T Mbeki: Opening of National House of Traditional Leaders

23 February 2007.

Chairperson of the National House of Traditional Leaders, Khosi F P
Kutama,
Deputy Chairperson of the National House, Morena M F Mopeli,
Your Majesties and Royal Highnesses,
Chairpersons and Deputy Chairpersons of Provincial Houses of Traditional
Leaders,
Traditional leaders here present,
Leaders and Members of Parliament,
Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, and other
Ministers,
Deputy Minister, Nomatyala Hangana, and other Deputy Ministers,
Our religious leaders,
Senior Government officials and other leaders of our state institutions,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:

I am very pleased to have this opportunity once again to address this
important institution of our African leadership, our National House of
Traditional Leaders. Thank you for inviting me once more to address you during
your annual opening session.

I have been informed that the term of office of the current members of the
National House ends on the 21st of May 2007.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the
National House for the sterling service you have rendered to your communities,
the entire institution of traditional leadership and the people of South
Africa. I trust that the impending process of electing new members to the
National House will proceed smoothly and will add further impetus to the work
of this important national institution.

I am indeed very happy that we are meeting so early in the year, soon after
the presentation of the State of the Nation Address and the National Budget,
because this gives us the opportunity to share our thoughts about the work we
need to do together to accelerate the development of our country and people.
Clearly, this will enrich your work as you finalise your Programme of Action
for the year 2007/08.

Two weeks ago I spoke about the various challenges facing our country when I
presented and then participated in the debate of the State of the Nation
Address. The core message we sought to communicate as we did the mid-term
review of this government as well as present the programme for the year and for
the remainder of the term of government, was that the entirety of the South
African society should work together in partnership to defend the advances that
we have made, as well as intensify our work to confront the numerous challenges
that still face our country and people.

Accordingly, we said that we should work in partnership to erase that which
is ugly and repulsive in human society and together speak of the freedom and
happiness that come with liberty. 

Clearly, it is impossible to achieve all this without the full
participation, as an integral and responsible component part of our system of
governance, of an institution of traditional leadership that is strong,
sufficiently resourced and has the necessary capacity to discharge its mandate;
an institution that works for development in partnership with the rest of
government, civil society and communities; an institution that relentlessly
promotes the values of Ubuntu, and in every way helps to deepen our democracy
and expand the access of our people to its benefits.

Fortunately, as we all know, the work of this institution seeks to achieve
all these and other objectives. Indeed in our previous engagements with the
National House of Traditional Leaders we have agreed on a number of issues
pertaining to these challenges. These include:

* the preservation and promotion of our cultures and customs, which promote
the values of Ubuntu
* the regeneration of the moral fibre of our society
* the protection and development of African indigenous languages
* the role of traditional leaders in development and in promoting the health,
safety and well-being of our communities, always working in partnership with
other institutions of government and the rest of society
* the transformation of the institution of traditional leadership to embrace
our national democratic principles, with special emphasis on the role of women,
the youth and people with disabilities
* the strengthening and capacitating of the institution of traditional
leadership, so as to make it an efficient and effective instrument of
change
* the implementation of the laws relating to the institution, working in this
regard with all the different spheres of government
* the role of our traditional leaders in the renaissance of the African
continent.

I am confident that all of us will agree that these remain the challenges
that are central to the work of this institution. We will remember that we
reflected on some of these matters during the Conference of the National House
of Traditional Leaders held in Tshwane in December last year.

Yet it is important that we continue the appraisal of the work we have to do
around these issues, so as to make the necessary interventions on time,
wherever and whenever we encounter problems.

As we meet here today, we are confronted by the disturbing spectre of moral
decay in our society. This includes the prevalence of such abominable acts as
the rape of women, including children and the elderly, ritual killings,
stealing of pension money from the elderly, the disabled and children, and what
Inkosi Buthelezi has correctly lamented as the lack of respect that has crept
into our society.

I believe that these challenges are sufficiently acute to inspire and
energise our traditional leaders vigorously to defend and promote the basic
values of Ubuntu, and thus use our age-old value-system to defeat all that
seeks to define and confirm the stereotyping of our people as barbaric and
savage, which they are not.

This will not succeed merely through making appeals for the return to the
values of Ubuntu, but by collaborating with other institutions in our society
to integrate the Ubuntu value system into the ordinary daily activities of all
our people, young and old, to ensure that it informs our way of life. In this
way, this institution will play a central role, as it should, in the
restoration of the moral fibre of our society and defining the character of the
new South Africa.

