Programme Director, Dr Vuyo Mahlati,
Members of the Muslim community,
Leaders of labour, business, religious and other formations,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is an honour and a privilege to address this gathering as it considers the contribution that the Muslim community can make towards the implementation of the National Development Plan.
I wish to commend the various organisations that have come together to organise this conference. It demonstrates a clear understanding of the intention of the National Development Plan, which is to offer an overarching framework of activities that can be owned, debated and implemented by all South Africans.
This is not a plan for government. It is a plan for the nation. It reflects our shared aspirations and provides a course of action that we can together pursue. We live in a diverse country, with many languages, many cultures and many faiths. To quote the NDP: “We are a community of multiple, overlapping identities, cosmopolitan in our nationhood.”
We are also a divided country, where our individual circumstances are still largely determined by the contours of race, gender and class. We are a country of competing interests and contesting views. We differ, we argue, we fight. And yet we are bound together. We occupy the same land and we share the same future.
It is for this reason that we need a National Development Plan. We need a common programme to guide our efforts. We need to have an overarching vision to which we can all aspire and towards which we can all work. Civil society organisations are central to this effort. They provide a crucial link between society and government. They help to hold officials to account and ensure they are responsive to citizens’ needs.
This conference brings civil society, business and government together to solve the critical challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. It asks how each one of us can contribute to achieving the society we all seek. The National Development Plan envisions a reconstructed society underpinned by the values of human solidarity, compassion and equality.
It is a society where everybody can embrace their full potential. It is a society where opportunity is not determined by the circumstances of one’s birth, but by one’s own efforts, determination and ambition. This conference is a crucial step in our national drive to ensure that this vision resonates with all South Africans and that the plan is embraced by all social partners. It is through constructive dialogue that we mobilise everyone behind the fulfilment of this vision.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The National Development Plan establishes the foundation for a social compact to reduce poverty and inequality. In June 2011 the National Planning Commission released a Diagnostic Report. It noted that, despite the progress made since 1994, South Africa continues to face several significant challenges. The report found that:
- Too few people work.
- The quality of education for black people is poor.
- Infrastructure is poorly located, inadequate and under-maintained.
- Spatial divides hobble inclusive development.
- The economy is unsustainably resource intensive.
- The public health system cannot meet demand or sustain quality.
- Public services are uneven and often of poor quality.
The proposals contained in the NDP are aimed at addressing precisely these challenges. The NDP doesn’t provide all the solutions. Rather, it invites further deliberation and engagement. It provides space for us to learn from experience, and is able to adapt to changing circumstances. And it encourages further research as we refine implementation. The NDP sets out to unite all South Africans around a common programme to achieve prosperity and equality.
It identifies the creation of employment as the most important instrument for tackling poverty and inequality. To achieve this, we need faster, more inclusive growth. We need an economy that serves the interests and meets the needs of the people. Work has already begun to implement some of the key measures described in the National Development Plan.
Government has developed a Medium-Term Strategic Framework that outlines the priority programmes of government for the next five years. This framework, which is distilled from the NDP, guides the work of all departments in pursuing fundamental economic transformation. For the economy to grow and create jobs, South Africa is increasing its investment in infrastructure, especially in water, energy, public transport and freight logistics.
Today, we are in the midst of the largest infrastructure build programme yet undertaken in this country and possibly on the African continent. Not only does this investment create work opportunities and benefit companies in construction, materials supply, manufacturing and other sectors, but it also reduces the cost of doing business and improves our capacity for faster growth. In its final years, the apartheid state allowed investment in the economy to dwindle.
Since 1994, levels of investment, from both the public and private sector, have been steadily improving. Now, we are investing in infastructure to stimulate greater investment by business in productive activity. The NDP also calls for support to those economic sectors with great growth potential and which will create jobs in significant numbers. These sectors include mining, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and the green economy.
Through measures like the Industrial Policy Action Plan, government is working to develop and diversify the economy’s productive capacity. Among other things, this includes efforts to add more value to the mineral resources we extract through greater beneficiation. This reduces our dependence on the export of unprocessed commodities, boosts domestic manufacturing and creates jobs.
President Jacob Zuma recently launched the Black Industrialist Programme, which seeks to unlock the potential of black entrepreneurs in a way that contributes to the re-industrialisation of our economy. This programme will support black-owned manufacturing companies with access to finance, access to markets, skills development, and quality and productivity improvement.
We are also undertaking measures to reduce red tape and regulatory obstacles for small businesses, while providing support for them to become sustainable and profitable. The National Development Plan puts the interests of the poor at the centre of its vision. It uses the concept of sustainable livelihoods to describe a minimum basket of goods and services that the poor need to live meaningful lives. Some of this can be attained through wage income, but for many, the state will continue to be the major provider of services. More effective state provision of education, health, municipal services, public transport and social security is needed to improve the living standards of the poor.
The National Planning Commission took time to ponder on the elements that could constitute a decent standard of life for our people. We identified the following key elements: education, housing, health, employment, transport, safety, recreation, nutrition, sanitation, electricity and water. The attainment of a decent standard of life for our people would require a capable and developmental state working in partnership with all key stakeholders in our country.
Our public institutions will need to be better managed, resources will need to be distributed more efficiently, wastage will need to be reduced, and corruption and mismanagement will need to be punished and eradicated. Government will need need to be more accountable, more responsive to the needs of the people, more transparent, and more effective at drawing on the resources and capabilities that exist outside government.
This is the developmental state that we are now working to build. We have made important progress in developing the capacity of the state to monitor and evaluate the provision of services. We are institutionalising the planning function across all spheres of government. And we are drawing on best practice to improve the interface between government and communities in advancing social development.
The NDP places great emphasis on the importance of social cohesion. Division and discord undermines development. Social cohesion can best be realised in a country in which all social partners work together to ensure that all our people are educated and have skills, in which all are employed, in which all enjoy a decent standard of living, and in which all feel safe and secure. As we work to address the material determinants of social cohesion, so too must we address the attitudes, practices and prejudices that undermine our efforts to forge a nation united in its diversity.
Now more than ever, we need to direct our energies towards the achievement of a common vision through unified action. Active citizenry is the cornerstone for achieving this vision. Every South African needs to see themselves as a leader and a nation builder. Every South African has the ability to lead. They have the ability to set an example, to be honest, compassionate, trustworthy and demonstrate integrity. They have the ability to hold fast to a core set of values while embracing change and striving for transformation.
Allow me to conclude by quoting from the vision statement of the National Development Plan.
It calls on us to imagine South Africa in 2030. It says:
We are a people at work.
We work to create plenty.
We invest in our efforts and are not waiting in disengaged expectation.
Because we are impatient to succeed, we work with painstaking rigour.
Our efforts, not so much those of others, make us stronger.
Then we are patient for the results of our efforts.
This kind of patience gives birth to our new work ethic.
In this work ethic we ground our dreams.
We have built our own houses.
We are confident and self-sufficient.
We are traders.
We are inventors.
We are workers.
We create companies.
We set up stalls.
We are studious.
We are gardeners.
We feel a call to serve.
We are here tonight because you, the members of the Muslim community, have felt that call to serve.
For that I commend you, encourage you, and thank you.
I thank you.
