO: Motlotlegi Mmusakgotla, Tautona ya Aforika Borwa, Motlatsa- Tautona le maloko a a tlotlegang, maatlametlo a modisa ke go gorosa. Mme fa a gorosa a timeditse, modisa o a itlalea gore ke timeditse mme a dire tsholofetso ya gore tse ke di timeditseng ke tla ya go di batla ke bo ke di gorosa. Ka go dira jalo, modisa o bona boikanyego le tshepagalo mo go bao a ba direlang. Ke buela mo tsebeng ya gago motlotlegi Tautona mmogo le baetsana ba gago. (Translation of Setswana paragraph follows.)

[Mr G G BOINAMO: Hon Speaker, the President of South Africa, Deputy President and hon members, action speaks louder than words. If you failed you must admit that you failed and thereafter promise to rectify the situation. By so doing, you will be trustworthy and reliable to those you serve. I am referring to you, President, as well as the executive.]

Over the past 12 years, many promises have been made by this government about improving the conditions that children learn under and the effectiveness of the teaching they receive. It is no exaggeration to say that in 12 years none of these promises have been fulfilled. The legacy of the ANC’s rule has seen a dramatic increase in the number of dysfunctional schools and an overall drop in the skills of learners, and a flight of teachers with scarce skills from the profession. [Interjections.] If you listen you might learn. [Interjections.]

Let me give a few examples. In his state of the nation address in 2004, President Mbeki promised the nation that in 2005 no child would learn under a tree, but learners of Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa in Winterveldt North are learning under a tree now, [Interjections.] Listen!

Whilst matric learners, in a tent full of holes, are struggling valiantly not to repeat the dismal 36,6% pass rate of 2005, learners at Nkosinathi Primary School in Berlin in the Eastern Cape have been receiving education in a shack for more than 11 years. In Limpopo, at Mogodiwa school in Tshivulane - about 20km west of Thohoyandou and Makumbe Primary School in Makungwi village, Nzhelele, learners learn under trees because they have abandoned four of the six learning spaces which are falling apart. Perhaps what the ANC should do now is to cut down all the trees so that no children can attend classes under the trees! [Applause.] It is indicative of the failure of education that the number of children, who even make it through the school system, is dropping.

The Human Development Report 2005 released by the UN shows that the number of Grade 1 learners who reach Grade 5 declined from 75% in 1990-91 to 65% in 1999-2000. Another large group of children, that is 50%, between Grade 10 and Grade 12 dropped out of school.

We cannot begin to build a future for our children if so many of them drop out of school before they are functionally literate or numerate. So many more live without a matric certificate. But it is even more alarming that, even regarding those who stay in school, only a handful are adequately prepared for the job market or for tertiary education.

A survey of 34 000 Grade 6 learners across the country in 2004 conducted by the Department of Education showed that five out of 10 learners were not attaining international benchmarks in the natural sciences; six out of 10 were not achieving them in their language of learning, and eight out of 10 were not achieving them in mathematics.

The key to improving South Africa’s dismal performance in education, in comparison to other countries, lies in improving the quality of teaching. But the Minister seems deeply reluctant to grasp this thorn. There is no real effort whatsoever to reward teachers who teach well and to encourage underskilled and demotivated teachers to do their jobs better . . . [Interjections.]

The SPEAKER: Hon member, I regret that your time has expired.

Mr G G BOINAMO: . . . at the same time, the government is fiddling around with other aspects of education that will put many pupils at a serious disadvantage. [Interjections.][Applause.]

The MINISTER OF LABOUR: Madam Speaker, the difference between the hon member and me is that I have hope, and I know for sure that there will be no children learning under trees in this country. That’s the difference between him and me. [Interjections.]

Secondly, it is his performance that is dismal, and he is displaying his ignorance.

Madam Speaker, it is accomplished.

Kugqityiwe! Siza kuba ngathi siyateya ke, Dlamini. Ungahlupheki wena, yimivuyo nemincili yodlwabevu lwentetho yakho ngoLwesihlanu. Thina ke ‘nto zingamaKrestu angaphezulu koMfundisi uMeshoe siyazi ukuba sonwaba bhetele xa siphakathi kombutho wethu iNkongolo, sivakalisa ubuKrestu bethu, ngoba kulapho sikhonza khona iNkosi yethu uYesu Krestu, sisazi ukuba sinethemba. Ebesitsho uMongameli ngoLwesihlanu. Ndimele ke ngoko ukuba ndiqale ngokubulela ndileleze, ndivumelane noDiliz’ iintaba, ukuba ngokwenene unamhlanje wahlukile kunayizolo, sinethemba lokuba ingomso liza kwahluka kule mini yanamhlanje. Lo mhlekazi usuka apha ke yena akayazi loo nto.

Okwesibini, Mongameli, ndidanile kuba bendinethemba lokuba amalungu ahloniphekileyo, ngakumbi la e-DA, aza kuyibamba noko ngobunono le ngxoxo, angabi ngala mahamte nala macangci enza nje ingxolo apha kweli qonga. Bathetha ngathi baqengqa amatye, bazaneke izandla, njengokuba bebezanekile apha ooTony Leon abahloniphekileyo. Inqaba kukusibonisa ukusebenza ngaphandle kokuhamba bexhoma iipenti apha esithubeni. Nantso into endiyaziyo, nendiyibonileyo abayenzayo. [Kwahlekwa.] Wena ke, Zizi, uma phambi kwethu uthi masilandele.

Sukuyikhanyela, mhlekazi, uTony Leon ebehamba exhoma iipenti nawe. [Kwahlekwa.] Kutheni ukhanyela nje ngoku? Sukukhanyela. Andikwazi ukuba ubuzithatha phi na iipenti, sukubuza kum. [Kwahlekwa.]

Ukubangaba, mfo kaBawo uDiko, uthetha ngolu hlobo ubuthetha ngalo, ngathi noko wenze kakuhle ukuba uphume kwi-UDM. Ntonje kuza kufuneka sikulungise kancinci nje, kuba apha ekugqibeleni ukhe waphantse ukukhasela eziko. Hata mntan’ am, uza kurhawuka! [Kwaqhwatywa.]

Tat’ umfundisi, wena uthetha ngathi unesixhiba ngokuphela kwephandle lakho iBophuthatswana. Sincede torho, le nto kuthiwa ziinzingo nokudumba kwentliziyo yakho nengqondo okudalwe kukuphela kwephandle lakho iBophuthatswana musa ukuza kuyikhuphela kuthi. Asinqweneli ukubona ukudikwa kwakho sithi. Siyacela ke. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)

[The mission has been accomplished! We feel like dancing, Dlamini. Do not be disturbed; the excitement emanates from the state of the nation address. We Christians, who are greater than Rev Meshoe, are satisfied that we are with the ANC and proclaim hope in the name of Jesus Christ. The President pointed that out in his address on Friday.

Let me show a sense of appreciation to Diliz’iintaba and agree with him that today is different from tomorrow, with the hope that tomorrow will be different from today. The hon member who has just been here does not know that.

Secondly, President, I am disappointed by the actions of the hon members, more especially members of the DA, because I had hoped they would handle the debate well. They come to the podium to make empty talk. They throw stones, as hon Tony Leon did, and yet nothing is forthcoming from them. They cannot perform better, except for hanging panties in public. This is what I know and what I have witnessed. [Laughter.] Zizi, you are in front and you lead us.

Do not deny this, sir. Tony Leon was hanging up panties with you. [Laughter.] Why are you denying this now? Do not deny it. Do not ask me, I do not know where you got the panties. [Laughter.]

If you meant what you said, hon Diko, you were right to quit the UDM. But we need to correct you on some issues, as you nearly made a blunder at the end. Beware, you will get into trouble! [Applause.]

Reverend, you talk as though you have a problem with the dissolution of Bophuthatswana. Please do not come and show your frustrations here. We do not want to experience your unhappiness. Please.]

Regarding Patricia de Lille, I do want us to look at how we articulate the matter of the HIV and Aids. As a person who comes from Keiskammahoek . . .

. . . kuQoboqobo eZingcuka, ndibhaqe ukuba esi siNgesi senu siyabalahlekisa abantu. Esi sifo asinayeza, asinyangeki. Kodwa simile ngesilungu, sithetha ngee-life-saving mechanisms and treatment. (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)

[ . . . from eZingcuka in the vicinity of Keiskammahoek, I noticed that people there do not understand English. This disease cannot be cured, but when we speak in English we talk of life-saving mechanisms and treatment.]

Yet there is no cure for this disease.

NgesiXhosa ke, i-treatment, lunyango. Xa usithi: “It has no cure”, uthetha ukuba ayinyangeki. Kutheni le nto niphixanisa iingqondo zabantu, endaweni yokuba nithethe inyani? Yekani ukwabelana ngesondo ngaphandle kokufaka ikatriva entongeni. [Kwahlekwa.] Masithethe loo nto ebantwini. Masixelele abantu ukuba mabaphile ubomi obungcono. Abantu mabatshintshe indlela abaphila ngayo. Nantso into emasiyishumayele, hayi le yokuba kukho iyeza, libe lingekho.

Ndiyayicela le nto, torho; masizame kangangoko sinakho ukuba singakhumshi gqitha xa sithetha nabantu. Andazi ke ukuba ekaMfundisi uMeshoe ndiza kuyithini, Mongameli. Kunyaka ophelileyo ndithe kuye masihambe siye kushumayela ebantwini. Abantu mabayeke izono, Mfundisi uMeshoe. Musa ukuza kushumayela apha. Eli qonga asililo lenkonzo yaseRhabe. Uyandibona nam ndilibambe ngobunono. Ukuba bekuseRhabe bendiya kude nditsibe nangaphaya kwalo. Apha ke kukho imithetho.

Masihambe sobabini ke, siye kushumayela ebantwini ukuze abantu bayeke izono. Yeka ukuza kuqwenga thina apha. Asifuni kuqwengwa nguwe thina. Mna ndiyavuya ngokuba uMongameli ethi wacaphula kwiBhayibhile ngoba ubonise ilizwe ukuba umongameli we-ANC uqamele ngelizwi likaThixo. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)

[In isiXhosa the word “treatment” means to cure. When you say there is no cure, that means it is not curable. Why are you confusing people instead of telling the truth? Stop having sex without the use of a condom. [Laughter.] This is what we are supposed to preach to the people. Let us tell people to practise better lifestyles. People must change their bad ways of living. We must tell people that there is no cure for the disease, and not the opposite.

I plead with you, let us try not to use too much English when we speak to the people in order for them to understand. I am not sure how to deal with Rev Meshoe’s case, President. Last year I asked him to accompany me to go and preach to the people to stop their sins. This podium is not a platform for the United Congregational Church of South Africa. You can see that I am also handling this situation with care. If I were in my church I would talk nonstop. Here there are rules.

Let us go to the people together to preach about abandoning their sins. Stop coming here and throwing stones. We do not want to see your anger. I am pleased that the President quoted from the Bible, showing the nation that he believes in God’s word. [Applause.]]

