the mid-year Cabinet Lekgotla
29 July 2007
Background Notes referred to by President Mbeki were distributed to members
of the media present, before the briefing.
President Thabo Mbeki: Let me say that both Cabinet makgotla are very
important from the point of view of government because these are the two
occasions in the year, January and July, when we bring the spheres of
government together. Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Premiers, Directors-General
(DGs), national and provincial, South African Local Government Association
(Salga) and so on, so that we can all of us look at all of the major elements
of government work as it affects all spheres.
As we say in this document, the general view is that we are making progress
in terms of implementing the Programme of Action. I would imagine that you keep
an eye on that Programme of Action because it's on the government website, so
that should assist in terms of familiarity with what the government is
doing.
So the general view of the Lekgotla was that indeed we are making progress
with regard to the implementation of that Programme of Action. What the Cabinet
Lekgotla sought to focus upon is how to improve the effectiveness of our
interventions in a whole number of areas - not significant revision of
anything, but how to improve.
For instance when we looked at the Medium Term Strategic Framework which
gets updated every year, we said it's clear that there are many things that
need to be done. They have to be done, you can't avoid them. But it is
necessary to introduce some priority system. That is why we are talking here
about these 'Apex priorities' covering all areas - the economy, social sector,
peace and stability and so on - to prioritise these and to make sure that
everybody who's relevant to the implementation of whatever the priority is -
local government, province, national, state corporations - is really focused
together in terms of ensuring that we achieve movement with regards to those
priorities. It doesn't change the strategic framework or the programme, but as
I say, it seeks to prioritise among a whole range of things that indeed have to
be done.
So you will therefore see that with regard to the economy for instance,
we've been discussing for some time now this question of an industrial policy.
It was approved at the January Cabinet Lekgotla, and then you have to say there
has got to be a plan of action to implement that industrial policy, which is
the plan of action that was then approved at this July Cabinet Lekgotla.
One of the matters of course which I'm sure you'll be familiar with, which
obviously arose, is about the deficit in terms of the balance of trade. It's
clear that the reason for that is that our manufacturing sector is not
producing enough and exporting enough to be able to ensure the balance between
imports and exports. It's a matter of particularly the manufacturing
sector.
It's quite clear that you've got major expansion in all sorts of areas of
the economy. You have the transport network, whether it's railways and harbours
and so on, the programmes that Transnet has. You have electricity, Eskom with a
major expansion programme. You have development of mining. All of these require
equipment. So let's then see what we can do to focus on the matter of capital
goods to supply the demand that arises from the fact of that growth.
The Motor Industry Development Programme has actually worked very well but
we are in the process of looking at it because it will need to be renewed, and
I'm sure the Minister of Trade & Industry will speak about this.
This illustrates the approach we are taking, the need to focus on some of
these key areas in the implementation of that industrial policy, so that apart
from increasing manufacture and increasing job opportunities, we also impact on
increasing what are called tradable goods which will help us to address this
balance of trade challenge.
And so within that context therefore - again matters that I think you are
familiar with � there is focus on chemicals and pharmaceuticals, on wood,
paper, pulp, etcetera.
In that connection we will then look at the tariffs which impact on things
that have to be imported which are inputs into production. So for instance we
say that the chemical industry is important to the extent that you might have
to import some of the inputs that must go into that sector, so you can't keep
high tariffs because what then happens of course is that what you produce
becomes uncompetitive because of the tariff structure. So we look at that.
This is all focused on the issue of implementation of industrial policy. And
of course there're others things that I think we're all familiar with,
obviously growth areas in the economy: tourism, bio fuels and so on.
There has been of course also the matter of the high cost of communication,
a matter we've been grappling with for some time. I think everybody accepts
that the high cost makes an impact generally on the economy, on society,
delivery of education, government services and so on. Critically the decisions
taken relate to the broadband infrastructure, and the need to increase
investment in that area within the country, to ensure the necessary
connectivity throughout the country. So we are finalising the legislation that
will legalise the establishment of what so far is called Infraco, a company
that will focus on these broadband infrastructure issues inside the
country.
