Programme Director
Minister of Transport, Dr Sibusiso Ndebele
African Union (AU) Commissioner Ms Ilham Ibrahim
AU Ministers of Transport
AU Deputy Ministers of Transport
Members of the Diplomatic Corp
eThekwini Executive Mayor Obed Mlaba
All Heads of Department and Permanent Secretaries
Experts in Maritime Transport
Distinguished guests
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
We wish to express our sincere delight for being part of this auspicious gala dinner where we are meeting to reflect on the work that has been done today and the deliberations that formed part of the landmark African Union Maritime Conference.
On behalf of the government of South Africa, we welcome you to the beautiful and warm province of KwaZulu-Natal. In particular we welcome you to the city of Durban which is home to the busiest and the biggest harbour in Africa which is visited by approximately 5 000 ships each year. Our province is also home to the deepest harbour in our continent, the Richards Bay Harbour, on the north-east coast of our province.
Indeed, the delegates could have chosen no other province but KwaZulu-Natal to host this second session of the African Union Ministers responsible for Maritime Conference. From the humble dug-out canoes built around 10 000 BC, the Egyptian papyrus reeds built around 4 000 BC, the sails-propelled ships of the so-called voyages of discovery era, to the latest high-tech ships, maritime has played a meaningful role in shortening distances among countries of the world. Maritime has also been a key cog in the development of trade and discovery among the nations of the world.
Britain is a perfect example of how a very small country has been able to use maritime to be one of the world's leading nations both in commerce and geo-political terms. Obviously this influence was gained when the world was a decidedly much different place than it is today.
However, the fact remains that a country or a continent that is able to harness and exploit its maritime advantages stands a good chance of being a leading nation or continent in the world. Unfortunately and because of a number of reasons including our colonial past, we have been unable to exploit the coastline resources like other countries elsewhere in the world have been.
This is our reality but we cannot allow it to determine our future. There is a need for Africans and African countries to utilise this resource to its optimum for the benefit of all the African people.
Programme Director it has become trite but it is a statement worth repeating for
today's occasion. As all of us know, Africa is endowed with natural resources that are extracted as raw material from this continent and processed in other parts of the world and sold to Africa as finished products. It is because of this reason that many economies in Africa are depended on imports and Foreign Direct Investment.
Needless to say, when these finished goods are sold to us as a continent they are sold at far higher prices than the raw material. Because of this chronic dependency, our economies are prone to react to the slightest of market gyrations. For Africa to hold her own in the cut throat global economic environment this lopsided trade relationship between our continent and the rest of the world cannot be allowed to continue. For Africa's economic reawakening to happen, we need to change this skewed trade relationship between Africa and the rest of the world. It goes without saying that at the centre of our efforts to beneficiate in our continent should be our maritime resource which we should use to transport these finished products to other parts of the world. Because of our strategic location of being at the centre of the world, Africa is well positioned to be an economic giant in the foreseeable future.
Programme Director, another critical question that we need to grapple with as we gather this evening, is how we ensure that while we allow strategic foreign investment in our harbours, we still retain control of these strategic resources. Just like land, our harbours are a strategic resource. As all of us know, because of the economic downturn, investors the world over are more risk averse these days. This means that for capital investment to happen in our harbours we need to go around the world in order to receive the necessary funding.
However, in doing so we need to ensure that we do not sell our strategic resources to the highest bidder. The reality is that we have been entrusted by fate to take care of these resources for posterity. Our harbours must, in the main, benefit, our continent and then others. African governments need to move beyond the point of being of tariff-collectors but run their harbours and their maritime resources in a manner that engenders growth and development in our continent.
It therefore goes without saying that we also need to ask ourselves the question of who owns the flotilla of ships that dock in our harbours. We urgently need to respond to this question with a view to encouraging more and more African entrepreneurs to be part of the ship-building industry. We need more ships that are owned by Africans and benefit Africans.
The African Maritime Charter and its articles begin to address these challenges.
However, it will remain a beautiful document as long as we, as Africans, do not actively and vigorously drive its implementation. Beyond the Charter, co-operation among African countries is of paramount importance. Precisely because we are at different stages of growth, we need to, as the Charter states, group ourselves as regions, and begin to deal with the problems. A humble suggestion to the Conference is that Ministers consider including other spheres of government, across countries, including local and provincial, in the maritime sector.
The municipalities, provinces and states within countries, must not be discordant with their mother countries when it comes to maritime issues.
We are on the cusp of achieving world greatness in the maritime sector. The able women and men, who are responsible for maritime transport gathered at this conference, are no doubt more than capable of seizing the day and propelling our continent to greater heights. KwaZulu-Natal is indeed pleased to be a stop used by the sons and daughters of our soil to catch their breath and exchange notes on the long but highly-rewarding road of ensuring that Africa becomes world leader in the maritime sector.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department Economic Development, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
15 October 2009
Source: Department Economic Development, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
(http://www.kznded.gov.za)