Further, the democratic government has sought to preserve many of the key
African pre-colonial constructs of governance, believing that the ancient
African philosophy and practice of governance was indeed visionary and
efficacious in that it was responsive to the key yearnings of the people.

In this regard, we have reinvigorated some of these pre-colonial concepts
and practices, such as Batho Pele, Letsema, Izimbizo, Makgotla, Masakhane,
among others, by incorporating them into our work, with the aim to enhance the
quality of our democracy by ensuring a seamless relationship between the
government and the people and the conscious involvement of the people in their
development.

Clearly, the preservation and promotion of the African values of Ubuntu is
linked to the challenge of defending and developing indigenous languages which
should be central to the programme of this institution. Indeed, on these
matters, we need to cultivate a very close partnership between our traditional
leaders and the relevant national and provincial government departments and
other state and social institutions.

Chairperson:

In the 2006 December Conference of the National House and in previous
encounters we addressed the role of this institution in development and service
delivery.

We will remember that in that conference, I spoke about the Government’s
proposed Programme of Support for the Institution of Traditional Leadership.
Our officials have embarked on a consultative process with various
stakeholders, including the institution of traditional leadership, with a view
to ensuring that everybody endorses and actively supports the proposed
programme. We are on course to finalise the details of the programme before the
end of March, that is, next month.

Among other things, we said in the conference that the national support
programme for 2007 will include:

* allocation of the necessary resources, both human and material
* skills development
* the involvement of the institution of traditional leadership in our
development processes and
* the formation of partnerships between municipalities and traditional councils
in order to speed up service delivery and development in areas that fall within
the jurisdiction of our institutions of traditional leadership.

All this relates to the challenge to ensure that all other structures of
government work closely with this institution. In this regard, I would like to
urge this House to inform the Presidency, through the Director-General in the
Presidency, about any problems our traditional leaders may encounter as they
try to work with any sphere and department of government, as well as any organ
or enterprise of the state.

I am saying, therefore, that government is really committed to increase our
efforts, in partnership with the institution of traditional leaders, to advance
our society and develop our rural communities.

It was in this spirit that the government through the White Paper on
Traditional Leadership and Governance and in the Traditional Leadership and
Governance Act of 2003, provided that Government departments may delegate
functions to traditional councils to be performed by the traditional councils,
providing the necessary resources in this regard.

As you know, among other things, the Local Economic Development Strategy
unveiled by the Minister for Provincial and Local Government last year, also
highlights the role that this institution should play in matters of local
economic development. I am convinced that our traditional leaders should take
full advantage of this, so as to play their part in the common struggle against
poverty and underdevelopment.

In this context, I would like to remind this respected House of what I said
in the State of the Nation Address, namely that this year, we will "start
implementing the Communal Land Rights Act in order to improve the economic
utilisation of communal land, while at the same time expanding assistance such
as irrigation, seeds and implements to small and co-operative farmers."

In this regard, we are determined to work very closely, in a spirit of
partnership, with our traditional leaders, and will, together with the other
spheres of government, seek to act together with the National and other Houses
of Traditional Leaders.

Among other interventions, the National and other Houses of Traditional
Leaders will also have to pay attention to, and participate in the
Neighbourhood Development Partnership process, with the assistance of the DPLG
and related government structures.

In this regard, for instance, the 2007 Budget Review says: "The
neighbourhood development partnership grant has also highlighted local
investment opportunities in smaller township areas such as Mphophomeni in
Umngeni, Nkowankowa in Tzaneen, and Ndwedwe", all of which would have a
beneficial impact on the surrounding rural areas.

The Minister of Public Works has also assured me of the determination of her
Ministry and Department fully to incorporate the communal areas among the
development areas that will be attended to through the Expanded Public Work
Programme. In this regard, she will work together with the DPLG and all other
relevant government Ministries and Departments.

In addition, your interaction with our Deputy President last year laid a
firm foundation for better and focused participation in the effort to address
the issues important to the development of our country. The Presidency will
sustain this interaction and cooperation.

In this context, I must also say that I am especially pleased that the
National House also had the opportunity to interact with our National Cabinet,
which our Ministers and Deputy Ministers greatly appreciated. I trust that you
will agree that we should entrench this interaction in our national political
calendar.

Similarly, we should institutionalise the practice in terms of which, at
least once a year, the relevant national Ministers and Deputy Ministers should
appear before the National House.