As the ANC we have always envisioned a prosperous, equitable, stable, democratic, nonsexist and nonracial society. And this vision is increasingly becoming a reality in South Africa, as the President indicated. The economy has grown to levels never seen in the past decades and is positioned to grow at a faster pace in the next period, linked to Asgisa. And our vision, as enshrined in the Freedom Charter, of decent work, decent living standards for all, equity ownership, a skilled nation and equal access to opportunities for all is increasingly becoming a reality.

In the Freedom Charter we committed ourselves to ensuring that there shall be work and security, and this is one core message of the decent work agenda. We do not shy away from it. We agree therefore with the President when he said, in the state of the nation address, that yesterday is another country and that our country has entered its age of hope.

It’s a pity, President, that I won’t have time to debate some of the matters that some of the hon members have raised. However . . . [Interjections.]

Khawume kancinci wena mhlekazi, ngoba ndiza kusuka ndikubethe. [Kwahlekwa.] [Wait a minute, sir, because I will hit you. [Laughter.]]

Mnu W J SEREMANE: Yeka ubundlobongela, ubethela ntoni? [Stop being aggressive, why do you have to hit anyone?]

The MINISTER OF LABOUR: It is important that I say the following in relation to this matter of flexibility and inflexibility. The first thing that I want to say is that it must be clear that the ANC is not going to deregulate the labour market or to erode the rights of workers. Deregulation would be a disaster for this country, because it will cause anarchy, chaos and instability.

I’m saying this because I know that the vision of the ANC has always been that of a stable and democratic society. Without regulation, the ANC will not be able to fulfil its vision. The ANC also does not advocate overregulation of the labour market, because that, again, would spell disaster for our objective of making our labour market sufficiently flexible. Therefore the ANC is correct in its view that we deal with this matter in the way that the National General Council of the ANC has asked us to do.

That is precisely the reason, Comrade President, you have commissioned us to handle this matter. You know, Comrade President, that those labour experts in the Republic of South Africa have indicated to us that there are certain matters around efficiency and the functioning of the labour market that we need to deal with: issues of the CCMA, issues of collective bargaining, as well as matters that affect small, medium and micro enterprises.

Comrade President, we are going to have a round-table discussion on 7 March. The businesspeople of this country, Business SA, in particular, do warn that if you are going to change or overhaul the labour market in South Africa, you may cause instability in a country that is particularly very, very stable.

You see, hon members, I’m going to make an appeal to some members, particularly from the DA, because they understand English better than I do. The appeal is that they must read what many, many educated people say about these matters. For instance, Roderick, whom I like quoting because I met him in person the other day - before that I had only read about him – says that the matter of freedom of association and collective bargaining have brought about the stability that we have in this country.

There are many people who think that this economic stability comes from heaven, like manna. No, it is precisely because of the policies of the ANC that we have it. [Applause.] You know that before 1994 you would never have had such stability in the economy. We have it, because of the ANC. We have it, because of the President of the ANC. You may laugh, sir, but I can assure you that the hon Tony Leon will never take you to heaven. I don’t know where he will take you; that I will not tell you. [Interjections.]

It is very important that we understand that strong democracy, freedom of association and the collective bargaining rights of unions are the only reason we have stability in this country. I don’t want to imagine what will happen, Ndabezitha, in KwaZulu-Natal if we were to remove all the laws, because deregulation and inflexibility mean exactly that; that there must be no laws.

Can you imagine what would happen if there were no laws or a constitution in the IFP? Can you imagine what would happen if there were no laws even in your own house, Ndabezitha? [Laughter.]

Ndabezitha, all I’m saying is that inflexibility and deregulation mean exactly that, if you look at all the books that have been written about this matter. Argentina tried it, and they failed. Today the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank do admit that they have failed Argentina. Do you want them to come back and say that South Africa has failed? Hon member, I’m just about to finish. Comrade President . . .

. . . ndincede ngent’enye: ungabamameli bonke aba thwanxu. Indlela oyihambayo intle. Anga uThixo angakusikelela, akubabale akugcine. [Kwaqhwatywa.] [Help me with one thing: Do not listen to these fools. You are on the right track. May the Lord keep you and bless you. [Applause.]]

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 18:22. ____

            ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS


                      THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY 2006

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Assent by President in respect of Bills

   1) Constitution Twelfth Amendment Bill [B 33B – 2005] Constitution Twelfth Amendment Act of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 22 December 2005); 2) Cross-boundary Municipalities Laws Repeal and Related Matters Bill [B 36B – 2005] – Act No 23 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 22 December 2005); 3) Road Accident Fund Amendment Bill [B 64B – 2003] – Act No 19 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 23 December 2005); 4) Judicial Matters Amendment Bill [B 2B – 2005] – Act No 22 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 23 December 2005); 5) Close Corporations Amendment Bill [B 6B – 2005] – Act No 25 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 8 January 2006); 6) Auditing Profession Bill [B 31B – 2005] – Act No 26 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 12 January 2006); and 7) Special Pensions Amendment Bill [B 28B – 2005] – Act No 27 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 12 January 2006).

National Assembly

1. Referrals to committees of papers tabled

 1. The following paper is  referred  to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Housing for consideration and report. The Report  of  the  Auditor-
    General on the Financial Statements is  referred  to  the  Standing
    Committee on Public Accounts for consideration:

    (a)      Report and  Financial  Statements  of  the  Home  Builders
         Registration Council for 2004-2005, including the Report of the
         Auditor-General on the Financial Statements for  2004-2005  [RP
         185-2005].


 2. The following paper is  referred  to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Finance and  to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on  Water  Affairs  and
    Forestry for consideration:

    (a)      Government Notice No 1040 published in Government  Gazette
         No 28150 dated 28  October  2005:  Borrowing  powers  of  water
         boards listed under Schedule 3 Part B  of  the  Public  Finance
         Management Act, 1999 (Act No 1 of 1999).


 3. The following papers are referred to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Justice  and  Constitutional  Development  for  consideration   and
    report:
      a)  Report  on  the  provisional  suspension  from   office   with
         remuneration of Mr M K Chauke, an additional magistrate at  the
         Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.


      b) Progress report in terms of section 13(3)(f) of the Magistrates
         Act, 1993 (Act No 90 of 1993) on magistrates (M S E Khumalo;  K
         Sulliman and M F Mathe) suspended for alleged misconduct.


      c) Proclamation No R.51 published in Government Gazette  No  28039
         dated 23 September 2005: Notification by President  in  respect
         of entities identified by the United Nations  Security  Council
         in terms of section 25  of  the  Protection  of  Constitutional
         Democracy Against Terrorist and Related  activities  Act,  2004
         (Act No 33 of 2004).


      d) Proclamation No R.57 published in Government Gazette  No  28136
         dated 14 October 2005: Notification by President in respect  of
         entities identified by the United Nations Security  Council  in
         terms  of  section  25  of  the  Protection  of  Constitutional
         Democracy Against Terrorist and Related  activities  Act,  2004
         (Act No 33 of 2004).


 4. The following papers are referred to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Public Enterprises for consideration and report. The Reports of the
    Independent Auditors are referred  to  the  Standing  Committee  on
    Public Accounts for consideration:

      a) Report and Financial Statements of the South  African  Forestry
         Company Limited (SAFCOL) for  the  year  ended  30  June  2005,
         including  the  Report  of  the  Independent  Auditors  on  the
         Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2005.
      b) Report and Financial Statements of Alexkor Limited  for  the  9
         months period ending 31 March 2005, including the Report of the
         Independent Auditors on the  Financial  Statements  for  the  9
         months period ending 31 March 2005.


 5. The following paper is  referred  to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Public Enterprises and to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts
    for consideration:

    (a)      Letter from the Minister of Public  Enterprises  dated  22
         November 2005 to the Speaker of the National Assembly, in terms
         of section 65(2)(a) of the Public Finance Management Act,  1999
         (Act No 1 of 1999), explaining the delay in the tabling of  the
         Annual  Reports  of  South  African  Forestry  Company  Limited
         (SAFCOL), Alexkor and Denel for 2004-2005.


 6. The following papers are referred to  the  Portfolio  Committee  on
    Water Affairs  and  Forestry  for  consideration  and  report.  The
    Reports of the Independent Auditors are referred  to  the  Standing
    Committee on Public Accounts for consideration:

      a) Report and Financial Statements of Botshelo Water for the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      b) Report and Financial Statements of Bushbuck Ridge Water for the
         year ended 30 June 2005.
      c) Report and Financial Statements of Albany Coast Water  for  the
         year  ended  30  June  2005,  including  the  Report   of   the
         Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for  the  year
         ended 2005.


      d) Report and Financial Statements of Amatola Water for  the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      e) Report and Financial Statements of Lepelle Northern  Water  for
         the year ended 30  June  2005,  including  the  Report  of  the
         Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for  the  year
         ended 30 June 2005.


      f) Report and Financial Statements of Mhlathuze Water for the year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      g) Report and Financial Statements of Namaqua Water Board for  the
         year  ended  30  June  2005,  including  the  Report   of   the
         Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for  the  year
         ended 2005.


      h) Report and Financial Statements of Overberg Water for the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      i) Report and Financial Statements of the Pelladrift  Water  Board
         for the year ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the
         Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for  the  year
         ended 30 June 2005.
      j) Report and Financial Statements of  Rand  Water  for  the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      k) Report and Financial Statements of Sedibeng Water for the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.


      l) Report and Financial Statements of Umgeni Water  for  the  year
         ended 30 June 2005, including the  Report  of  the  Independent
         Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June
         2005.

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister of Finance

    Government Notice No R 1105  published  in  Government  Gazette  No
    28226 dated 14 November 2005: Amendment of prescribed fees, made in
    terms of section 36 of the Pension Funds Act, 1956 (Act  No  24  of
    1956).
   

2. The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development

    Notice of Regulations made in terms  of  section  44(1)(a)  of  the
    Regulation of  Interception  of  Communications  and  Provision  of
    Communication-related  Information,  2002  (Act  No  70  of  2002),
    submitted in terms of section 44(4) of the Act.
   

3. The Minister of Education

   a) Government Notice No 1056 published in Government Gazette No 28159 dated 25 October 2005: National Policy regarding Further Education and Training programmes: Approval of the amended schools policy document, namely a resume of instructional programmes in schools, Report 550 (2005/09), made in terms of sections 3(4)(l) and 7 of the National Policy Act, 1996 (Act No 27 of 1996) and sections 6(A) and 61 of the Schools Act, 1996 (Act No 84 of 1996).

   b) Government Notice No 1175 published in Government Gazette No 28300 dated 7 December 2005: National Policy regarding Further Education and Training programmes: Approval of additional Agricultural subjects to be listed in the National Curriculum Statement Grades 10-12 (General), made in terms of sections 3(4)(l) and 7 of the National Policy Act, 1996 (Act No 27 of 1996) and sections 6(A) and 61 of the Schools Act, 1996 (Act No 84 of 1996).