But there is also an important investment that we must undertake in undersea
fibre optic cables, to ensure better connectivity between South Africa and the
rest of the world - one along the East Coast and another one along the West
Coast.
I think that we're all of us familiar with the fact that South Africa and
Australia have been short-listed to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
telescope. It needs enormous broadband capacity to process the information
collected by that telescope, enormous broadband capacity.
So that's part of the reason we have to do this broadband thing including
these undersea cables. You also know about the commitments that Telkom has made
with regard to further investment to modernise its infrastructure. Investment
will also go into Sentech which does the wireless communication.
So there's a whole range of these matters that are intended to impact on the
cost of communication, and the only way you can do it is by building up the
infrastructure, because that is what is slowing down things.
It is also related to the matter of improving government communication and
linkages with the people. We have the multipurpose centres and the decision is
that we must bring the very big Post Office infrastructure into that system so
that someone must be able to go to a Post Office and access many government
services there, which means you need that broadband capacity.
Then, the Deputy President and the Director General in The Presidency,
Reverend Chikane, have been undertaking trips around the country to talk to the
provincial governments. The process is to say, here is a Programme of Action
that we've agreed; these are the outcomes we want; let's then look at the
capacity of the provincial governments to deliver on their responsibilities
with regard to those programmes; and therefore deal with matters of whatever
the weaknesses might be.
I'll give you an example of this. Say we increase the allocations in terms
of subsidies for houses by whatever percentage; and increase by a smaller
percentage, money that goes into the municipal infrastructure fund, which means
you've got more money to build the house, the top structure, but you're not
allocating enough money to put in the bulk infrastructure, the water, the
sewerage, whatever. So you get a disjuncture. Now you pick that up in the
provinces because they say, sure, we can build the house but you can't just
build a house without this infrastructure. And the money is allocated, there's
a disjuncture of that kind. So I'm saying they discover things like that, which
means we�ve got to change something otherwise we will see that there's not much
movement about housing delivery and you'll say, but why? The money was
allocated, but it's because you didn't allocate enough for the bulk
infrastructure that must go with that.
This is an attempt to ensure that we actually improve the functioning of
government so that it has the necessary impact with regard to what government
has to do in order to achieve these developmental objectives.
I should have mentioned an important thing with regard to the economy, that
we've also taken a decision that with regard to ten procurement items in
government, goods and services, mainly from the biggest government procurement
items, we would procure 85% of those goods and services from small and medium
enterprises. This is in order to encourage the growth and development of this
sector of the economy, with a particular focus of course on the impact that
that would have on employment. But it also has the other implication that we
then have to make other interventions to ensure that indeed small and medium
enterprise do deliver with regard to the supply of those goods and services.
Financing therefore becomes important, incubation in a sense, empowering the
small people to be able to do successful business. Because if the government
wants to buy pencils from a small and medium enterprise, the enterprise must
produce pencils that write, that actually work. So it'd be in the interest of
the buyer to ensure that the producer of the pencils actually produces pencils
that are pencils. So you have to make those interventions; that's the
implication of this decision that we would create this market for small and
medium enterprises in the government system.
We had a look at another challenge that you're familiar with, which is the
issue of human resources, to try and identify where the gaps might be with
regards to what we are doing, so there will be things that will happen, for
instance an assessment of the various Sector Education and Training Authorities
(SETAs) and their alignment to these other economic programmes, like the
industrial policy. If you are saying that we need an expansion of these
particular sectors of the economy, then you've got to answer the question �
where are the skilled people going to come from to be able to participate in
that expansion.
