Programme director
The Mayor of Ethekwini municipality, Councillor Obed Mlaba
Representative of the Water and Sanitation Company of Benguela, Mr Paulo Jorge Semedo
The Deputy Chairperson of Umngeni Water, Ms Mina Lesoma
Invited guests
Ladies and gentlemen
On behalf of the government of KwaZulu-Natal and the people of our province, we wish to extend a hearty welcome to the delegation from the Water and Sanitation Company from the province of Benguela in Angola, who have honoured us by visiting our province.
This feeling of honour is heightened by the fact that, in a way, we feel that it provides us as the people of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa in general, with an opportunity to reciprocate the goodwill and support that we have received from our Angolan brothers and sisters over the years.
Programme director, as all of us know, the history of all the African countries is connected, not only because we are in the same continent but also because our countries have suffered under the yoke of subjugation and oppression.
The history of Angola and South Africa, in particular, is intertwined because we occupied the same trenches during the fight for liberation. We were both persecuted by oppressive regimes and both share an ideal of an Africa that is independent, prosperous and can play its rightful among the nations of the world.
It is now a fact of history that after gaining independence in 1975?
Angola was the victim of a paralysing civil war that nearly brought the country to its knees. It was only through astute leadership and the love for your nation that you were able to extricate yourself from that internecine conflict.
While we were fighting for liberation in South Africa and you were dousing the flames of a crippling civil war, the rest of the world continued without us. So, both of our countries, for the past one or two decades have had to play catch up with the rest of the world.
This is not an easy task but nonetheless it is a task that we must engage in, in order to be able to, one day, determine our own destiny as Africans. It is a task that we can only achieve if we work together in solving our common problems. We view this visit in that light.
Programme director, early this year the Premier of our province, Dr ZL Mkhize, led one of the biggest delegations on an official trip into Angola's Benguela province. Accompanying the premier were provincial ministers and senior business persons.
The motive of that visit was to re-establish links between our two provinces and in the process, identify areas of cooperation where we could learn from one another’s experiences. This interaction is, we do not doubt, a practical expression of the undertakings we made when we met in Benguela province earlier this year.
One of the major inhibitors to accelerated growth and development in Sub-Saharan African, in particular, is access to water. Just like energy, water is a key ingredient for any developmental project. In fact programme director; some analysts are even predicting that in years to come water will tilt the balance of global order, the same way that oil has become a strategic national commodity.
A study by the Council on Foreign Relations stated among other things that: "Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from chronically overburdened water systems under increasing stress from fast growing urban areas incorporating water improvements into economic development is necessary to end severe problems caused by water stress and to improve public health and advance the economic stability of the region".
With the reconstruction and development project well under way in the province of Benguela, it was always critical to ensure that the water supply side of the equation is carefully balanced because if we fail to do this, then all our efforts will come to naught. We have observed, elsewhere in our region, conflicts stemming from trans-boundary waters wherein nations fight over this precious resource.
It is because of this reason that we hope that your interactions with our water services agency, in the form of Umngeni Water, will assist in addressing this regional challenge. Umngeni Water's proven experience and expertise in water provision is there for all our neighbours who want to tap into our resources.
Obviously, as you engage at an implementing level, we have no doubt that the partnership will also be equally beneficial to Umngeni Water itself.
Just as history put Angola at a strategic place in the 1970s when our fight for liberation was most intense, we aim to respond with the same degree of urgency and empathy to the calls made by our comrades from the land of Comrade President Agostinho Neto.
Regional cooperation can only thrive when there is mutual respect among partners and a greater understanding of the role of rebuilding our continent as a whole. If there is one thing we all need to learn from the financial meltdown which wrecked havoc last year, it is that no country is an island. Because our countries have a similar history of oppression and of being located in a continent which is lagging behind in terms of development, there is no doubt that we need to strengthen regional cooperation.
It is only when we pull our collective strength that we can compete on an equal footing with other regional block in terms of trade, commerce and other areas of human endeavour. It is this vision that has inspired our country to work hard together with countries such as Angola to ensure that Africa's rebirth is realised in our lifetime.
We do so because we understand that our success as a continent is inextricably linked to that of other countries on the continent. In this era of global integration, investors are much more sensitive about investing in countries where there is political and social instability.
It therefore becomes the duty of all of us to ensure that we worked tirelessly to build a continent in which all her inhabitants can be assured of a bright future. The reality, programme director is that if we want to compete with other markets such as China and India, we can only do so if we use our collective force.
Similarly, when it comes to tourism, we need to sell our continent as a whole. In this regard, we believe that we need to sell tourist attractions on the continent instead of punting individual countries. This will ensure that when tourists visit our continent they will enjoy a complete African experience. But more importantly, this will ensure that the investment that will be made by tourists will be spread evenly across the African continent.
Before we conclude, we wish to extend our invitation to yourselves and all other people of Angola to join us as we host the biggest sporting spectacle in the world, the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. This is the first world cup on African soil and it can only succeed if all our sister countries join hands with us. Africa is the theatre and South Africa is the stage.
Angola, which recently hosted the African Cup of Nations, can contribute a lot in this regard. We have no doubt that today's interaction can only mean one thing: that the ties between our province of KwaZulu-Natal and the province of Benguela in Angola are getting stronger by the day. The challenge that is facing all of us is to ensure that the cooperation between the provinces of our respective countries yield fruits that will be shared by all the citizens of our provinces.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Economic Development and Tourism, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
22 April 2010
Source: Department of Economic Development and Tourism, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government (http://www.kznded.gov.za/)