National Assembly

1. The Speaker a) Letter from the Minister of Public Enterprises dated 19 December 2005 to the Speaker of the National Assembly, in terms of section 65(2)(a) of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act No 1 of 1999), explaining the delay in the tabling of the Annual Report and Statements of Denel (Pty) Limited for 2004-2005:

   Late tabling of Denel Annual Report

   I write to explain reasons for failure to table Denel’s Annual Report and Financial Statement within six months after the end of their financial year.

   In terms of section 65(2)(a) of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act No 1 of 1999), as amended, the Minister must table a written explanation to Parliament setting out reasons for failure to table annual reports in Parliament within six months after the end of the financial year to which those statements relate. As Denel financial year ended on 31 March 2005, the Annual Report and Financial Statements should have been tabled in Parliament not later than 30 September 2005.

   The delay was due to the concern raised by Auditors on the issue of a material irregularity in terms of section 20(5) of the Public Accountants and Auditors Act, 1991 regarding solvency of Denel. This matter delayed the auditing process and was only resolved upon receipt of a letter from the Minister of Finance, concurring with the issuance of a guarantee in the amount of R 765m by the Minister of Public Enterprises.

   Denel also deliberated on the issue of the Rooivalk and decided that the funding was uncertain, and that a provision for an amount should be determined and provided for in the AFS.

   Denel held its Annual General Meeting on 14 November 2005 and has submitted their Annual Reports for tabling in Parliament.

   I trust that you will find this in order.

   Yours sincerely

   Alec Erwin, MP

   Minister of Public Enterprises

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly

1. Report of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development on the Amended Prosecution Policy which commenced on 1 December 2005.

   The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development on 17 January 2006 received a briefing on the contents of the amendments to the Prosecution Policy, which amendments relate to the prosecution of criminal matters arising from conflicts of the past. These amendments were tabled in Parliament by the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development and the National Director of Public Prosecutions in terms of section 35 of the National Prosecuting Authority Act, 1998 (Act No. 32 of 1998).

The Committee notes the relevant amendments to the Prosecution Policy.


                       MONDAY, 23 JANUARY 2006

TABLINGS

National Assembly

1. The Speaker

a) Request from the Chief Justice of the Republic for the National Assembly, in terms of section 6(4) of the Electoral Commission Act, 1996 (Act No 51 of 1996), to recommend the candidate from the nomination submitted for appointment by the President to the Electoral Commission.

  Referred to the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, the committee to
  report as soon as possible.



                      THURSDAY, 26 JANUARY 2006

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Classification of Bills by Joint Tagging Mechanism

 (1)    The Joint Tagging Mechanism, on 25 January 2006 in terms of
     Joint Rule 160(6)(b), classified the following Bill as a section
     75 Bill:


     (i)     Prohibition of Mercenary Activities and Prohibition and
          Regulation of Certain Activities in Areas of Armed Conflict
          Bill [B 42 – 2005] (National Assembly – sec 75).

1. Draft Bills submitted in terms of Joint Rule 159

1) Government Immovable Asset Management Bill, 2006, submitted by the
   Minister of Public Works on 7 December 2005. Referred to the
   Portfolio Committee on Public Works and the Select Committee on
   Public Services.
2) Carriage by Air Amendment Bill, 2006, submitted by the Minister of
   Transport on 12 December 2005. Referred to the Portfolio Committee
   on Transport and the Select Committee on Public Services.
3) Constitution Fourteenth Amendment Bill, 2006 submitted by the
   Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development on 21 November
   2005. Reffed to the Portfolio Committee on Justice and
   Constitutional Development and the Select Committee on Security and
   Constitutional Affairs.

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister of Finance


 (a)    Report and Financial Statements of the Financial Services Board
     on the Registrar of Collective Investment Schemes for the year
     ended 31 December 2004.


  b) Report and Financial Statements of the Financial Services Board on
     the Registrar of Pension Funds for 2004.


  c) Government Notice No 1179 published in Government Gazette No 28306
     dated 7 December 2005: Approval of allocations to provincial and
     local government spheres, in terms of the Division of Revenue Act,
     2005 (Act No 1 of 2005).

1. The Minister of Public Enterprises

a) Report and Financial Statements of Denel (Pty) Ltd for 2004-2005, including the Report of the Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for 2004-2005.

1. The Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry

   a) Report and Financial Statements of Bushbuckridge Water for the year ended 30 June 2005, including the Report of the Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2005. b) Report and Financial Statements of Ikangala Water for the year ended 30 June 2005, including the Report of the Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2005.

   c) Report and Financial Statements of Magalies Water for the year ended 30 June 2005, including the Report of the Independent Auditors on the Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2005.

   d) Government Notice No 1180 published in Government Gazette No 28307 dated 9 December 2005: Invitation to submit written comments on the proposed list of particular trees and particular group of trees under section 12(1)(a) and (b) of the National Forests Act, 1998 (Act No 84 of 1998).

National Assembly

1. The Speaker

a) Reply from Auditor-General to recommendation in Sixty-Second Report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts on South African Diamond Board, as adopted by the House on 8 November 2005.

  Referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

                       MONDAY, 30 JANUARY 2006

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Assent by President in respect of Bill

   1) Education Laws Amendment Bill [B 23D – 2005] – Act No 24 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 23 December 2005)

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development

   a) Medium-Term Strategic Framework for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for 2005/06 – 2008/09.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly

1. Annual Report of the Portfolio Committee on Communications, dated January-December 2005: Chairperson: Mr MK Lekgoro, MP

   Committee Secretaries: Ms T Madubela and Ms R Schaafsma Committee Assistant: Ms N Stemele

   1. Chairperson’s overview:

      I have been privileged to lead a committee that, on behalf of the South African public, has been charged with the responsibility to legislate for and oversee an activity that is unquestionably at the cutting edge of human development. It is not an overstatement that the technologies that drive electronic communication and the dissemination of information in general, hold a key to enabling humanity to reach beyond the present limits in addressing its problems.

      We have had a very exciting and busy year. Interacting with the Department of Communications and the Government Communication and Information System and their entities had been an experience that allowed us to explore the possibilities and potential that they have in addressing the fundamentals of our country.

      The four hectic months that we interacted with the industry and the public on the Convergence Bill (now the Electronic Communications Bill) and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Amendment Bill was a rewarding experience. To me it further demonstrated the good will that comes from South Africans, with their diverse viewpoints, when they are put together to find a solution.

      I thank members of the committee and staff for having allowed me to steer the committee thus far. Our thoughts go to Mr Ali Maziya, who was injured while carrying out an assignment of our committee.

      I wish all members a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.

   2. Mission and Vision of the Committee:

   3. Mission

   Ensure that communications services are available to all South Africans and that they have access to both traditional and electronic media and communications and information technology

   Deal with bills and other matters falling within its portfolio, as referred to it by the NA, or assigned to it in terms of legislation

   Maintain oversight over the Ministry and the Department of Communications and the Government Communications Information System

   Where necessary, make recommendations concerning any organ of state, constitutional institution or other body or institution

   Work towards the goal of a better life for all

   Approve fiscal transfers to the Department of Communication, Government Communication and Information System and portfolio organisations

   2.2 Vision

   To promote the development and implementation of policy for telecommunications, postal and broadcasting services

   To control fiscal transfers to the portfolio organisations such as the SA Post Office, the SABC, the Independent Communications Authority of SA, the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa, and the Universal Service Agency

   1. LIST OF ENTITIES OVER WHICH COMMITTEE EXERCISES OVERSIGHT The Department of Communications Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Independent Communications Authority of SA Media Development and Diversity Agency National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa South African Broadcasting Corporation Sentech South African Post Office Telkom Universal Service Agency

   2. Number of meetings held and those cancelled:

      45 held and 5 cancelled

      The Committee plans its programme ahead of time and whenever the Parliamentary programme changes, the Committee also has to amend its programme accordingly and therefore has to cancel some meetings.

   3. Legislation referred to the Committee

      5.1.1 Convergence Bill [B9-2005] [renamed as Electronic Communications Bill [B9B-2005]]

            • Referral date:  1 March 2005
            • Briefing by the Department of Communications: 8 April
              2005
            • Number of submissions received: 52
            • Public Hearings and processing of legislation:
      
           ➢ 8 April         Briefing by DoC on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 24 May:    Hearings: Icasa, Competition Commission
           ➢ 27 May:    Sentech, Orbicom
           ➢ 7 June:         Internet Society SA Chapter, B-Tel
             (Bokamoso
        Consortium)
           ➢ 10 June         SABC, Mnet, Multi-Choice
           ➢ 14 June         Telkom, SNO shareholders, SA Institute of
                         Electrical Engineers
           ➢ 21 June         Vodacom, MTN, Cell C
           ➢ 10 August  Link Centre, Storm, T Systems, Wireless
             Business
                        Solutions, Wireless Application Service
                        Providers’ Association (WASPA)
           ➢ 11 August  CUASA, VANS Awareness Campaign
           ➢ 12 August  Universal Service Agency, Freedom of
             Expression, Internet Solutions
                      ➢ 15 August  John Joslin, National Community
                        Radio Forum, Independent Schools Association of
                        SA
                      ➢ 16 August  SA Communication Forum, E-Commerce
                        Committee of the Law Society of SA, Print
                        Media, Online Publishers Association, Media
                        Institute of SA (Misa)
                      ➢ 17 August  Autopage Cellular, Motorola,
                        Vodafone, Nashua Mobile (Pty) Ltd, Mweb
           ➢ 18 AugustMDDA, Primedia
           ➢ 19 August  E-TV, ISPA, Hartraq
           ➢ 23 August  Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 26 August  Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 30 August  Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 2 Sept          Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 6 Sept          Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 9 Sept     Deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 13 Sept         Formal deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 16 Sept         Publication of interim report
           ➢ 16 Sept         Formal deliberations on Convergence Bill
           ➢ 28 October Adoption of report and presentation of an
             amended Bill
           ➢ 2 November Publication of report
      
      
       Debate in NA: 3 November 2005
      

      5.1.2 Icasa Amendment Bill [B32-2005]

       Referral date: 22 September 2005
       Briefing by Department: 21 October 2005
       Number of submissions received: 15
      
      
           ➢ 24 October Public hearings and processing of legislation
                         Icasa, SA  Post  Office,  Internet  Solutions,
                           Freedom  of  Expression  Institute,  Orbicom,
                           Misa, Sentech, ISPA, MDDA, NCRF, SNO, Cell C,
                           Telkom, Vodacom, NAB,
           ➢ 25 October Deliberations
           ➢ 26 October Deliberations
           ➢ 27 October Formal deliberations
           ➢ 28 October Adoption of report
           ➢ 2 November Publication of report
                           Debate in NA: 3 November 2005
      

      5.1.3 Other meetings

                         ➢ 1 February    Introduction to IT industries,
                           Vans, Ispa, SAVA, etc
                         ➢ 15 February   Transtel briefing
                                                                                                                         ➢
      

   4. Oversight (Local) visits

   The committee planned a visit to the Limpopo Province from 01-04 August

   1. Its programme included the oversight of structures that fall within the communications portfolio, such as USALs. Post Offices, MPPC’s, community radio stations and cyberlabs.The visit had to be cancelled, due to an accident that happened while MP’s and staff members were travelling towards Polokwane, when five members of the delegation were injured and had to be hospitalised. They are Mr A Maziya, MP, Ms R Schaafsma, Ms T Madublela and Mr L Brown (committee secretaries) and Mr N van Zyl, a researcher.