Also the country doesn't have, so far, an integrated system to measure
poverty. We need to ensure that we have some indices which reflect on this
matter, so that if we say we are succeeding to reduce poverty, it must be on an
objective basis. So a lot of work is being done by Statistics South Africa for
instance, to develop that poverty index, so that we can identify in the first
instance indigent households. Because again the Cabinet Lekgotla decided that
in our interventions with regard to poverty we must be able to say: here is a
household that was described as indigent, and indeed appeared on the rolls of
the municipal government as indigent. What has happened to that family after a
year? So that you don't just address poverty on that macro level, but also on
the micro level. Here is a household that is very dependent on grants: what is
it that we can do to migrate people out of the grant system to employment and
all of that. This work is going on so that we can then have these poverty
programmes more sharply focused.
Then there are other matters like the issues raised in the Imbizo process.
For instance: what happens to young people who get a child support grant up to
the age of 14? 'Thank you very much for that support'; but what happens to this
person between 14 and 18 when they may not be able to get a job, what do you do
about that? And what do you do about older people, who might be unemployed, no
income at 50, and no possibility really to get a job? So we have to look at all
of those things. Again this is part of the process of ensuring that the
anti-poverty interventions are indeed focused and not just dealt with at that
macro level.
We want to finalise for the Cabinet Lekgotla in January, a programme of
interventions with regard to social cohesion. Of course we naturally also dealt
with the matter of crime, and the peace and stability in the country. I'm
referring to the issue of social cohesion because the crime statistics show
that these violent crimes against the person - murder, attempted murder,
assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm - those crimes are
concentrated in poor black areas. It's perfectly clear when you then look at
the statistics even with regard to the days when you get the highest incidence
of that kind of crime, and even the hours, it's clear that they are to a very
large extent associated with drug and alcohol abuse. So they would also be a
manifestation in a sense of disintegration of the family as a social unit which
helps an individual to grow up and so on.
When you talk about social cohesion you can't avoid saying: what do we do
about these areas which have been identified. We know where they are. We know
that Langa has got the highest murder rate in Cape Town. It tells a story about
Langa. What do we do about that? So you can�t only talk social cohesion; we've
got to say we have to address this matter.
We want to ensure that by the January Lekgotla we have a specific programme
focused on the matter of social cohesion and this certainly is one of the
interventions in these communities. The police statistics will say for instance
that 81% of murders in the country occur among people who know one another. Now
that will tell you a story about what is happening, that they will occur Friday
night, Saturday, into Sunday, though the peak is on Saturday and it would be
between certain hours, and in particular localities. You have to intervene in a
comprehensive way with regard to a matter like that because it tells you a
story about what has happened to these communities, to social cohesion. It's
not just a policing matter; there are socio-economic issues. It's a drug abuse
issue; it's population migration; and so on. We want to make sure that we are
able to intervene in a manner that produces results.
Finally I should mention with regard to international matters, that the
Lekgotla thought that it's important that we should improve the manner of our
interaction with a number of countries.
We took China as an example. You would know for instance that in terms of
trade between South Africa and China we import more from China than we export
to China. So the balance of trade is very much in favour of China. But if you
look at investment, our companies have invested more in China than the Chinese
have invested here. On the investment side the equation is the opposite of the
trade one.
We have discussed this matter with the Chinese government and agreed that we
need to address it, which means better access of South African products into
the Chinese market, and more investment by Chinese companies here. That then
requires detailed work. From our side for instance, our companies have got to
become more familiar with the needs of the Chinese economy and capacities of
the South African economy, so that when we enter into any discussion or
arrangements with the Chinese government it is possible to say that these are
the 'exportables' from South Africa, and therefore on the Chinese side they
must do whatever is necessary in order to open the Chinese market to those
'exportables.'
We would focus our system of interventions with regard to international
relations in a manner that would co-ordinate the politics, the economics, the
diplomacy and all of that in pursuit of these targets, and focus on countries
or regions that are clearly important in terms of our own development.
In conclusion, essentially what the Cabinet Lekgotla was doing was looking
at ways of improving performance - no fundamental changes to the Programme of
Action with which we are familiar, but improving performance.
