E Rasool: Africon launch new members on board

17 May 2007

I am very happy that the company that has its credentials of 56 years, which
has deep roots in the building of South Africa as it is today, whether much of
the 56 years was in the past and much of it is now, comes to a point tonight
where they have set a trend for the definition of empowerment. I think that we
see a definition playing itself out here that was described earlier as
economically and practically, as responding to the circumstances, not complying
with the prescripts, but that what Africon needs for itself is to broaden its
base of ownership, to broaden its base of management, to broaden its base of
operations, to broaden its employee base as well. And it shows us the
possibility of grappling with the issues of empowerment, particularly the black
economic empowerment, not only in the latter, but also in the spirit of what
our country wants to be and what our nation needs to be.

Professor Gerber spoke about diversity and the need for the inclusion of
that diversity philosophically and politically, quoting the intent of the
constitution in meeting those challenges. And often in positions such as what I
occupy, you are challenged with this idea of affirmative action, employment
equity and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). And I have found that we often
suspend many of our other faculties when we stand on different ramparts in the
debate about empowerment, and often we need a common example like tonight to
show the liberating effect of empowerment.

For me empowerment must be stripped of all its fancy definitions and get
into a very natural almost human understanding of what needs to be done. I
think we tie ourselves up in formulas, in compliance, checklists, and all of
those kinds of things and some of us do it to get in and some of us do it to
get out of it. I think that what you are seeing tonight is a spirit of what is
possible. I found the simplest definition in the natural world a process of
something like osmosis, where we know that solutions move from areas of high
concentration to areas of low concentration until the organism is in
equilibrium. And so often I think that we forget that the end point of what we
need to achieve is equilibrium in society also. Therefore whether it is wealth,
whether it is privileges, whether it is benefits, if you want society to be in
equilibrium, then wealth, benefits and privileges would have to show some
movement from the areas of high concentration to the areas of low concentration
until you have equilibrium.

At least a manageable equilibrium, a workable equilibrium, an equilibrium,
that prevents society from imploding or exploding. And in this case
empowerment, if it is elicited in a multifaceted way, the movement of power,
economic and otherwise from areas of high concentration to low concentration,
in order to establish that simple thing called equilibrium. If you understand
empowerment like that, and if we begin to understand what we have been
presented, both by Professor Gerber and Doctor Rhoda as a movement towards
equilibrium in our society, then I think we get to the human value of what it
is that we are busy with. Then we are not going to be suspicious of each other.
Then it is not about compliance, then it is about the overall goal in our
society of equilibrium.

I am happy that Africon is setting this example in this very exciting field
and sector of the build environment, of the engineering sectors, of the
construction industry, the broad infrastructure field, because I think that
this is a sector that is benefiting from a very important decision that the
South African government made a few years ago when we began in a sense to
almost over collect on taxes, where we exceeded our expectations about
collecting taxes and we sat with a tax windfall.

The important strategic decision that the government had to make is what do
you do with the tax windfall? Do you put it in recurring operational
expenditure or do you put it into fixed capital expenditure? And we began to
understand that it would be foolish to raise salaries, to build hospitals and
running costs for those hospitals and schools and so forth, on the basis of
what may be a short term windfall. And we then understood we need to put it
into fixed capital expenditure, particularly in infrastructure, to enhance the
competitive advantages of our country. And the result of that decision is that
we have a boom in the construction industry across the country, also in Cape
Town. The result of that is that you have more full employment in the
construction industry.

The result of that, is that you are having shortages in skills levels for
that industry, and that is why we are very happy that Africon, their definition
of empowerment does not only go to the company but it is in the sustainability
of this entire sector by, admittedly now being overrun by Western Cape
government's investment in skills.

I am very pleased about the fact that you have decided to contribute to our
Masakhe Sizwe Centre of Excellence for developing skills for the build
environment. We are hoping that this is going to be a partnership that will
have other dimensions of empowerment by investing in our young people and
giving them the opportunity to dream of being engineers and other specialists
within the build environment. So infrastructure development is beginning to
take shape.

