J Radebe: Debate on State of the Nation Address

7 February 2006

Madam Speaker,
Honourable Members,

Mr President, 100 years ago in April 1906, that great mentor of national
unity and co-founder of the African National Congress, 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.” (1)

Seme wrote in the long shadow of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik’s military
victory over Italy at Adowa ten years earlier. Bambatha’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 Bambatha 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 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 democratic Government. It 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
clear. On the back of explicit and visible progress recorded over the past
twelve years, South Africans still tend to be over-critical 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 among 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 life’s many
challenges.

Our definition of hope is based on the concrete realities of the present, as
reflected in the state of our economy and society. But 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 and government, not
the opportunistic wish-lists of our most vocal critics. The ANC and its allies
remain the only true agents of change in South Africa.

The ANC has never made “empty promises” about houses, jobs, and health
because the needs that 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 endorse.

But again, we should not take for granted the confidence and trust placed on
them by the people.

ASGI-SA 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 quality 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 in 2001.

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

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

We recognise that many of our people still live in abject poverty, leading
desperate lives and unable to meet their basic demands. The past twelve (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 to pregnant mothers and children under the age of six,
the school feeding scheme, we can today see expanded investment in the well
being of all 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
Langalibalele 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.” (2)

What we believe that echo from the past means to us today, Mr President, is
that the people expect the ANC to strive through action to honour the vision
and yearning of the ancestors and those who have gone before. Our role in
government is to provide the muscle and the means to fulfil our dreams 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 United Nations, 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.”
(3)

In the 1960s, economic growth was premised on repression and aimed to
entrench an undemocratic society, riven with 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.”(4) 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, Mr President,
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.

I thank you

Footnotes
1 Pixley ka Isaka Seme, “The Regeneration of Africa”, The African Abroad, 5
April 1906
2 Quoted in Francis Meli South Africa belongs to us! P 39
3 “Lumumba’s Political Testament”, quoted in Ludo de Witte The Assassination of
Lumumba p 185
4 Alan Hirsch, Season of Hope, p 264

Issued by: Department of Transport
7 February 2006
Source: Department of Transport (http://www.transport.gov.za/)