Somewhere I should have mentioned the matter that's in the Background Notes,
the matter of establishing one civil service. It's related to the issue of
improving capacity in government. So far the civil servants in national and
provincial government are one group, and the municipal civil servants are
another group. We want to integrate that and legislation is being prepared in
that regard. It will be discussed first of all. We'll issue it publicly for
people to make comments before we finalise it, but that's part of the process
of ensuring that our systems work better in order to implement these various
programmes.
I think that's all I should say.
Bloomberg News: You said the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) has
been successful. Would you look at duplicating it across other sectors in
manufacturing?
President Thabo Mbeki: You will see a reference in the Background Notes to
sector policies. Having said these sectors are potential or actual growth
areas, you should then prepare a customised set of interventions with regard to
each particular sector. They may not all take the form of the MIDP but there
would be interventions specific to the sector.
For instance that is what we did with clothing and textiles, with the
complaint that there was about South African clothing and textiles being killed
off by Chinese imports. You have to respond in a particular way, the way we
responded was first of all to agree with the Chinese to impose certain quotas
on their side in terms of exports to South Africa, which is being implemented.
But there were also interventions to improve the competitiveness of the South
African clothing and textile sector, because you can't sustain it on the basis
of that sort of protection. In the end it must be able to compete with Chinese
clothing and textiles. So we are working with the Chinese, the clothing
industry and the trade union to implement a programme. But that would be
specific to clothing and textiles. That's generally the approach: customised
interventions for each of the sectors that are important.
IT Web: In the notes you speak about an extremely high capacity cable to
cater for the Square Kilometre Array and you also speak about a fibre optic
cable linking academic and health institutions. Could you speak a bit more
about those projects?
President Thabo Mbeki: The cable we are talking about with regard to the
Square Kilometre Array is a cable I spoke about which we will build along the
West Coast. There's some discussion that's taking place about where it should
land. There's a major junction in the United Kingdom (UK), linking cables from
the United States, cables from the Far East. If you went that route and got
into that junction, that would then link us then with the rest of the world.
There's another possibility of landing that cable in Brazil, a shorter route
that then gets you into the cables in Brazil which link first of all to the
United States and that completes that loop. But there's still a discussion
about that as to which is the best route to go, the longer one or the shorter
one. That is the cable that would be connected to the SKA. When we considered
the size and all these things about speed and all that, we decided that it's
clear that it's better to be ambitious rather than cautious, and to go for the
biggest cables we can get. Rather than say, what is the demand now and what
would be the demand in five years and build to that scale; we should build on a
much bigger scale.
The matter about connectivity among universities and hospitals and so on has
to do with the internal broadband capacity, which as I was saying is being
addressed via for instance Transnet and Eskom which have a lot of fibre optic
cables which they put on the electricity lines and on the telephone lines along
railways. That's part of that capacity which goes into the broadband capacity
in this country, and indeed the capacity to which Neotel would have access,
because Telkom has got its own infrastructure. The reason the universities may
not be able to talk to one another, get into one another's libraries and all of
that, is because of that shortage of broadband capacity. This work that is
being done inside the country, I'm not talking about now the undersea cables,
is what would create this possibility.
I-Net Bridge: You mention in the document the industrial policy action plan,
and you note that the National Industrial Policy Framework was approved in
January. However we've still not seen the National Industrial Policy Framework.
I wondered when we're likely to see it and when are we likely to see the policy
action plan. I have a second question, about what reducing import leakage is.
Does that mean the overindulgence in imports that you want to reduce?
Secondly you speak of the undersea cables to Europe and the Americas as
alternatives, but the document says you're going to do them both. Are you going
to do them both?
President Thabo Mbeki: The discussion that is going on now arises because
you can't do them both at the same time. You've got to do one at a time. The
discussion is, which one? We have to decide where we go first. They won't be
built at the same time.
