P Mlambo-Ngcuka: 11th Nedlac Annual Summit

9 September 2006

Programme Director
Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana
Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel
Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor
Minister of Public Enterprises, Alec Erwin
Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri
SABC Chief Executive Officer, Dali Mpofu
Premier of Mpumalanga, Thabang Makwetla
President of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Patrice Motsepe
Secretary General of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi
Deputy President of SANCO, Ruth Bhengu
SA Youth Council Chairperson, Sizwe Shezi
NEDLAC Executive Director, Herbert Mkhize
Government Officials
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a great pleasure for me to formally open and welcome you to the 11th
Annual Nedlac Summit.

Under the theme: "Taking stock, fruits of social dialogue, challenges of
social dialogue and sustainable development"

This theme gives us the opportunity and possibility to assess and review the
impact social dialogue has had on our development.

It also provides an opportunity to determine the extent to which we have
discharged our founding mandate and to chart the way forward.

Programme Director, this 11th Annual National Economic Development and
Labour Council (Nedlac) Summit comes at the time when we are celebrating the
50th Anniversary of the historic women's march. We also saw the launch of the
Progressive Women's Movement of South Africa in Bloemfontein. In reliving the
memories of 1956 and launching the Progressive Women's Movement, women of this
country acknowledged that there are still challenges and hurdles to be
overcome. These challenges and hurdles impact on issues of sustainable
development. A large number of women are still unemployed, poor and
vulnerable.

This year we also celebrate 30 years since the 1976 Student Uprising and we
pay tribute to our youth. Both our youth and women make a significant number of
our people whose plight we have to address.

Hence as we take stock of the fruits of social dialogue, the plight and
conditions of women and youth should be taken into consideration. We need to
ensure that women become part and parcel of policy development and
implementation processes wherever we are and including this institution and
other related institutions. Youth, women, like all of us, have a role to play
also in Nedlac and its affiliates.

They together with all other workers have a crucial role to play, if this
economy is going to be taken to greater heights and if it is to be shared. The
interventions aimed at addressing systemic problems in the second economy also
need to be at the top of Nedlac's agenda. Issues affecting the unemployed, the
micro-enterprises and small towns are all part of our common developmental
agenda.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Summit also coincides with the 10th anniversary of
the adoption of our Constitution. The Constitution promotes respect for all who
have worked to build and develop our country. This Constitution seeks to
improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each
person. In our work we have a duty to turn the constitution into a living
document.

Programme Director, I would like to reaffirm what I said during the tenth
Annual Nedlac Summit that: "Nedlac and its sister labour market institutions
have made an indelible mark in promoting industrial peace, productivity, global
competitiveness, economic growth and employment creation." This progress was
made possible by the visionary leadership, commitment and sacrifices that all
of you are making in spite of your diversity and different interests. I will be
the first though to urge you that much more is needed to raise our productivity
and competitiveness.

Your contribution to the development of this country is recognised beyond
our borders. The election of Minister Mdladlana as Chairperson of the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) governing body in June this year, is
testimony to that fact, it is recognition of both the individual and also
recognition of the united people of South Africa.

As social partners, we need to redouble our efforts and give the Minister
all the support he needs as chairperson of the ILO for the current year. The
Macro-Social Trends report was released by the Presidency earlier this year was
an attempt to provide a critical understanding of the movement of our society
from the apartheid past towards non-racialism, equity and unity in
diversity.

A telling picture from the report is that: "South Africa has experienced an
improvement in the quality of life of the majority of citizens, but the
backlogs defined still in terms of race remain huge. For those on the lowest
rung of the socio-economic ladder, there are manifestations of a poverty trap
influenced by such factors as education, gender and geographic location and
reflected in income, access to opportunities and assets an expression of two
economies in one country." This tells us that there is more that needs to be
done for people to be developed.

It highlights that poverty and unemployment remains one of the most critical
challenges facing our country today and without a concerted creation of a
greater number of qualitative and sustainable and productive jobs, our vision
for a better life for all will be much harder to achieve. Further we have
people who are trapped and will always be trapped in extreme poverty even in
good times not unless we have targeted interventions to these citizens.

