Cape, Provincial Legislature
17 May 2006
Speaker
My Colleagues in Cabinet
Honourable Leader of the opposition
Honourable Leaders of political parties
Honourable Members
Acting Director-General, Heads of Departments, members of the new Senior
Management Service corps
Distinguished guests
Booker Prize winning novelist, John Berger, writes about Antonio Gramsci and
defines his most unique and enduring capacity in the following manner:
The least dogmatic of our century's thinkers about revolution was Antonio
Gramsci. His lack of dogmatism came from a kind of patience. This patience had
absolutely nothing to do with indolence or complacency His special patience
came from a sense of practice which will never end. He saw close-up, and
sometimes directed the political struggles of his time, but he never forgot the
background of an unfolding drama whose span covers incalculable ages. It was
perhaps this which prevented Gramsci becoming, like many revolutionaries, a
millennialist. He believed in hope rather than promises and hope is a long
affair.
This sensibility underpins President Thabo Mbeki's assertion that South
Africa is in its Age of Hope, and the Western Cape province's Hope, that we are
on the Threshold of Prosperity. This Hope is neither transcendental nor
sentimental, but founded on patience and endless human practice. It locates
each one of us within an unfolding human drama in which we shun both dogmatism
and complacency.
Our role in the drama is taking shape. We saw the urgency in 2002 already
when the Desai Commission alerted us to our challenge: "During the course of
the Commission's work, it was introduced to an environment in which fear and
intrigue stalked the corridors of the Administration. The Commission trusts
that those in authority will have the courage, determination and vision to
introduce and foster a changed culture essential to transparent and accountable
governance."
When I delivered my first budget speech for the Department of the Premier in
2004, we set out to respond to the challenge of building a Modern African State
by laying the philosophical foundations of the state as developmental. We
understood that to depart from the kind of state that the Desai Commission
warned us about was to orient the state towards achieving the objectives of the
National Programme of Action and the Millennium Development Goals for our
province.
I proposed to you then the blueprint of a state that was integrated in
itself, co-operative in its relations with other spheres of government,
responsive to its citizens and partners, and globally-connected for its
relevance.
In my 2005 Budget Speech for the Department of the Premier I warned that the
path towards a Development State would require deep transformation. I proposed
a process that would see the reengineering of the Centre of the State, in which
that Centre would gather together a skills set, drawn from the best of those
inside and outside of the Administration, capable of giving leadership, setting
the policy agenda and driving the implementation of the strategy.
Mr Speaker, in my third Budget Speech as Premier, I can report to this House
that we have achieved both sets of objectives, and we are now ready to clarify
the next scene of the unfolding drama of building and rewarding the Hope that
Antonio Gramsci speaks about.
We in this province are not alone in this unfolding drama. We are part of a
global concern that seeks to consolidate hope by defining a Shared Growth path
that which we call iKapa elihlumayo and building social cohesion while
nurturing diversity what we envision as a Home for All.
Recently I was invited to join a gathering of progressive world leaders
convened by President Mbeki at the Progressive Governance Summit precisely
because what we are doing in this province resonates with the hopes of the
world to find a path to social justice, economic equity and a way of living
together in the face of terrorism, intolerance and marginalisation.
Endless human practice, as Gramsci would have told such world leaders, would
insist that the path to such a future is based on analysis, planning and
strategy. Analysis, planning and strategy draw from the global to the local and
inform from the local to the global.
Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS): The Foundation Stone of
Prosperity
In the context of South Africa, our province is required to fashion a PGDS
out of the National Spatial Development Perspective and, in turn, ensure that
the Integrated Development Plans of all local governments are in this single
image. This ensures both coherence and allows us all to work tangibly to create
a better life for all our people.
Last year Minister Mufamadi's Department published guidelines on what a PGDS
is. According to the Guidelines, The PGDS is based on a long-term view of the
province's development trajectory. Drawing on the National Spatial Development
Perspective (NSDP) and the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) and working
within a sustainable development paradigm, the primary purpose of the PGDS is
to provide a collaborative framework to drive implementation within the
province. It is not a provincial government plan, but a developmental framework
for the province as a whole.
We are about to finalise what we think this developmental framework for the
Western Cape is. It will be the raison'dêtre of my department and this
government. According to renowned planning theorist, Prof Patsy Healey, it will
introduce the most radical and far-reaching changes seen in terms of the
approach we have adopted. She argues that:
Strategy-making is a process of deliberative paradigm change. It aims to
change cultural conceptions, systems of understanding and systems meaning. It
is more than just producing collective decisions. It is about shifting and
re-shaping convictions.