   It was agreed that the planned visit be undertaken at a later stage.

   1. Budget Votes

   7.1.1 Government Communication Information System (GCIS): Vote 7

    a) Referral date: 2 March 2005
    b) Briefing by GCIS:  8 March 2005
    c) Public Hearings: 8 March 2005: GCIS, IMC and MDDA on 8 March
       2005
    d) Report publication: 13 April 2005
    e) Debate: NA: 15 April 2005
   

   7.1.2 Department of Communications: Vote 26

    f) Referral date: 2 March 2005
    g) Briefing by department: 4 March 2005
    h) Public Hearings: 4 March: SA Post Office, USA, Telkom; and
    i) 11 March: Icasa, Sentech and SABC
    j)  Report publication: 17 May 2005
    k) Debate: NA: 19 May 2005
   

   1. Annual reports of the Executive (30 September)

   Department of Communications

   8.1.1 Referral date: 3 October 2005 2. Briefing by department: 8 November 2005 3. Public Hearings: 8 November 2005 4. Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting

   National Electronic Media Institute of SA (Nemisa)

    5. Referral date: 29 September 2005
    6. Briefing: 8 November 2005
    7. Public Hearings: 8 November 2005
    8. Report publication: to be adopted at next meeting
   

   South African Post Office

    9. Referral date: 29 September 2005
   10. Briefing: 8 November 2005
   11. Public Hearings: 8 November 2005
   12. Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting
   

   Sentech

   13. Referral date: 22 September 2005
   14. Briefing: 8 November 2005
   15. Public Hearings: 8 November 2005
   16. Report publication: to be adopted at next meeting
   

   South African Broadcasting Corporation

   17. Referral date: 23 August 2005
   18. Briefing: 8 November 2005
   19. Public Hearings: 8 November 2005
   20. Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting
   

   Universal Service Agency & Universal Service Fund

   8.1.21 Referral date: 30 September 2005 8.1.22 Briefing: 8 November 2005 8.1.23 Public Hearings: 8 November 2005 8.1.24 Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting

   Telkom

   The Minister of Communications submitted a written explanation to the NA on the non-tabling of Telkom’s Annual report and financial statements, that are in line with Telkom’s exemption from certain provisions of the Public Finance Management Act of 1999 (see ATC, Wednesday, 9 November 2005).

   Government Communication Information System (GCIS)

   8.2.1 Referral date: 21 September 2005 8.2.2 Briefing by GCIS: 4 November 2005 8.2.3 Public Hearings: 4 November 2005 8.2.4 Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting

   Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA)

   8.2.5 Referral date: 1 September 2005 8.2.6 Briefing: 4 November 2005 8.2.7 Public Hearings: 4 November 2005 8.2.8 Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting

   International Marketing Council

   8.2.9 Referral date: 29 August 2005 8.2.10 Briefing: 4 November 2005 8.2.11 Public Hearings: 4 November 2005 8.2.12 Report publication: To be adopted at next meeting

2. Attendance of seminars, conferences, workshops, training, meetings away from Parliament and other committee activities

9.1. Conferences and workshops

   27-29 May 2005  Conference on Broadcasting content regulation 2005
                      Attended by Mr R Pieterse and Ms M Smuts

   3 June 2005:    Seminar on Under Serviced Area Licences: Polokwane
                      Attended by Mr MK Lekgoro and Ms C Nkuna


   4 June 2005:    World Telecommunications Day: Polokwane
                      Attended by Mr MK Lekgoro and Ms C Nkuna

   4 July 2005:    Conference on Progressive Governance: Johannesburg
                      Attended by Mr G Oliphant

  12 July 2005:    Hearing on Convergence Bill (USA and USALs) and on
                      Transformation Charter on the Advertising and
                      Marketing Industry: Johannesburg
                   Attended by Committee


  20-21 July 2005:       Second Powerline Communications in Africa
                        Conference: Johannesburg
                        Attended by Mr MK Lekgoro, Ms M Smuts and Mr KM
                        Khumalo


  28-29 July 2005  Africa Institute of SA: Progressive Governance
                        Conference in SA: Johannesburg
        Attended by Mr G Oliphant

  26 August 2005   Workshop on Broadband 3G:MTN & Icasa
                        Attended by Messrs MK Lekgoro, R  Pieterse,  GG
                        Oliphant, R Mohlaloga, Ms M Smuts and S Vos

  28-30 September 2005    Meeting  with  Icasa;  Federal  Communications
                        Commission Regulatory Consultations
        Attended by Messrs K Khumalo and R Pieterse    2.  Training

                        24 to 28 January 2005
                        Parliament on general and committee specific
                        issues (compulsory)


                        18 February 2005
                         Icasa introduction to its mandate


                        22 February 2005
                        Sentech introduction to its mandate and a visit
                        to the Milnerton office and the Constantiaberg
                        Tower

                        14-16 March 2005 Strand Beach Hotel: Link
                        Centre:


                        ▪ Telecommunications and Regulation,
                        ▪ Broadcasting
                        ▪ Postal policy and law
                        The whole committee attended

1. Appointment of persons to statutory bodies

   1. Council of the Independent Communications Authority of SA

       31 May 2005:      Interviews
       2 June 2005      Interviews
       8 June 2005      Recommendations and report
      

10.2   Media Development and Diversity Agency


             1 November 2005  Interviews
             4 November 2005        Recommendations and report

1. Adoption of Annual Report for 2004

   The Annual Report for 2004 was adopted on 29 March 2005

2. Budget of the committee

10.1 Allocated to the committee:                    R544 158,00
10.2 Expenditure: Catering:                    R  57 202,00
10.3 Provincial Visits:                             R336 338,00
                                 ➢ Subsistence/Hotel           R 71
                                   034
                                 ➢ Attendance/Mileage Claims   R 46
                                   100
                                 ➢ Domestic Air Travel   R209 304
                                 ➢ Attendance  R 9 900         R    9
                                   900


10.4 Conferences/workshops:   R111 782,58
10.5 Advertisements:                           R  83 278.00
10.6 Legal Fees:                               R264 080,56
10.7.Transfers to Staff Travel:                     R  17 136,00
10.8 Equipment:                                R       570.00

1. SUPPORT STAFF

Committee Secretary: Tyhileka Madubela and Rita Schaafsma (Ntabiseng Borotho and Vuyokazi Majalamba stood in on a temporary basis)

Control Committee Secretary: Marc Philander

Committee Assistant: Nzwaki Stemele

Secretary to Chairperson: Nina Pasensie

Researcher (Research Unit): Nickie van Zyl

……………………………………… COMMITTEE SECRETARY DATE: 16 November 2005 DATE …………

……………………………………………… CONTROL COMMITTEE SECRETARY DATE: 16 November 2005 DATE …………

………………………………… COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON DATE: 16 November 2005 DATE …………

                      TUESDAY, 31 JANUARY 2006

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Speaker and the Chairperson

 a) General Report of the Auditor-General on the Audit Outcomes for
    2004-2005 [RP 223-2005].

1. The Minister of Sport and Recreation

   a) Report and Financial Statements of Boxing South Africa for 2004- 2005, including the Report of the Auditor-General on the Financial Statements for 2004-2005.

                   THURSDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 2006
   

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Assent by President in respect of Bills

   1) Revenue Laws Amendment Bill [B 40 – 2005] – Act No 31 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 27 January 2006); and 2) Revenue Laws Second Amendment Bill [B 41 – 2005] – Act No 32 of 2005 (assented to and signed by President on 27 January 2006).

2. Message from President

   The Speaker and the Chairperson received the following message, dated 25 January 2006, from the President, calling a Joint Sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces:

    CALLING OF A JOINT SITTING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND THE NATIONAL
    COUNCIL OF PROVINCES
   
   
    In terms of section 84(2)(d) of the Constitution of the Republic of
    South Africa, Act No. 108 of 1996, read with Rule 7(1)(a) of the
    Joint Rules of Parliament, I hereby call a joint sitting of the
    National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces on Friday, 3
    February 2006 at 11:00 in order to deliver my Third Annual Address
    to the Third Parliament.
   
   
    Regards,
   
    T M MBEKI
   

TABLINGS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

1. The Minister of Communications

(a)    Final Acts of the Plenipotentiary Conference in Marrakesh,
    Marocco in 2002 of the International Telecommunications Union,
    tabled in terms of section 231(2) of the Constitution, 1996.


(b)    Explanatory Memorandum to the Final Acts of the Plenipotentiary
    Conference in Marrakesh, Marocco in 2002 of the International
    Telecommunications Union.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly

1. Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the nomination of a judge to serve on the Electoral Commission, dated 01 February 2006:

   The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs having considered the matter of the nomination of a judge to serve on the Electoral Commission, referred to it, reports as follows:

   The Committee was requested to nominate the candidate for the appointment of a judge to fill the position on the Electoral Commission in terms of section 6 of the Electoral Commission Act (Act No 51 of 1996).

   The Committee met on 23 January 2006 to deliberate on the matter. After having considered the candidate recommended by the panel, the Committee recommends that the House in accordance with section 6 of the Act, make a recommendation to the President that Judge Herbert Qedusizi Msimang be appointed to serve on the Electoral Commission.

   Mr H P Chauke, MP Chairperson: PC Home Affairs

Report to be considered.


                       MONDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2006

ANNOUNCEMENTS

National Assembly and National Council of Provinces

The Speaker and the Chairperson

1. Introduction of Bill

 (1)    The Minister of Public Works


        i) Government Immovable Asset Management Bill [B 1 – 2006]
           (National Assembly – sec 75) [Explanatory summary of Bill and
           prior notice of its introduction published in Government
           Gazette No 28135 of 14 October 2005.]
     Introduction and referral to the Portfolio Committee on Public
     Works of the National Assembly, as well as referral to the Joint
     Tagging Mechanism (JTM) for classification in terms of Joint Rule
     160, on 7 February 2006.



     In terms of Joint Rule 154 written views on the classification of
     the Bill may be submitted to the JTM within three parliamentary
     working days.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly

1. Date of Meeting

   The report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the nomination of a judge to serve on the Electoral Commission, published in the Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports of Thursday, 2 February 2006, on page 94 contained an error in that it indicated the date on which the Committee met as 23 January 2006. It should read: The Committee met on 1 February 2006 to deliberate on the matter.

                   TUESDAY, 7 FEBRUARY 2006
   

COMMITTEE REPORTS

National Assembly

1. REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION ON THE CONSIDERATION OF THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION VOTE 15 ON 25 OCTOBER 2005

2. Background

   The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) recognizes that legislatures have a critical role to play in overseeing and monitoring the performance of Departments and Public Entities.

   Section 65 (1) of the Public Finance Management Act requires that Ministers table the Annual Reports for Departments and Public Entities for which they are responsible. The date for tabling of Annual Reports of Public Entities and Departments responsible for is 30 September each year.