World Cup 2010 is not the infrastructure programme of the country. I
describe it as the cheese in the trap. It has got to capture other bigger
things. In the Western Cape we have decided to make that R2,7 billion stadium
the cheese in the trap, because around it, it opens up the possibilities and
you can see the inconvenience as the N2 is being widened; that is one of the
first things. Rail links to the airport, the redoing of the entire public
transport system, the development of the Waterfront, the Somerset Hospital
precinct going onto the market quite soon, and all of those, six new hotels as
we speak here coming out of the ground. The construction industry is moving
towards a 12% growth in the Western Cape alone.

That has resulted in 17 000 new jobs in the Western Cape in that industry
and the skill levels, particularly at the middle and lower levels are such that
you can teach easily within a 6 to 12 month period. So for us it is a money
spinner, it is a job creator and it puts food on the table. And hence I think
we are very excited about what Africon's further involvement in this sector can
do, not only for our province, but we are sure it is doing it for the country
as a whole, but more importantly, I think that your decision to become an
African player, is one of the most important ones. We were amazed at the World
Economic Forum for Africa to discover that only three African countries had
negative growth rates in the last two years. That the average growth rate
across countries of Africa was 5,5%. That what we have is minerals, oil, but no
infrastructure. And I think that effectively Africon's competitors are going to
be the Chinese, the Indians.

I think that what we need to do is to make sure that we have competitive
advantages being close to home, being generally interested in the wellbeing,
the total wellbeing of the continent. I think those are the challenges that
African would have to be able to beat. But the important thing is, and this is
the last point that I want to make, diversiteit is nie 'n las nie, it is not a
hindrance, diversity is not a hindrance, and it is the precondition of success.
In a globalising world, uni-cultural organisations do not succeed. Uni-cultural
societies decay. It is only when one harnesses the full power of diversity, the
full creative energy of diversity, which the motors of change move forward.

And that is the other major mindset shift that we must do. We are not doing
a favour to blacks through empowerment deals; we are doing our country a favour
by guaranteeing its sustainability and its life. That is our challenge in the
Western Cape, which is why the single most important vision that we have put
forward for the people of the Western Cape is a home for all, borrowing from
Chief Luthuli. To make the Western Cape a home for all and to move away from
competing identities, hostile identities, fearful identities, suspicious
identities, or identities which are suspicious of each other? Our single most
important challenge, given the kind of economy that is developing in the
Western Cape at the tertiary levels, in the tourism and services industries and
so forth, our single most important challenge is to collapse the hostilities in
the identities and to create enough harmonies for a creative interchange to
emerge from the variety of identities that we have in the Western Cape.

If we can get that right, then our current growth rate of 4,5% per annum is
going to be nothing. We are already close to the target set by President Mbeki.
I believe the single most important way to get to eight percent in the short
term, is by harnessing the complementarily that lies within the variety of
identities that exist there.

And that is what we are trying to do at a provincial level. I can imagine
that it may be easier on a smaller scale of a company such as Africon to
harness all of that. But having said that I want to do you a favour on your
legs, I should not speak more than what I have now. So I want to thank you very
much Africon for having invited me, for doing me the honour to be a witness to
a success story such as this, for turning what is theoretically a demand and a
vision of what needs to be done, into a practical example and so I want to
really congratulate you on reaching this milestone, I want to wish you well,
all the partners, for making sure that this is a success.

I want to say particularly to the new owners, the new partners, the new
managers, you are not doing it only for yourself. To a large extent the fact
that you are not the television figures, the fact that you are not the usual
suspects, the fact that you are professionals from your ranks buying into a
company that gives expression to your talents, means you have to succeed, not
for your own sakes, but for all our sakes.

You have got to show that this vision of an empowered society in equilibrium
rests on how well you do. So I wish you all the best and thank you very much Mr
Rhoda, Professor Gerber, for taking the brave steps and saying "here is the
model that we want to make work." Thanks very much.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
17 May 2007