At the heart of the PGDS is the paradigm of shared growth and integrated
development. As we proceed to engage our social partners and the citizenry at
large over the next few months, I believe we will be able to make this
development paradigm hegemonic, not least because its seeds have already been
sown by the iKapa Elihlumayo processes that have unfolded over the past few
years, including the Growth and Development Summit of 2003.
Our paradigm intimates that shared growth and integrated development can
only be achieved when five imperatives are strategically linked, in balance and
elevated to the level of development principles.
These imperatives are:
* economic growth
* social equity
* environmental integrity
* empowerment
* spatial integration.
The PGDS argues that in the context of massive unemployment, perverse income
inequalities, deep social divides and the potential marginalisation of our
national economy from the global economy, our priority must be the achievement
of much higher rates of growth as the springboard for dealing with the range of
intractable challenges we face.
Higher rates of growth on their own are not sufficient; it is the nature of
growth that is critical. We must ensure that higher rates of growth are
combined with greater social equity that will enable the poor and economically
excluded to gain the means to participate in the economy and build their own
sources of empowerment, combined with effective protection of the natural
resource base of the province. Lastly, growth must not worsen spatial apartheid
and inefficiencies, as it has in the first decade of freedom. It must make life
more convenient and affordable for the majority of our people who are desperate
to access economic, social and ecological opportunities.
The PGDS - iKapa elihlumayo sets out how our province will achieve a shared
growth and integrated development path. Following the logic of acupuncture, it
will entail more targeted action, more strategic investment, better leadership
and greater effectiveness and co-operation from government in the Western
Cape.
The PGDS is the further evolution of that which has already been brought to
this House in the form of the eight iKapa elihlumayo strategies: Spatial
Development, Social Capital, Human Capital, Micro-Economic, Strategic
Infrastructure, and the three Governance Strategies. These will now need
refocusing so that, in turn, they achieve the practical objectives I set out in
my State of the province Address earlier this year as the Battle Plan for
Shared Growth.
They are, by way of reminder:
* economic participation
* infrastructure that connects
* effective public transport
* sustainable integrated human settlements
* resilient communities
* a culture of tolerance, respect and engagement
* effective governance institutions.
However, the global and national targets we have been set for 2014, require
even greater levels of galvanisation and harnessing of energies, resources and
talents. This, therefore, means the immediate pursuit of five path breaking
interventions, all of which are germane to any growth path, some of which
needed work from a long time ago, and others which have emerged as urgent
either because we face a moment of crisis or opportunity. These are the five
interventions which cabinet has grappled with and which needs urgent
implementation.
Public transport
Addressing the crisis in public transport that serves as a brake on the
economy, social engagement, community safety and environmental integrity; I
believe that if there is only one success this PGDS achieves, it must be the
turn-around of the state of public transport. The numerous plans to establish
an integrated, multi-modal, safe and affordable system must now be put into
practice. The World Cup challenges us to make sure that the first elements of
this system come into being before 2010. Concretely, we have potentially
achieved an important milestone to find additional sources of revenue to invest
in transport infrastructure through the provisional approval of the proposed
fuel levy for the Western Cape.
The Finance and Fiscal Commission has indicated that we are on the right
path in supplementing our revenue base and our feasibility research is sound.
This is a major breakthrough after four years. Of course we endorse their call
for deeper consultation.
World Cup 2010
Secondly, maximising the opportunities surrounding the 2010 World Cup in
terms of growing tourism and related sectors of our regional economy, promoting
healthy lifestyles choices amongst the youth and kick-starting urgently needed
infrastructure investments to improve the flow of people and goods. This
ambition has been given renewed impetus by the agreement we recently achieved
between the Mayor and myself that the establishment of a special purpose
vehicle must be expedited through provincial legislation. Furthermore, the
national meeting we attended with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) has
cemented the resolve to host the World Cup at a new Green Point Stadium. In
light of these encouraging developments, I am convinced that the World Cup
build-up and legacy will greatly enhance our development ambitions for the
province. It is now time for all of us in the province to unite behind efforts
for World Cup 2010 and ensure that we do indeed host an event that will firmly
lodge the Western Cape in the world's mind as a must-see place. The Cape soccer
fraternity is already enthusiastic as big crowds viewed Santos and Hanover Park
recently. Even Vasco da Gama put up a spirited victorious performance against
Bush Bucks over the weekend.