   Section 65 (1) of the Public Finance Management Act (1996) states that when tabling a report the Executive Authority responsible for a department or entity must table in the National Assembly or a Provincial Legislature, as may be appropriate. The Annual Report and Financial Statements referred to in section 40 (1) (d) and the audit report on those within one month after the Accounting Authority for the Public Entity received the audit report.

   All Parliamentary Portfolio Committee’s are required to consider and report on Departmental and Public Entities’ annual reports after tabling and referral. The Committee decided to invite the Department to come before it on 25 October 2005.

The purpose for consideration of the annual reports is  to  assess  the
performance of the department or public entities  against  the  targets
set in the previous financial year.

1. 2004-2005 Annual Report of the Department of Education Vote 15

   The Acting Director-General, Mr. Philip Benade, briefed Members of the Committee on the 2004-2005 Annual Report of the Department for the year ended 31 March 2005. The presentation focused

➢  Administration,  Planning  and  Monitoring,  General  Education   and
  Training,
➢ Further Education and Training,  Higher  education,  Higher  Education
  Strategic Objectives, Quality Promotion
➢ and Development and Challenges facing the Department.

2.1 Administration

  The original allocation for the Department included in  the  Estimates
of National Expenditure  2004  amounted  to  R11,344,957  million.  The
Adjustments Estimate for  2004/05  included  an  additional  amount  of
R60,138 million which increased the allocation to R11 405,095 million.

2.2 Planning & Monitoring

  To facilitate the equitable distribution of  financial  resources  and
norms and standards for funding, a Budget Monitoring Support office was
established in accordance with education funding norms  policies.  This
was done  to  facilitate  organisational  and  systems  improvement  of
provincial education departments  in  the  monitoring  of  schools  and
setting up a uniform reporting system.

  In relation to physical planning, draft  norms  and  standards  policy
documents are in the process of being finalised for internal  approval.
Reports from Provincial Education Departments have been  collected  and
collated and presented to HEADCOM and CEM. These reports are not always
received on time and they are not always of an acceptable  quality.  To
improve collection, processing, retrieval analysis, as well as  quality
data,  a  national  Education   Management   Information   System   was
implemented.

2.3 General Education & Training

  To ensure effective delivery of viable Early Childhood Development,  a
total of 500 000 learners enrolled in Grade R. To develop and  maintain
operational systems for effective delivery of  Outcome-Based  Education
(OBE) in the GET band with particular focus on ECD, a total  of  4  500
practitioners enrolled for Level 4 training and 3  967  graduated  with
full ECD qualification.

  For effective ECD  learning  programmes,  a  successful  collaboration
with the South African Broadcasting Corporation was launched to support
curriculum implementation.
  To ensure implementation of national policies  in  order  to  increase
access to quality education and training  for  vulnerable  children,  a
Guideline for the  Development  of  Inclusive  Learning  Programmes  to
assist teachers in the classroom to manage  diverse  needs  within  one
class has been completed.

2.4 Further Education & Training Schools

  To improve the quality of teaching and learning in  schools,  the  new
curriculum for Grades  10-12  was  finalised.  A  new  National  Senior
Certificate for Grade 12 would be finalised in 2008.
  Colleges
  The merging of 150 technical colleges  into  50  multi-sited  colleges
was supported in the  establishment  of  academic  boards  and  student
support services.  To ensure Colleges develop plans for  consolidation,
Management and governance structures at all colleges were  established.
Plans for recapitalisation of  colleges  have  been  completed.  It  is
envisaged  that  the   re-capitalisation   would   increase   to   R1,5
billion.over 3 years.

2.5 Higher Education

  The Higher Education  Branch  has  been  able  to  meet  most  of  the
strategic objectives that were identified in the Department’s Strategic
Plan.  The  2003/04  Strategic  Plan  identified  six   (6)   strategic
objectives and their respective performance measures.

2.6 Higher Education Strategic Objectives

  The six strategic objectives identified were:
➢  to  produce  quality  graduates  needed  for  social   and   economic
  development in South Africa,
➢ to achieve  equity  in  South  African  higher  education  system,  to
  achieve diversity in the South African higher education system,
➢ to sustain and promote research  in  South  African  higher  education
  system,  to  provide  institutional  support   to   higher   education
  institutions,
➢ to provide quality Management Information System for Higher  Education
  (HEMIS). 2.7   Quality Promotion & Development

  To ensure sustainability of the National School  Nutrition  Programmes
through the establishment of vegetable gardens or other  food  security
initiatives, the NSNP continues to make a significant difference in the
health, nutritional and educational status of learners in poor schools.
Collaboration with the Department of Health has seen  the  mobilisation
of health workers to visit schools on  a  regular  basis  in  order  to
promote a healthy lifestyle as well as to identify learners who are  in
need of health-related intervention or treatment.

2.8 Auditor General’s Opinion

  The Auditor-General, without qualifying the audit opinion,  emphasized
the following:
  ➢ The Accounting Officer,  in  terms  of  the  Treasury  Regulations,
    should take full responsibility  and  ensure  that  proper  control
    systems exist
  ➢ In terms of the  Public  Finance  Management  Act,  the  Accounting
    Officer must ensure that the provisions of the Division of  Revenue
    Act are complied with when transfer of funds take place
  ➢ The information technology security did not  specify  any  security
    requirements for the transversal systems.

2.9 Challenges facing the Department

  The following are challenges faced by the Department.
  ➢ To promote social cohesion, societies still find  it  difficult  to
    transform and integrate diverse cultures
  ➢  Lack of Infrastructure at schools inhibit active participation  by
    all and interest in school enrichment programmes
  ➢ Effects of fronting as Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises  (SMMEs)
    and the monopoly by large  businesses  in  NSNP  inhibits  economic
    development and poverty alleviation
  ➢ Teacher development in Maths and Science and future training  needs
    remains a priority area
  ➢ Education  Management  Information  System  to  update  the  School
    Register  of  Needs  (for  detailed   exposition,   see   copy   of
    presentation).

2.10 Conclusions

  The Chairperson thanked Members for attending the meeting. He  further
thanked the Acting Director-General and his  team  for  the  manner  in
which each Programme Director had briefed the Committee explicitly.

2.11 Recommendations

  Having interrogated the 2004/05 Annual Report  of  the  Department  of
Education in terms of the requirements  of  Public  Finance  Management
Act, the Committee recommends as follows:  That the Department:

     ➢ Put in place proper Asset  Management  Systems  to  ensure  that
       proper control of assets exists

     ➢  Put  in  place  Education  Management  Information  System  for
       retrieval, storage, and provision of accurate and reliable data.

Report to be considered.

1. REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION ON ITS EXTENSIVE HEARINGS ON THE ANNUAL REPORTS 2004/2005 OF PUBLIC ENTITIES ON THE 11- 12 OCTOBER 2005

2. Background

   The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) recognizes that legislatures have a critical role to play in overseeing and monitoring the performance of Departments and Public Entities. Section 65 (1) of the Public Finance Management Act requires that Ministers table the Annual Reports for Departments and Public Entities for which they are responsible. The date for tabling of Annual Reports of Public Entities and Departments responsible for is 30 September each year.

   Section 65 (1) of the Public Finance Management Act (1996) states that when tabling a report the Executive Authority responsible for a department or entity must table in the National Assembly or a Provincial Legislature, as may be appropriate. The Annual Report and Financial Statements referred to in section 40 (1) (d) and the audit report on those within one month after the Accounting Authority for the Public Entity received the audit report.

   All Parliamentary Portfolio Committees’ are required to consider and report on Departmental and Public Entities’ annual reports after tabling and referral. The purpose for consideration of the annual reports was to assess the performance of the entities against the targets set in the previous financial year. The Committee invited the five Public Entities to come before it on the 11-12 October 2005. It also conducted hearings on the Education, Labour Relations Council even though their report had not been referred to the Committee. The Public Entities that participated in the hearings were:

3. UMALUSI: Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training

  The Chief Executive Officer, Dr Peliwe Lolwana briefed the  Committee.
The main focus of the briefing was on lack of  financial  resources  to
execute  Constitutional  functions,  appointment  of  New  Chairperson,
moderation and monitoring process, evaluation and  accreditation  unit,
challenges and way forward. While they were proud to  execute  most  of
the functions stipulated in  the  General  and  Further  Education  and
Training Quality Assurance Act of (No 58 of 2001),  lack  of  financial
resources and the hiatus caused by the uncertainty around the  outcomes
of the review of the National Qualifications Framework stalls progress.
She said  that  if  these  challenges  were  not  addressed,  it  would
compromise the credibility of the  ETQA  in  the  general  and  further
education and training sectors.

2.1 Appointment of New Chairperson

  For the financial year under 2004-2005, saw  the  appointment  by  the
Minister of Mr. John Pampallis the Director of the Centre for Education
Policy Development taking over from Dr Cassius Lubisi who moved to  the
National Department of Education.
  She said  the  year  was  significant  in  the  quality  assurance  of
assessment due to the fact that the processes for the quality assurance
assessment had been  significantly  improved.  The  research  that  was
conducted into the standard of the Senior Certificate  Examination  had
enabled the Council to strengthen the processes.

2.2 Moderation and monitoring process

  While attention was paid to the maintenance  and  improvement  of  the
moderation and monitoring processes relating to the Senior Certificate,
much was put into Adult Education and training and vocational education
and training  to  establish  the  broader  framework  for  the  quality
assurance of assessment. In assuring the quality of assessment for  the
Senior Certificate, they moderated about 2600 question papers. Monitors
were deployed to monitor the conduct of exams as well  as  the  marking
and processing and capturing of  results.  Moderation  of  exam  papers
uncovered irregularities  in  the  results  of  the  Mpumalanga  Senior
Certificate examinations. The discovery resulted  into  them  (Umalusi)
conducting an investigation in various phases and stretched  over  more
than two months. A team of twenty independent specialists assisted them
in the probe resulting in withholding results of 843 candidates.

2.3 Evaluations and Accreditation Unit

  The Evaluation and Accreditation Unit developed into  a  fully-fledged
functional entity. The  unit  undertook  provisional  accreditation  of
independent schools, further education and training colleges and  adult
basic education and training providers. Provisional accreditation  were
accredited to 127 Further Education and Training Colleges and  72  ABET
providers on a three year accreditation. The research  and  development
unit started to function and a three year research plan was  developed.
A total of nearly 700  000  certificates  were  issued  which  includes
Senior,  National,  N3  and  the   General   Education   and   Training
certificates. A new certificate was designed replacing  the  old  South
African Certification Council.
  In terms of section 38 (1)  of  the  Public  Finance  Management  Act,
entities  should  implement  effective,   efficient   and   transparent
financial  management  and  internal  control  systems.  The  financial
performance of Umalusi resulted in a net surplus of R5,1 million due to
the additional R5 million received from the Department on the 23  March
2005.  Their  spending  is  within  allocated  budgets  and   strategic
priorities.