The matter about leakages is very simple really; it's what I spoke about
earlier. Here we have Eskom having to increase capacity to generate and
transmit electricity. Where does the equipment come from? It gets imported. Why
are we not manufacturing it? That's the export leakage. As I was saying, you
can see what is happening to the South African economy, and we have got our
planning as to what to do. You can tell that you are going to require. The
public transport system has got to be improved, railways, buses, so on. Then
you've got to say, what are the import implications of that? And why can't we
meet the demand arising out of those developments? Why can't we meet it by
producing things here? As I say we increase both the size of the manufacturing
sector and the capacity to export. But you reduce the import impact by
developing this capacity inside.
With regard to the industrial policy framework, I assumed that the framework
had been distributed. I'm told that the Minister of Trade and Industry will be
making an announcement within ten days time about these matters that you are
raising.
Independent Newspapers: With regards to international relations and in
Southern Africa specifically the initial investigations into the so-called
Browse report indicates that the intention was to undermine diplomatic
relations between the leaders of Southern African nations, specifically Libya
and Angola are implicated in that report. Have you been in touch at all with
the respective heads of state of Libya and Angola? Perhaps to assure them that
this issue is being investigated here, or any form of contact at all?
President Thabo Mbeki: No, I haven't. I don't know whether the people at
Foreign Affairs have. As you would know the intelligence services and the
police generally have their own systems of co-operation, and I know that in
certain instances in the region - I don't know about Angola and Libya - our
intelligence services have indeed informed their counterparts about these sorts
of things, and have intervened in cases where you know you even had the threat
of local people in a country in the region, not ours, about to be arrested on
the basis of this information. But whenever our intelligence services have
intervened the matter has been clarified that these are stories manufactured
for the purposes that the DGs explained yesterday. So there is that kind of
interaction. I haven't myself spoken to the heads of state of either Libya or
Angola. But I would imagine that in the context of the co-operation among the
intelligence services they would probably have discussed these matters.
Business Day: The talk about the review of customs tariffs regarding the
inputs into the infrastructure programmes, that is happening in the absence of
a trade policy, and we're also at the moment, globally, at a very crucial time
in terms of multilateral negotiations. Is the Department of Trade and Industry
at all looking at formulating a formal trade policy, or are we sort of in a
position now where industrial policy will dictate trade policy?
President Thabo Mbeki: As you know those two matters are very closely
interlinked. You see, I was talking about what we need to do to address the
imbalance in terms of our international trade. That's a trade issue. We are
saying we have to increase exports of manufactured goods, that's very much part
of industrial policy. Therefore we have to increase capacity, improve
competitiveness in the manufacturing sector, and these are the things that need
to happen including the matter of tariffs on inputs that go into those
particular sectors. So indeed I'm quite sure that trade policy in general would
be an important part.
Industrial policy which relates to growing the economy, particularly in
certain sectors, indeed becomes part of trade policy. As you can see if you
take the automobile industry, you couldn't build the automobile industry in
this country to the point where it is today if you're just looking at the
domestic market. So when you say let's renew the MIDP, improve it and so on,
you have in mind also increased exports in terms of cars and components.
So yes indeed there's that linkage. I don't know whether there's any work at
Trade and Industry to do a specific trade policy apart from trade policy as it
is linked to and arises in the context of our general perspective about the
development of the economy, including agriculture. We're discussing for
instance issues of agriculture, partly because of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) negotiations, but also because it's an important sector which could
generate more jobs than it is generating now. So we have to look at what is it
that we need to do with agriculture, an element of which will indeed be an
increase in exports of agricultural products.
Daily Telegraph, London: On international relations, the briefing note
mentions that good governance, human rights and sustainable economic
development are essential for advancing a progressive global agenda. Do you
feel that those elements are present in Zimbabwe, and do you feel that the
situation in Zimbabwe is adversely affecting South Africa?
President Thabo Mbeki: Yes, of course, the situation in Zimbabwe must affect
South Africa, we are neighbours.
You know that we are currently engaged in facilitating discussions between
the government, the ruling party Zanu-PF, and the opposition, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC). In March next year Zimbabwe will have parliamentary
and presidential elections. It's important that when those elections take place
the results should not be contested. In other words you must have elections in
Zimbabwe that are free and fair, and therefore produce a government that will
be acceptable to all the people of Zimbabwe as a legitimate government emerging
out of a democratic process. It is therefore necessary that everything is done
to achieve that outcome.