South Africa is a land of many opportunities but so many of our people do
not have the capacity and skills to take full advantage of these opportunities
and indeed to turn opportunity and potential to an economic benefit. Promoting
a strong and relevant skills base and improving our commitment to human
resources development is critical to ensure that we have a growing and
productive labour market and that we can turn South Africa into a winning
nation, not just for a few but for the majority of our people. That is our
collective challenge not to waste the opportunity we have created but to make
South Africa work for the majority.

The recently signed agreement between South Africa and China on textile and
clothing issues is a victory for the Proudly South Africa (PSA) campaign and
for job creation. It is one of the success stories of Nedlac. But there is a
challenge in that, this development may backfire unless we work together to
produce and capacitate the clothing and textile industry. It means that despite
the disagreements between the role players we all have a responsibility to make
this work for South Africa! In AsgiSA the clothing and textile sector is
identified as a sector to protect from further haemorrhaging jobs and this deal
does just that.

We can bring back jobs and moderately excessive profits. Thanks to all of
you for working so hard to conclude this agreement. That is the spirit of
partnership in action. Our representatives led by the Department of Trade and
Industry (the dti), labour represented by the South African Congress of
Textiles Workers Union (SACTWU) and business represented by Business Unity
South Africa (BUSA). This throws a clear challenge to our training providers
and Further Education and Training (FET) institutions, to the industry based
trainers and others in the clothing and textiles industries to supply
appropriately skilled workers.

Ladies, gentlemen and colleagues failure is not an option here! We can and
have to make this agreement work! Again this is another concrete example where
an opportunity has been created and it is yet to be turned into economic
benefit. Just with failing on the skills we can lose the plot! Imagine our
country having to import machinists from China because we have a shortage of
these skills which do not require rock scientists. We already have a dubious
honour of importing welders to South Africa to do routine and predictable work
in our economy.

Through the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) we
pledge support, we have similar challenges with artisans in general, engineers,
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), project managers, teachers
of mathematics, science and information and communication technologies in
public schools. All these scarce skills stand between a realised economic
benefit and an opportunity.

It slows down growth, job creation and a shared economy! This Nedlac Summit
has to wake up and prepare to confront these challenges. Our country must never
again import mid-level skills. In this Age of Hope, a better life is so near
and yet so far. It is up to us to make the correct choices. That is our
emphasis on partnerships with business, labour, civil society and other members
of society. Much consultation has taken place and will be on-going so as to
build on the emerging consensus on what should be done to accelerate and share
growth and seek responses to specific issues that have been raised. We welcome
your involvement in AsgiSA.

Together we also need to commit ourselves to universal access to basic
services by 2014. All our people must have decent energy, sanitation and water
in the Second Decade of Democracy. In the first decade we expanded access
phenomenally, in the second we must achieve universal access. Together we can
do much better for the millions whose quality of life is still miserable.
Sanitation is about dignity, water about life and energy determines who lives
in the 21st century or 19th century.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of growing and sharing in the economy.
It would be amiss if I do not challenge all Nedlac partners to take greater
responsibility to make things work even better and build on this solid
foundation. It would be amiss if I do not remind you of the Growth and
Development Summit (GDS) commitments and agreements some of which have not been
fulfilled.

We still need to get back to them and assess how far we have gone in their
implementation. I see some of them as a natural re-enforcement of the
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and
therefore it is critical to go back to them.

There is a great need for this country to revisit the plight of
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs)
in relation to access to resources. Much can be done to support them because
some are indeed doing critical work for the country.

Support in Corporate Social Investment and funding from government does not
always go where most impact can be made. This has to be given attention by all
of us here.

We must help:

* those who assist with job creation and sustainable livelihoods amongst the
poor people,
* those who assist people who are victims of violence especially directed at
women and children
* those who are providing with interventions in our education system
* those dealing with youth development
* those care givers in home based care.

All of these are critical national services for our country and these
service providers, their work should not have to suffer and they should not
give up because of lack of funds, while there is a lot of waste in untargeted
funding. Caregivers in our society deserve and need much better support system
from all of us.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasise that social dialogue is an
essential tool to tackling the challenges we face and to meet all the socio-
economic needs of our people. This is the reason why these annual summits are
essential as the gatherings where the principle of social dialogue comes
alive.

Lastly, I hope that the deliberations of this summit will generate
sufficient debate resulting in firm commitments from all the social
partners.

It is my honour to declare this dialogue open.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
9 September 2006
Source: SAPA