2.4 Challenges

  Even though the spending is  within  allocated  budget  and  strategic
priorities, they are faced with the following challenges, uncertainties
clouding the future role and finances of the entity need to be  solved;
non-continuation of the accreditation process due to lack of  available
funds and lack of finding an acceptable and accessible language in  the
conceptualization of standards.

2.5 Way forward

  Even though there are challenges hampering its  progress  to  perform,
they are advancing their understanding of the strengths and  weaknesses
of  the  bodies  they  are  assessing  a  new  quality   assurance   of
qualifications and  curriculum  unit  had  been  developed  to  develop
criteria and procedures within which it would conduct its  function  of
monitoring  the  adequacy  and  suitability   of   qualifications   and
curriculum  and  the  soon  to  be  implemented  new  National   Senior
Certificate  as  well  as  the  Further  Education  and  training   and
vocational Certificates are receiving urgent attention.

1. Council on Higher Education

   The Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Higher Education, Prof Saleem Badat briefed the Committee. The main focus of the briefing was on responsibility of CHE, the highlights and challenges facing the institution.

3.1 Advising the Minister at his/her request or proactively on all policy related matters relating to higher education.

  In advising the Minister, the advice focused on  aspects  of  Distance
Higher Education in South Africa; student enrolment planning in  Public
Higher   Education;   minimum   admission   requirements   for   Higher
Certificate, Diploma  and  Bachelor’s  Degrees,  the  Higher  Education
Qualifications Framework  and  the  Ministry’s  Draft  Code  for  Cross
Border/Transitional Delivery of Higher Education programs 3.2   Assuming executive responsibility for quality assurance within  Higher
Education   and   Training,    including    programme    accreditation,
institutional audits, programme evaluation and  quality  promotion  and
capacity building.
  In advising the Minister  on  its  own  initiative  on  HE  issues  in
providing policy advice the advice focused on GATS and its implications
for Higher Education and Government Regulation, institutional  autonomy
and academic freedom. 3.3   Monitoring and evaluating whether how and  to  what  extend  and  with
what consequences the vision, policy goals and  objectives  for  higher
education are being realized, including  reporting  on  the  status  of
South African education
  In advising the Minister on the appropriate shape and size of  the  HE
system, including its desired institutional configuration,  the  advice
focused on aspects of Distance Higher Education  in  South  Africa  and
student enrolment planning in Public Higher Education. 3.4   Contributing to developing higher education, giving leadership  around
key national and systematic issues. Advising the Minister in particular
on the  new  funding  arrangements  for  HE,  the  advised  focused  on
Commissioning of  investigation  into  financing  of  Higher  Education
Institutions. 3.5   Consulting with stakeholders around higher education  and  formulating
advice for the  Minister  which  included  ongoing  collaboration  with
Department of Education  and  South  African  Qualifications  Authority
regarding Higher Education Management Information System in relation to
CHE databases for monitoring and quality assurance. 3.6   Finances
  For CHE to carry out  its  five  mandated  areas,  an  amount  of  R18
million had been set aside. In terms of section 38 (1)  of  the  Public
Finance Management Act, entities should implement effective,  efficient
and transparent financial management and internal control systems,  CHE
achieved its seventh unqualified report from  the  Auditor-General  and
achieved by all Black women representation. 3.7   Challenges facing CHE
  The CEO outlined five strategic areas, which he  regards  as  priority
if quality  in  higher  education  would  be  achieved,  and  they  are
Increasing  investment  in  National  Student  Financial   Aid   Scheme
Improving learning and teaching of previously  disadvantaged  students;
extending and deepening  the  curriculum  innovation  and  renewal  and
restructuring that is needed; mobilizing and  securing  additional  and
adequate  finances  in  producing  the  next  generation  by  equipping
academics  to  deal  with  new  generation  of  students  and   capital
infrastructure to be improved to equip  and  advance  the  intellectual
prowess  of  academics  in  producing  the  quality  of  students   and
attracting young black women to institutions.

1. South African Qualifications Authority

   The Chief Executive Officer of SAQA, Mr. Samuel Isaacs briefed members of the Committee. The main focus of the briefing was on overall highlights and challenges facing SACE, standings and settings, quality assurance, national learner records database, research and communications and challenges facing SAQA. 4.1 Overall highlights There overall highlights of the financial year under review were, SAQA successfully utilized the Joint Implementation Plans; they and IEC signed a JIP agreement to generate qualifications and unit standards for various aspects pertaining to elections; they developed the qualifications and unit standards under the auspices of the SGB for Democracy, Human Rights, Peace and elections and through the auditing of twenty ETQAs the goal of quality education and training was supported and the findings of the audit reports showed a substantial improvement nationally in quality management systems. 4.2 Standards and settings, SAQA generates and registers unit standards and qualifications that are nationally recognized and internationally comparable; a major achievement saw the registration of more qualifications and unit standards in 2004 than any other year combined; it registered standards and qualifications that were responsive to the needs of the economy under Human Resource Development Strategy, the national skills development strategy and the growth and development summit targets. 4.3 Quality Assurance It is the South African Qualifications Authority’s responsibility to guarantee quality qualifications for a learning nation and fosters a culture of quality qualifications in education and training by means of, quality auditing of ETQAs to determine the extend to which they comply with their statutory obligations; accreditation of Education and Training Quality Assurance bodies (ETQAs) to ensure the quality of delivery of specific qualifications and unit standards and the monitoring of the ETQAs to ensure continuous improvement of the processes that deliver quality qualifications 4.4 National learner records database, the National Learners Records Database manages SAQAs comprehensive database of learner achievements 4.5 Research and communication SAQA first mooted the idea of reviewing progress in the development and implementation of the NQF. The first cycle of the Study was completed and the findings were published as Report 1 establishing criteria against which to measure the progress of NQF; the establishment of the NQF regional forums was a big step in support of the advocacy and communication of the NQF, SAQA had supported the harmonization of qualifications in the SADC region it assisted in the development of the concept paper on the Regional Qualification which was approved by SADC Integrated Council of Ministers in June. 4.6 Challenges facing SAQA Even though SAQA is able to implement its Constitutional obligations, it faced the following challenges, of moving from compliance to performance, the lack of coherent policy development and implementation and finalization of the NQF review and ensuring appropriate funding.

2. South African Council for Educators

   The Chief Executive Officer, Mr. M Govender briefed the Committee on 2004/05 annual report and audited financial statement. The main focus of the briefing was on finances, service delivery, organizational structure, levy increases, information and communication technology, and action plan for 2005/06.

5.1 Finances The CEO reported that the income for the financial year 2004-2005 amounted to R11 million and was made up of education levies at R2 per month per educator. SACE experienced a surplus amounting to R772 281 mainly due to the delay in the appointment of the new Council. Out of the R11 million allocated, R6 million included paying for the legal expertise required for code of conduct activities, data capturers and professors for registration and research capacity for professional development. The R5 million that remained was mainly for administration costs relating to meeting expenses. 5.2 Service delivery The three main areas of delivery as per it mandated in the SACE Act 2000 are registration of educators, professional development and ethics. 10 264 educators were registered of which 3 132 were provisionally registered. By the end of 2003-2004 financial year, 464 959 were registered of which approximately 18 000 were provisional. In its quest to promote professional development, the professional development portfolio (PDP) and policy formulation continued in the continuous professional teacher development. It processed 60 complaints against educators for the year under review. Three educators were struck off the register, one was suspended and others escaped with lesser punishment. One case came under the spotlight where it was alleged that SACE “slapped” an educator on the wrist for raping a 13- year girl. To remedy unethical conduct, the Council conducted workshops, networked and trained educator. The Ministry requested the Council to conduct more workshops on the ethics of the profession in respect of corporal punishment and to scrutinize the exam fraud. To enhance service delivery, the Chief Executive Officers managers managed a 24-hour help line (012) 663-0419 and a complaints suggestion box. Lifts facilities had been installed to assist physically challenged visitors. 5.3 Levy increase The levy increase had been delayed. Council considers increasing the levy from R2 to R4. Once that has been secured it would be in a position to deliver optimally. 5.4 Way forward 2005/06 To improve the register update including verification and completion of register; improve advocacy and outreach regarding ethics in the profession and processing of priority cases; ensure professional development of teachers and initiatives to ensure that all educators are able to track their professional growth in an organized way; systematize professional development of educators to ensure that programs provided by providers are evaluated; ensure that suitable programs and activities are advocated and ensure that educator’s achievements are recognized, recorded and rewarded.

1. Education, Labour Relations Council

   The Chief Executive Officer, Mr. M Govender, briefed the Committee and focused on service delivery, dispute resolution, disputes per province, case-load per province, negotiations, finances and research. 6.1. Service delivery The CEO said that over the past 11 years, they contributed significantly towards the development and delivery of quality public education. He said the core business of ELRC, is to promote the maintenance of labour peace in the public education through dispute prevention and resolution. It provides for negotiations and consultation on collective bargaining both provincial and nationally. 6.2 Dispute resolution Dispute resolution service is the core function of the Council set out in Chapter 4 of the Constitution which includes inter alia, to maintain and promote labour peace, prevent and resolve labour disputes and to conclude and enforce collective agreements. In 2004-2005 financial year a total of 671 disputes were referred to the Council. Of those that were referred, 467 were successfully dealt with through conciliation and arbitration, 160 cases are still being processed. 6.3 Number of disputes per province According to statistics provided, KwaZulu-Natal tops the list of disputes followed by the Western Cape Province. 6.4 Case load per issue In terms of disputes statistics per issue in the year under review almost 60% of disputes referred were about unfair labour practice, unfair labour practice such as promotion, demotion, benefits, suspension and training. 6.5 Negotiations Through the process of negotiations, the national collective agreements had been successfully concluded resulting into major changes in the lives of educators in the public education sector. 6.6 Finances SACE generates funds from the levies, revenue, operating surpluses collected. 6.7 Levies The total levies collected amounted to R13.5 million as compared to R15.6 million the previous year. The decrease of R2 million was as a result of the decrease in levies per educator that came into effect in the middle of the previous financial year. 6.8 Revenue The amount of revenue collected amounted R19.8 as opposed to R17.3 the previous financial year. An amount of R6.3 million was transferred from the reserves to meet the budgetary requirements. 6.9 Operating surplus The amount of operating surplus amounted to R3.7 million. This surplus is as a result of the postponement of some capital expenditure to the next financial year. 6.10 Research During the financial year under review, meaningful research concerning ‘”determinants of supply and demand” and “post provisioning norms and educator workloads” had been initiated. The outcome of this research will serve to inform and guide stakeholders on the necessary action that needs to be taken to enhance service delivery of quality education. The research is not exhaustive in itself. Findings of the research are as follows per province. Challenges facing ELRC, the inability of provincial departments to pay temporary teachers in time thus resulting into teachers marching; absenteeism by educators at schools, lack of implementation of the IQMS resulting into teachers not rewarded and assessed and the role of school Principals need to be reviewed.

2. National Student Financial Aid Scheme

   The Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Allan Taylor briefed the Committee and focused on; improved levels of allocations, increased collections, improved communication with stakeholders, formalization of Human Resources structures and administration and the audit report.