Our energy supply
The energy wake-up call we received recently in the Western Cape is a
potential threat to higher rates of economic growth over the medium-term.
However, higher rates of investment in energy also create an opportunity to
pursue a more diversified portfolio of energy technologies which can position
the Western Cape to grow the size of its environmental industries. In this
regard great progress is being made through the planned investments by Eskom
that have been brought forward. The two Open Cycle Gas Turbines are under
construction as I speak in Atlantis and Mossel Bay, due for completion in a
year's time, and feasibility work on a second base plant is about to be
finalised which will result in major investment decisions to be implemented
over the 2007-2010 period. The latter initiative introduces the debate in this
province on the source of energy for such a base station. The transport of coal
is expensive and the gas supplies are not yet reliable. The nuclear energy
debate is one all of us must participate in.
Skills development
Fixing the serious skills mismatch between what the regional economy needs
and what comes onto the labour market from the education system has become the
main disjuncture in our society and economy, fuelling inequality. This matter
is beginning to receive priority attention and our province is leading through
the R70m recapitalisation of our Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges
underpinned by a R25m loan scheme. The establishment of focus schools
responding to the variety of skills needs in the province similarly
path-breaking. Only last week saw the opening of an Engineering Focus School in
Mitchell's Plain, and planning for Institutes for Contemporary Music responds
to the Western Cape emerging strongly as a creative centre in the country.
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA)
The Western Cape's AsgiSA project
The Cape Flats Renewal Programme must come to fruition as the whole country
rallies behind this extraordinary intervention to ratchet up growth through,
primarily, infrastructure-driven programmes. Given that this intervention
coincides spatially where the majority of poor people reside in the province,
it is also appropriate that it is part of the highest priorities of the
PGDS.
Our draft PGDS will be unveiled next month for public engagement. It is
fully compliant with the following sentiment in the PGDS Guidelines: The PGDS
is the core alignment mechanism for the province and it should be seen as the
coordination and implementation strategy. While driven by the province and
championed by the Premier, this must be on the basis of a collaborative effort
that brings all parties to the table.
Given that we are advanced in our province towards a PGDS, I now want to
turn to the implementation vehicles we will have to establish and overhaul to
implement our development strategy for the province.
Implementation frameworks and institutional vehicles
The PGDS is fundamentally about co-ordination, alignment and integration
across provincial government departments, between spheres of government between
different state bodies and between government and its social partners.
Improved Cabinet system
This will work only with a strong policy centre at the heart of government.
This requires a more focused Cabinet that can systematically drive the strategy
agenda of iKapa elihlumayo as it cascades into the priorities and actions of
all actors in the province. In this context we inaugurated the new, more
strategically focused, cabinet system which sees the introduction of an
implementation orientated and alignment-focussed approach.
A Policy centre in Government
The new Cabinet system is underpinned by a much more coherent policy centre
in government. The reengineering process of my department has now brought into
being a formidable policy team at the centre of government. In its
establishment and operationalisation, the new policy nerve centre in my
Department will work hand-in-glove with the economic and budgetary policy
analysis capacity in Provincial Treasury and the team of municipal analysts in
the Department of Housing and Local Government. Already, the three entities
have learnt to work together and hone their skills in the development so far of
the PGDS.
Inter-Governmental relations
Our Cabinet system and the policy capacity has been timed to anticipate
what, over the last year, has been a veritable revolution in inter-governmental
relations and planning in South Africa, consolidated by the Inter-Governmental
Relations Act of 2005. On the basis of the IGR Act, the President's
Coordinating Council has become the supreme forum for driving an aligned agenda
of delivery across the spheres of government. The agenda of the President's
Co-ordinating Council (PCC) is the priorities spelled out in the Medium-Term
Strategic Framework and the National Spatial Development Perspective, which are
largely translated into the National Programme of Action. It is assumed that
all provinces and municipalities must reflect the implications of the National
Programme of Action in their respective development agendas (PGDS and IDPs). I
am compelled by the IGR Act to use the Premier's Coordinating Forum (PCF) to
ensure exactly such alignment.
Thus, in the following year we will see much greater emphasis being placed
on strong and meaningful inter-governmental planning and engagement in the
province, based on the NSDP and the PGDS. In light of the political fragility
in many municipalities in the province, I am determined to use the instruments
of the IGR Act to engender calm and stability and ensure a focus on service
delivery so that we can all work single-mindedly to achieve the strategic goals
of the PGDS, iKapa elihlumayo.
