B Sonjica completes official trip to Cuba

10 April 2006

Pretoria - Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ms Buyelwa Sonjica, MP,
on Saturday, 8 April 2006, completed her official trip to Cuba. This trip to
Cuba was undertaken under the auspices of the South Africa-Cuba Joint
Bi-national Commission.

On Saturday, 8 April, Minister Sonjica first met with Minister Jose Luis
Aspiolea to finalise the agreement document between their two Ministries, which
document outlines the way forward out of this trip and interaction and will
form part of the discussions of the Bi-lateral Commission meeting of September
2006. This meeting will ratify the agreements between departments of the two
countries with common interests as well as evaluate progress thus far and
ensure the Bi-national Commission’s work continues smoothly.

Minister Sonjica later met with the Deputy President of the Republic of
Cuba, Raúl Casto Ruz, who showed a keen interest in the discussions held
between Minister Sonjica and the different Cuban ministries, the outcomes
thereof as well as critically the way forward. The Deputy President listened,
asked questions, especially with regards backlogs and capacity and made serious
input into the discussion, which showed how seriously the Cubans viewed the
relationship between the two countries.

In response to some of the comments Minister Sonjica said: “I would like to
relay my appreciation of the efforts put by the Cubans in terms of the current
work being done in South Africa. Deputy President, the skills development
achieved since the Cuban experts came has assisted some of our projects by
increasing the local skills base and ensuring continuity. This input has
assisted greatly in the delivery of services within the sphere of local
government.

“I am hoping that with the idea of sending some of our students over will
further improve the development of the skills we need. We must remember that
the scarcity of such skills is part of the legacy of the past, which ensured
that certain skills were developed within a minority of our population.”

Cuba has also said that as they have a need to build new concrete dams, they
are interested in some of the projects that Minister spoke about, e.g. the
Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Their interest is to see how such big projects
work and to further understand the concepts behind such projects. Minister
Sonjica also mentioned how South Africa goes about raising funds for such
projects through the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA). Cuba will send a
fact finding mission over to South Africa within the next few months.

For enquiries contact:
Sputnik Ratau
Media Liaison Officer
Cell: 082 885 8317

Issued by: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
10 April 2006