7.1 Improved levels of allocation The levels of maximum award allocations for the previous year 2003/04 was R20 000, and improved to R25 000 for the financial year under review with an interest rate of 10.4% decreasing to 7%. The CEO said that the aim is to achieve a maximum award equivalent to the national average full cost of study. 7.2 Increased collections The awards value for the previous year was R893.7 million and for the financial year under review the awards value amounted to R985.5 million resulting into an increase of 10%. The recovered funds in the previous year was R211 million and in the 2004-2005 financial years increased to R263 million resulting into an increase of 24.6%. The CEO said that for 2005/06 financial year they expect to give R1.2 billion in the form of 120 000 awards. The increase is due to an additional R223 million received from Treasury for the financial year 2005/06. 7.3 Improved communication with stakeholders The average monthly recoveries have increased significantly. As at March 2003, the average monthly recovery was R13 million resulting into an increase of 39%. As at March 2004 the recovery rate was R17.3 million resulting into an average percentage of 34%. As at March 2005, the average monthly recovery was R20.4 million resulting into an average percentage of 18%. This prompted the fund to continue to implement improved loan recovery strategies resulting in improved collections. 7.4 Formalization of Human Resource structure Key structural achievements were achieved. A Deputy Chief Executive Officer, an Information Analyst including research, a Human Resource Manager, Communication Officer and `Finance Compliance Officer were appointed. The Chief Executive Officer said that in their advocacy programs they are considering to use Members to advocate NSFAS at their constituencies. He will send each Member a number of brochures. The Secretary was tasked to provide the Chief Executive Officers with a list of their constituency officers.

1. Committee Observations

   Based on the presentation made by the department and its public entities on 2004/05 annual reports and financial statements ending 31 March 2005, the committee has observed and noted that.

8.1 Umalusi Despite the progress reported by Umalusi during the financial period under review, the Committee was concerned with the reasons that render Umalusi unable to perform its Constitutional obligations due to limited financial resources; the continued uncertainty around the outcome of the review of the National Qualifications Framework and the continued operation of non-accredited providers. 8.2 SACE Despite the progress reported by SACE, the Committee was concerned by the unresolved alleged rape case of one educator. Particularly the continuous employment of the accused and the plea bargain entered with SACE. In the view of the Committee it defeats the mission and vision of the Council. 8.3 SAQA Despite the progress reported by SAQA during the financial year under review, the Committee expressed its concern relating to the continuous lack of finalization of the NQF Review.

1. Conclusion

   The Chairperson acknowledged the responses from the Chief Executive Officers of the respective entities at short notice. He emphasized that as conducting oversight and monitoring over the Executive, hearings on annual reports would be institutionalized. The Committee acknowledged the progress that entities have made in the financial year under review. However, the Committee was aggrieved when entities are hamstrung into performing their Constitutional obligation due to the outstanding Review of the National Qualifications Framework.

2. Recommendations

   Having interrogated the 2004/05 annual reports of the Department of Education and its Public Entities tabled to Parliament in terms of the requirements of Public Finance Management Act, the committee concludes and recommends to Parliament as follows, that:

10.1 Umalusi, the South African Qualifications Authority and the Council on Higher Education should jointly compile a comprehensive recommendation to the Committee with regard to lack of progress on the Review of National Qualifications Framework. 10.2 The Committee to seek more information from Umalusi in relation to budgetary constraints that inhibits it to execute its mandate 10.3 The fate of an educator who allegedly raped a learner and continues to practice in his position despite that positive evidence was collected which singled him out as the perpetrator should be finalized.

Report to be considered.

1. REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION ON A STUDY TOUR TO THE UNIVERSITY OF FREE STATE ON THE 25 FEBRUARY 2005

2. Background

   The Portfolio Committee on Education visited the University of Free State on the 25th February 2005. During the visit, the Committee interacted with Top Management of the University, the Task Team of Vista Campus and the Student Representative Council of QwaQwa Campus. The procedure in which the meeting was conducted was that parties were allowed to make their presentation and thereafter, the floor was opened for Members of the delegation to seek questions of clarity. Since that the QwaQwa Campus Student Representative Council President was present the programme was changed to accommodate them.

3. Delegation

   The delegation was constituted of a Multi-Party Delegation of the Committee, 3 ANC, 1 DA, and 1 IFP. The delegation was led by the Chairperson, Prof Shepherd Malusi Mayatula (ANC), accompanied by Ms Lorna Maloney (ANC), Mr Ben Mthembu (ANC), Mr George Boinamo (DA) and Mr Albert Mpontshane (IFP) and Mr BG Mosala (joined the delegation in Bloemfontein as the visit of the Committee falls within his constituency) and Mr Steve Morometsi, Committee Secretary.

4. Purpose

   The purpose was to examine and monitor a crisis that existed between Management and Vista Campus Task Team. The Committee conducted a fact- finding mission to investigate what the cause of the crisis was, and if possible, come up with recommendations that would broker the impasse and enable the parties to return to normality.

5. University of Free State

   When the delegation arrived at the Du Toit Administration Building, Main Campus, Prof Izak Steyn, the Registrar of the institution who co- ordinated the visit, led the delegation through to the Rector and Vice- Chancellor’s office.

4.1 Welcome by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the institution

  The Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof  Frederick  Fourie  welcomed  the
delegation. Prof SM Mayatula the leader of  the  delegation  introduced
Members of his team. Prof F Fourie stated that  they  felt  honored  to
host the Committee because often they felt neglected. The visit by  the
Committee would expedite progress and that they need assistance.
  The incorporation of Vista and QwaQwa Campuses into the University  of
Free State was significant because they happened at  a  time  when  the
institution was celebrating 100 years in existence.  The  incorporation
of the two institutions, brought with it uncertainty  and  people  felt
marginalized. With regard to QwaQwa Campus, the incorporation went  off
well. As soon as the Vice-Rector of that institution was appointed, the
Campus changed dramatically. The University of Free State has big plans
for QwaQwa Campus and it is way ahead of Vista Campus  because  of  the
manner in which it is managed.
  Prof SM Mayatula explained the role of the Committee  that  it  is  to
allow parties to ventilate and they listened to what the parties had to
say.  After  that,  the  Committee  would  if  possible  come  up  with
recommendations. When  the  Committee  is  in  session,  the  Rules  of
Parliament applies, meaning that the meeting is open to the public  and
the press.

1. Meeting at the Council Chambers, Main Campus, University of Free State, Bloemfontein.

   Opening and welcome

   The Chairperson, Prof S M Mayatula welcomed the respective delegations at the meeting. He outlined the responsibility of the Committee as one of holding the Executive accountable and monitoring programme implementation. The Committee does not have an executive authority. They already visited different institutions during the process of incorporation and mergers. They are visiting the UFS due to correspondence from Vista Task Team and correspondence thereafter. They received the report on the meeting of 16 November 2004 and documentation. He outlined the process for the meeting and said QwaQwa SRC would be afforded an opportunity to make a presentation. The stakeholders that presented were Vista Campus, QwaQwa Student Representative Council and University of Free State Management Board.

5.1 Presentation, by Prof Thomas Acho, Deputy Chairperson of the UFS Vista Campus Task Team. The presentation highlighted several unresolved issues between staff and students of Vista Campus and Management of University of Free State. He said that there seems to be a hidden agenda on the part of Management to frustrate the merger/incorporation process so as to make Blacks feel that the Government has failed them. Vista Campus community are passionate about changes in Higher Education because it would benefit the Nation as a whole, thus they are disturbed by Management’s attitude which smacks of racism, deviousness, intimidation and cosmeticism when it comes to transforming the University into a institution which all would be proud of. Management aims to steamroll them into submission thus protecting the Afrikaner hegemony. They did that to QwaQwa campus. Despite several attempts by the Task Team to change Managements’ thinking, on transformation, resistance from every angle occurred. The Rector, who stated that the Task Team should either choose the painful or painless way in negotiating their Conditions of Service, displayed the threatening stance of Management. The unresolved issues between Management and the Task Team were outlined as follows:

5.1.1 Integration In terms of the merger/incorporation Guidelines, related to representation on the Statutory structure, Vista Campus is supposed to have elected representatives on all UFS statutory bodies, such as on the Institutional Forum, the Senate and the University Council. Presently they have none. Mainly White staff from Vista Campus were selectively absorbed into Management at the Main Campus and placed into various positions.

5.1.2 Conditions of Service The Conditions of Service had not yet been aligned. At the former Vista University, staff were granted annual salary increases. The Main Campus staff received increases for 2004 and 2005 they are about to begin negotiations for 2006 salary increases. Vista Campus staff had not received any salary increase for the same period. Management said staff at Vista Campus would not have salary increase until their Conditions of service had been aligned. The imminent visit of the Committee had pressurised Management to table the offer during the meeting of the 21st February 2005. A promotion Committee had been set up to oversee the promotion process.

  Vista Campus  Task  Team  were  surprised  when  one  of  their  White
colleague were promoted to a Senior  Lecturer  position.  What  further
aggravated the promotion issue were  that  Black  colleagues  at  Vista
Campus who satisfied for  the promotion  criteria  were  excluded.  The
White person concerned resigned at Vista Campus, but was reappointed on
the Main Campus in the same capacity.
  Previous taxation policy at former Vista University had been  violated
and was substituted with  the  UFS  taxation  scheme  even  though  the
Conditions of Service has not yet been aligned.  At  the  former  Vista
University,  staff  and  their  immediate  family  members  were  given
bursaries  for  financial  assistance  to  study  at   any   recognised
institution of their choice. However, at  UFS  they  provide  for  such
studies for institutions recommended by the university.

  Despite Management agreeing to consult the Task Team on the future  of
the Campus they (Management) let sections of  the  institution  out  to
external bodies. Staff members at those affected sections were given an
ultimatum to  vacate  their  offices  in  order  to  accommodate  other
institutions. It is a transgression on the part of  Management  as  the
merger/incorporation Guidelines  stated  that  all  campuses  that  are
incorporated should remain as delivery sites for Higher  Education  and
no access point should be closed.

  At students’ residences, hostel accommodation is provided on  racially
segregated lines  only  one  hostel  is  racially  integrated.  In  the
Rector’s  opening  address,  he   remained   unapologetic   about   the
segregation. Names of buildings, emblems  and  flags  are  named  after
architects of Apartheid  such  as  HF  Verwoerd.  Symbolic  emblems  of
Afrikaner Nationalism are an insult to the advocates of  democracy  and
transformation.  Students  who  attend  lectures   on   both   campuses
experience  problems  when  clashes  occurred  on  the   time   tables.
Management is inflexible in accommodating  students  at  Vista.  Hence,
some students cannot attend some  lectures  thus  resulting  into  some
students failing certain courses. Course codes changing  from  example,
BIO to BLG affects the fee structure and students who had to graduate.