Just because we have local governments governed by coalitions, with the
ongoing prospects of changes as coalitions may change does not mean that the
public should suffer through inefficiencies, poor service delivery or political
brinkmanship.
The PCF will drive co-ordination of the activities of government, national
departments, state owned enterprises and special purpose agencies that operate
in the province to engage on the unique regional dynamics of the Western Cape
so that these are appropriately reflected and accommodated in national policy
frameworks, programmes, projects and funding protocols, as well as monitor the
cumulative impact of development in the Western Cape as we proceed with
accelerated delivery.
Three new planning regions
The Provincial Spatial Development Framework alerted us last year to the
geographical way in which our populations are moving, and in which economic
opportunities are concentrating, and its impact on the natural resource base of
the province. If these factors are going to be key drivers for the
implementation of the PGDS, then political boundaries may not be the most
useful way in which to conceive of development planning for Shared Growth. If
anything, shared growth and integrated development would have a geographical
logic that would cross the political boundaries of municipalities.
What is emerging at this stage are three Development Planning Regions. The
Premier's Coordinating Forum would soon have to discuss formalising these
Regions to facilitate appropriate growth and development to coordinate better
and harness expenditure and investment more intelligently.
The Cape Town Functional Region, including Saldanha, Paarl, Worcester,
Stellenbosch and parts of the Overberg, if we plan its future together will
harness some of the most productive industrial resources of the province and
consolidate itself as our economic powerhouse. Already, 85% of general value
added in the Provincial economy comes from this area.
The South Cape urban strip from Plettenberg Bay to Mossel Bay is showing
remarkable growth potential which requires coordinated planning and
appropriately targeted and sequenced investments.
The rest of the province the Cape Hinterland must effectively be
strengthened in its agricultural capacity and requires planning to strengthen
it to empower its citizens with social interventions and the development of
their human capacity.
This today, is a bold debate we want to open up so that we can best ensure the
future of all our people and the quickest way to reach our growth and
development targets.
Partnerships: investment leveraging
Our province has shown, for the last two years, a consistent growth rate of
5.3% and has been able to attract significant investments. The most recent
announcement by MAN Ferrostaal of R1.7 billion over five years for a rig
service facility in the Cape Town Harbour and a fabrication yard in Saldanha is
a mere indication of our potential in the province.
This means that we need stronger relationships with the business community,
but not only in the province. The Western Cape is facing increasing competition
from products we have traditionally exported and we are having to see off
fierce challenges from countries like New Zealand (in film) and India (in
business process outsourcing).
However, the goodwill towards us is so great that significant global,
national and domestic business leaders are keen to serve us in an advisory
capacity. Such an Advisory Panel will be convened towards the end of the year
as a platform from which we can improve economic performance and reach our
growth targets.
Partnerships: Higher Education Engagement
One of the distinct comparative advantages of the Western Cape is that we
have four Universities based here, as well as the large footprint of Unisa. Yet
we have been slow in harnessing this invaluable resource. We have convened all
the Vice-Chancellors late last year to discuss how we can partner to each
other's mutual advantage. Since then there has been a series of close
interactions with the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC), which represents
the Universities, to work towards a Joint Programme of Action for Shared Growth
in the province.
This work will culminate in a Provincial Government-Higher Education
Institutions Summit later this year. At the Summit we will adopt a Cooperation
Agreement that will facilitate alignment between the priorities of the
Universities and our Scarce Skills Strategies for the realisation of our Ikapa
elihlumayo strategies.
Partnerships: The Provincial Development Council
Strategic partnerships with key investors and the universities complement
the institutionalised, partnership-based, social dialogue partners in the
Provincial Development Council (PDC). During 2006 we will focus our engagements
on the PGDS. This process will involve an extensive array of engagements with
all segments of society so that we can build a vibrant democratic foundation
for a consensus on, and the implementation of, our shared growth and integrated
development agenda. The priorities and monitoring indicators of the PGDS will
also enhance the work of the PDC because engagements will be based on budgetary
priorities and departmental actions.
Capacity of the State to drive the shared growth battle plan
All our objectives, strategies and partnerships will come to naught unless
we can address the capacity of the State. We have been working at this
challenge in a radical and systematic fashion since the first day that I took
office. I am finally in a position to report considerable progress on this
front.