I believe that we must also act together to provide permanent premises for
the National House of Traditional Leaders, within the zone in Cape Town that
houses our National Parliament.

Chairperson

I would like to reiterate what we have often said that the relevance and
influence of this institution lies in its ability to adapt to the democratic
prescriptions as contained in our Constitution, while using the power of our
value system as expressed in the Ubuntu value system to deepen our democracy
and enrich the humanism of our contemporary and evolving society.

Central to this is the transformation of the institution of traditional
leadership itself, so that, among other things, the special respect accorded to
women in many of our traditional societies is used to empower them, as well as
the youth and people with disabilities.

Among other things, the transformation of the institution of traditional
leadership, as well as our painful history under colonial and apartheid
domination, which corrupted this institution, will also come into sharp focus
later this year when the Nhlapo Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes
and Claims releases its first major report. I hope and trust that this will not
generate negative responses, which in the past have in reality brought the
institution of traditional leadership into disrepute and made many among our
people question the relevance of the institution.

This is important because we must constantly remind ourselves, as
traditional leaders, that we have the responsibility to sustain a great
tradition from previous generations of African leaders who upheld the humanism
of the African people. Thus we should not deviate from, distort or misrepresent
for personal benefit the legacy they handed down to us.

I am saying this because in reality, this institution has come down to us
from the generations of African patriots represented by such leaders as
Moshoeshoe, Sekhukhuni, Hintsa, Shaka, Dingane, Sobhuza, Cetshwayo, Mantantise,
Faku, Morolong, Galeshewe, Montshioa, Ngqika, Soshangane, Lobengula,
Ramabulana, and many others of our great kings and queens.

These glorious African monarchs embodied the core values and principles of
justice, unity, peace, freedom. Many of them fought gallantly to protect and
defend the sovereignty of their states. It was not the titles and authority
they inherited or acquired by other means that made them great and
respected.

They secured the respect and allegiance of the people because of what they
did, in the interest of the people, fully understanding that they only serve as
leaders because the people agree that they should serve as leaders.

Inkosi yinkosi ngabantu. Ungek’ utheth’ amampunge, uthi abantu ngabantu
ngenkosi yabo. Ndingatsho ndithi nob’ umntwan’ engazi oziphatha nje ngendlavini
nemdlobongela, ekwaz’ ukuzothul’ ebantwini, enyanisile, esithi ulitakane
lakwaNdlunkulu yoKumkani, angathembi ukuba isizwe siz’ omhlonipha, sivume ukuba
aphathe. Nam, ndi ndim, ndingema ngenyawo, nokuba kunzima, nam ndithi – lo,
nokuba kuthwani, asimfuni!

In brief, I am saying that all of us, including you as our traditional
leaders, need to conduct ourselves in a manner that earns us the right to lead.
The challenge today is to continue to bolster, entrench and preserve our proud
historical heritage of outstanding leadership, fruitfully to bring it to bear
on modern African institutions of governance so that, like the Africans of
yesterday, we continue to benefit from this virtuous leadership.

Our country and people have great need for a cadre of leadership that is
truly committed to serve the people, a leadership that resists and defeats all
temptations to abuse state and other power to benefit itself at the expense of
the people.

I am certain that all of us know of many specific instances when people
placed in positions of leadership at whatever level, both public and
non-governmental, have engaged in corrupt practices for personal benefit, to
the detriment of the people.

If I may, I would like to challenge the National House of Traditional
Leaders to lead a national campaign to address the important question – WHAT
DOES THE NATION EXPECT OF ITS LEADERS!

I am certain that our Minister for Public Service and Administration and her
Department would be more than willing to support and collaborate with the
National House of Traditional Leaders to ensure the success of this campaign,
as part of the national offensive against the cancer of corruption, for the
promotion of respect for the objectives of the Batho Pele programme.

In this regard, I must say that I am aware that some of the Provincial
Houses have been addressing matters relating to the conduct and discipline of
their members. This is important because for traditional leaders to be able to
take the lead in addressing the national challenge of moral regeneration, they
need to lead by example. However, to avoid any misunderstanding, I must
emphasise that this challenge is not unique to our traditional leaders, but
affects all sectors of our society.

Chairperson, I have truly enjoyed and appreciated all my interactions and
exchanges with the members of the National House since its current term
commenced in 2002. I look forward to maintaining this healthy relationship in
the challenging years ahead of us.

I wish you success in your work, join the Chairperson in opening your annual
session, and wish you have a happy and successful 2007.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
23 February 2007