  Pipeline students who had registered with Vista campus  prior  to  the
incorporation process should be allowed to register for any  incomplete
programme on condition he/she would graduate on  or  before  2009.  The
disparity in course content especially when a student is  compelled  to
take courses, which are not equivalent  to  Vista’s  one  disadvantages
students when it comes to performance in exams. The high fee  structure
at UFS makes access for poor students virtually impossible. There is  a
need for the Department to intervene. Predominantly White and Afrikaans
speaking lecturers  find  it  difficult  to  lecture  in  English  thus
negatively influencing the  academic  performance  of  Black  students.
Afrikaans as a language seems to  supersede  that  of  English  despite
University  of  Free  State’s  official  policy  of   parallel   medium
instruction.

  Members of the Delegation asked the following Questions:

❑ Whether it is a rule of thumb for Black lecturers to be  competent  in
  Afrikaans?
❑ What is the Task Team’s understanding after the  announcement  of  the
  incorporation, whether there  should  still  be  Vista  Conditions  of
  Service?
❑ With the increase of fees at registration from  R900  to  R4000,  what
  were Vista’s expectations?
❑ What is the lifespan of the Task Team if there is any?

  Responses from the Task Team representatives:

  In response to competence  of  Black  lecturers  in  Afrikaans,  often
Black lecturers are told by Management that they cannot be guaranteed a
position if they are not multilingual.
  In response to alignment of Vista’s conditions of  service,  the  Task
Team said that when it was announced that Conditions  of  service  were
going to be harmonised, discussions followed and decisions  were  taken
that binds both parties. When a vacancy arises, staff from Vista campus
would be considered  before  the  post  is  advertised  externally.  It
happened to a lecturer from Vista campus that was  appointed  into  UFS
Service but the conditions of service of Vista applied.
  In response to accessibility, the Task Team  said  that  Vista  campus
had a programme on access, but no new students were accepted for 2005.
  In response to the lifespan of the Task Team, the  response  was  that
the team would only be discontinued as soon as the  outstanding  issues
with Management had been addressed.

1. Presentation by Mr Tello Motloung, SRC President of the QwaQwa Campus.

   The presentation focused mainly on registration issues. However, he registered his dismay at the manner in which registration at QwaQwa Campus was handled this current financial year and said that they were not consulted. Such practices indicated that Management was undermining the student formation. Post the incorporation process, students were expected to pay 100% of their outstanding fees to be regarded as fully registered students. Pipeline students were expected to pay 20% of their outstanding fees before being regarded fully registered. The Student Representative Council requested that students who had committed to pay, should be allowed to make arrangements on an individual basis and Management should consider granting them extensions beyond the deadline of the 8 March 2005. The extreme financial background of students who had debts amounting into R10 000. Students would be unable to settle the debt. The SRC proposed that a Debt Collection Unit should be established to facilitate the process and ensure that students honour their commitment. In 2004, an audit on the performance of students was conducted on the extended students programme. The audit report came up with recommendations, such as dismissal of lecturers, issuing of study materials and the renovation of Tshiya residences were not implemented. Tuition fees in the last financial year increased by 6%, in this current book year, tuition fees were increased with another 6%. This resulted in a 12% increase within two years.

   The SRC support Management’s initiative in turning the institution to become financial viable. However, no student at QwaQwa campus has been awarded with the differentiated/ academic bursaries. They proposed that the bursaries should be extended to their campus.

   Questions of Clarity asked by Members of the delegation:

❑ When the fees at QwaQwa, Vista and Main campuses were increased, were
  students sufficiently consulted? Or did Management unilaterally
  decide?
❑ The 8 March 2005 extensions on students who owed, how should these
  extensions be handled?
❑ Are you implying that the fee structure should be different from one
  campus to another?

  In response to fee increase, the  SRC  President  said  that  for  the
current year, students  were  not  consulted,  Management  unilaterally
implemented the fee increase.
  In response to the extension for students who owe, he  said  that  the
cases would be considered on an individual basis.  Those  students  who
commit themselves should be allowed to make arrangements as to how they
intend to pay the outstanding fees.

1. UFS Management presentation

   The Rector Prof F v Fourie, presented an overview of the strategic thinking and said that UFS is an institution of higher learning that is multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-campus. Its vision, is a university of excellence, equity and innovation.

   UFS adopted its parallel-medium tuition in 1993 that made room for the inclusion of Black students. 30-35 Black students registered and the student demographics changed. The demographic changes resulted into an increase in student numbers, changes in institutional culture, management became more inclusive, the research and academic sections were revitalised and all these changes resulted into UFS developing a financial turn around strategy.

   Central to the priorities of UFS was the incorporations of QwaQwa and Vista campuses as valuable constituent parts of the institution. The incorporations resulted into changes in the staff composition, changes in the institutional culture, workshops for staff were organised, campuses were taken through sessions on cross culture and social contracts were entered into with staff on both campuses. A diversity office was established to promote cultural diversity and the community service on learning and research were conducted and students were engaged at academic level in partnership with the private sector. A comprehensive transformation plan was drafted to provide an overarching framework to articulate the transformation challenges. The transformation challenges brought with it a new institutional culture for the University of Free State. The need for representivity in the staffing of QwaQwa and Vista in the main campus of University of Free State. Prioritising and enhancing excellence in the overall academic life of UFS and addressing outstanding issues in the incorporation of the QwaQwa and Vista campuses.

   In enhancing quality and excellence in teaching and learning there was a need to cater for a diverse student population and enhance students’ opportunities for academic success such as, African orientation in curricula, tutor systems, language proficiency development. Achieving excellence in research by promoting and engaging relevant research institutions.

   On regional co-operation and engagement, the incorporation of two satellite campuses created new opportunities to serve education and training needs of the region. It also served as stimulus for transformation. The strategic priority of UFS is to see QwaQwa campus become fully integrated centre of academic excellence in the Eastern Free State region and for Vista campus to meet the Human Resource Development needs of the region in a non-traditional, innovative manner. Challenges faced by both QwaQwa and Vista campuses as a result of incorporations; At QwaQwa campus students and staff felt marginalized, their campus is geographical distant from the main stream, financial situation and student debts exert pressure on them, students felt that the infrastructure at their campus had been neglected. Vista campus’ staff were concerned about the delay in the alignment of conditions of service and job security. Students were concerned about the phasing out of pipeline students and the strategic reconfiguration of Vista Campus.

7.1 Questions of clarity asked by Members of the Delegation:

❑  Will  Vista  campus  be  regarded  as  a  delivery  site  for  Higher
  Education? If yes, what plans are in place to improve it.
❑ Has Vista Campus been part of the  reconfiguration  process?  If  yes,
  why do they feel alienated?
❑ If a student gets less  than  he  expected  from  the  NSFAS,  is  UFS
  topping it up in paying the difference?
❑ Can any student at UFS campuses become  a  member  of  the  “Here  17”
  student organisation?
❑ What logical explanation can be given as to why the  staff  compliment
  of Vista was not considered for the centenary bonuses?
❑ Why did Management at the beginning of the year increase fees  without
  consulting the student formations on the campuses?

  In response to the questions of clarity,  the  Rector  indicated  that
some operational issues are being dealt with. On strategic matters, not
everyone could be consulted. Consultations had been done but  sometimes
decisions need to be taken by Management.

7.2 The Vice-Rector: Academic Planning

  Prof Magda Fourie, said that strategic  planning  for  reconfiguration
could not be done at the pace at which one would like to make progress.
Each time when Management met with Vista staff, operational issues took
up  much  of  the  discussions.  He  indicated  that  with  regard   to
consultations, Mr Sekoto, the  former  member  of  the  Task  Team  was
involved.

7.3 Vice-Rector: Academic Operations Prof Theuns Verschoor, indicated that no particulars were communicated to him with regard to proficiency in English and Afrikaans. If the matter was brought to Management’s attention, the matter could have been solved. Management is looking at an innovative way of addressing the language problems. It would be an advantage to be fluent in both languages, but it is not compulsory for staff to be fluent in both Afrikaans and English. In relation to bursaries, bursaries are available to all students. In 2003, fees increased for the main campus and no increase were effected for QwaQwa students including accommodation. However, there was an increase for class fees for all students. Pipeline students are still paying fees they paid when they registered. The salary packages of QwaQwa and Vista campuses are higher than those of the main campus. Centenary bonuses were part of the negotiations with staff on UFS conditions of service. Such bonuses would also be part of negotiations with Vista staff compliments.

7.4 Vice-Rector Student Affairs

  Dr Ezekiel Moraka, indicated that the policies dealing with  residence
needs to be revisited. The current policies  were  designed  mainly  on
student’s  request.  A  Monitoring  Committee  has   been   established
representative of all stakeholders that looks into student’s needs.
  The student organisation with the name “Here 17”  is  an  organisation
of students and anyone can become a member  of  that  organisation.  An
investigation is underway to establish their operations. A copy of  the
findings would be made available to the Minister and the Committee.

7.5 Director: Diversity

   Mr  Billyboy  Ramahlele,  Director:  Diversity  said  that   he   was
responsible for getting people  to  talk  on  the  three  campuses.  He
undertook to get everybody talking.

7.6 Interim Administration Head: Vista Campus

  Rev K Jaftha, Interim Administration Head at Vista  campus  said  that
he would be under-taking good administration on  the  campus.  For  the
past six months Prof Schultz was the campus head, subsequent to him  Mr
Sekoto became the campus head. He truly  believed  that  the  level  of
suspicions could be managed by embracing trust.

1. Committee observations

   The delegation, having listened to the concerns by Vista Task Team and responses from Management, observed the following:

❑ That there seems to be a lack of understanding that by  law,  the  two
  entities, namely, Qwaqwa and Vista had been  “incorporated”  into  the
  University of Free State, and as such, they form one entity.
❑  Normal  administration  problems  have  been  conflated  into  merger
  issues.
❑ That Top Management is predominantly white and does  not  reflect  the
  composition of the university community.

   The  Committee  having  conducted  a  fact-finding  mission  to   the
University of Free State recommends to Parliament as follows:

1. Recommendations

   That the University of Free State:

❑ Establish a consultative forum with representation from QwaQwa,  Vista
  and the Main Campus to  attempt  resolving  issues  such  as  extended
  programmes for students,  fee  increment,  non-representation  on  UFS
  Council, salary increases, promotion policies and study bursary etc.
❑ Establish a task team that would facilitate the integration  of  staff
  into the main campus and the phasing out of pipeline students.
❑ There  is  a  need  for  Management  and  the  satellite  campuses  to
  communicate meaningfully on a regular basis.
❑ There needs to be a separate process for the equitable  redistribution
  of resources.
❑ Both the Department of Education and the Council on  Higher  Education
  must pay closer attention in monitoring issues such as representivity,
  equity and racism.

1. Conclusion

   It is clear that a very comprehensive consultative process had been followed with regard to the merger of the institution. One of the major challenges facing the institution is effective communication. The Rector challenged all stakeholders to move beyond the rhetoric. The Chairperson of the Task Team said that they are prepared to engage in a process of discussions in order to reach consensus. The delegation advised management to respond robustly on the issues that were raised by the Task Team and students, and provide the Committee with a copy of the report.

Report to be considered.