On the 1 April 2006 the new, fully re-engineered Department of the Premier
came into being. Since then the new, representative and highly qualified
leadership of the Department has begun their work. Over two thirds of the new
SMS have post-graduate qualifications reflecting the diverse and deep skills
base we sought to attract. They bring with them many years of experience in
both the Public and Private sector. Their strengths span generic areas such as
in personnel, finance, legal and information technology (IT) management, but
also the skills related to policy development, implementation and review.
They will bring to government a capacity for full policy coherence and
alignment through the lens of the PGDS. They will give leadership in a series
of human and social capital interventions to address the skills, orientation,
behavioural and management capacities of the administration to ensure effective
implementation of the Shared Growth agenda.
The new SMS is also broadly representative of the provincial demographics of
the labour force in the Western Cape. We have now filled 46 out of 53 posts. Of
the 46, 31% is African, 45% Coloured and 24% White. Of the 46 posts we have
improved the representation of women from nine percent in 2004 to 33% so far.
Where we need drastic action across government is in the representivity of
people with disabilities. These demographic figures represent a fundamental
break with the skewed and exclusionary patterns that I inherited two years ago,
especially where we only had a single African person in the SMS. In the
remaining appointments we will seek to improve even further on the
representation of especially Coloured people and women without being overly
mechanical.
In conclusion
Mr Speaker, the core of this third budget speech of mine as Premier revolved
around the PGDS increasingly realising a Shared Prosperity for the Western
Cape. That this is more possible is so only because we have done some of the
hard work of deep institutional transformation in this province.
Yet, even as we speak here today, the urgency of what we must still does
echoes all over this province. The lives of many are still defined by poverty,
unemployment, violence, and pathologies which emerge there from. There are
daily battles between ordinary citizens and their instruments like the police
on the one hand, and forces who believe that the conditions of poverty give
them the right to conduct themselves unlawfully and illegally. I refer here to
gangsters and druglords, but also refer to those who initially earned our
sympathy because they do the dangerous work of protecting us for very little
remuneration. But in the course of a legal strike for legitimate objectives,
they have conducted themselves in a way that makes us even wonder whether they
can be trusted to be the custodians of what we regard as precious in our
province. I have no doubt that, led by the police; we will continue to protect
our leaders, our citizens, our commuters and our prosperity against any acts of
illegality.
Mr Speaker, over the past year our vision of making this province a Home for
all has been seriously challenged. The run up to the Local Government elections
have reversed some of the racial harmony and social cohesion we have sought to
build. The outcomes of the elections and the existence of unstable coalitions
have begun to threaten some of the hard-won stability achieved in this
province. Most significantly, we see the spectre of polarisation, exclusion and
division in the Western Cape.
Does this mean that the vision of a Home for All has failed and is
unworkable? When Chief Albert Luthuli first verbalised this vision, it was met
with three decades of absolute state brutality. Adopting the sensibility of
Gramsci that hope is a long affair, we simply need to be more tenacious and
work harder to realise the vision of a Home for All.
The year 2006 allows us two significant opportunities to give impetus to our
vision of a Home for All. Together with the rest of the country, June will see
us celebrating the courage, and commemorating the sacrifices, made by the youth
in 1976. The Western Cape Youth Commission together with government and youth
formations are planning a month of activities that will honour the past, but
will lay the foundations of unity for the future.
Similarly, we will celebrate fifty years of the march by women to the Union
Buildings, not simply displaying their displeasure as women with Apartheid, but
forever laying down their right to be equal citizens, fully integrated into our
society.
In both these celebrations, the Provincial Government Departments are hard
at work to deliver concretely to youth and women that which I undertook as part
of our Siyabulela Campaign. I now call upon this House and the citizens and
organisations of this province to nominate those either departed or still
living from the ranks of youth and women, who they believe are worthy of the
highest honours that the Western Cape can bestow on its citizens so that we can
elevate their example and hold them up as the symbols of our freedom and unity,
and the architects of our Home for All.
References:
1. Berger, J. (2001). The Shape of a Pocket. London: Bloomsbury, p.233.
2. South African Government (2005). Provincial Growth and Development Strategy
Guidelines. Pretoria: DPLG and the Presidency.
3. Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented
Societies. London: Macmillan
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
17 May 2006
Source: Western Cape Provincial Government (http://www.capegateway.gov.za)