We are quite confident that that agreement will be reached. It's an
important step with regard to the other matter that you were raising of the
economic recovery in Zimbabwe. That is obviously a major challenge and would
have to be led by a government whose legitimacy should not be contested. But
that's a challenge that we believe can really only appropriately be addressed
in a comprehensive fashion when you have had these political processes taking
place. Of course, Zimbabwe is our neighbour so South Africa inevitably would
carry the biggest burden of the consequences of any negative development in
Zimbabwe.
Die Burger: My question arises from page eight of the briefing notes. The
section on social cohesion says that there should be trust and pride in the new
democratic institutions; public participation and social dialogue on issues of
material interest, and that media institutions have a key role in increasing
the social cohesion. Over the past few days we have been covering reports about
misappropriation of funds within the deputy ministry of Home Affairs. I want to
know whether you've been informed of these, what you have done about it, and if
you've not been informed about them when would be a reasonable time to expect
you to be informed about them and to ask you what you are going to do about
these allegations from the office of someone whom you appointed.
President Thabo Mbeki: It is the first time I hear about it. Sure, we'll
follow up on that. You know what happens. Matters like that normally would get
investigated, and then action taken in terms of whatever is the result of that
investigation. But no, nobody has raised this matter with me and I haven't seen
it anywhere. But certainly we will follow up on it.
Sunday Times: You used the terms macro and micro in terms of the approach to
poverty alleviation, looking at it at both levels. And I wondered whether
there's any similar view to the question of service delivery. A lot of the
stuff you reflect on here refers to high level interventions on things that
could result in service delivery at all stages of what government is trying to
do. Is there any thought to the work and service ethic of the people that must
deliver these services versus perhaps what we mighty call the wage ethic; and
therefore interventions that might come from Cabinet about trying to get the
people who actually deliver the service at the lowest level to do it at a
higher pace with more commitment?
President Thabo Mbeki: Yes, that is a challenge. That's why we put in place
the Batho Pele programme which was national and provincial. We've now agreed
with Salga to do the same thing at local government level. The Batho Pele
programme has particular benchmarks about matters that you are raising: about
work ethic; about attitude of public officials to the public; about speed of
response and all of that. The performance agreements which senior people in the
public service have to enter into include this matter that you are raising.
But basically the challenge is to find a way of improving our oversight with
regard to the implementation of those Batho Pele programmes and approaches.
Certainly, yes, it is a matter that we have thought needs its own particular
attention.
Independent Newspapers: I just want us� can you take us through the cost of
the single public service cost.
And just my final question is that on page ten of the briefing document it
says the Department of Foreign Affairs will play a much stronger role to ensure
that [unclear] are better co-ordinated. I just want to know how are you going
to do that. Is there going to be some sort of protocol saying that no one
should undergo overseas trips without talking to foreign affairs, for
example?
President Thabo Mbeki: Yes, that's what we want to do. You find that cities
and metros send out their own missions to market their metro, even districts
send out people. And the provinces. You might very well find that you've got a
delegation in such and such a place from a city, from a province, from national
and they never knew that they were all going to be there.
So we want to have a kind of protocol so that we co-ordinate this, because
the other obvious problem is that you might take off from Johannesburg and go
on some trip to China, when it would have helped to have had a briefing from
foreign affairs about China, even improve your possibility to produce positive
results. So yes indeed we want to do that.
Creation of a single public service is somewhat of a complex process and as
you can't achieve it at one go, a sort of big bang. For instance just to take
the matter of pensions, public servants at the municipal level have their own
different pension schemes. They are not part of the current Government
Employees Pension Fund. When you then build that single service you can't
disadvantage those pensioners who are at local government and so the
integration process would have to take time.
The cost implications at each stage is something that we are working on. It
would not be possible immediately to say, over the seven year period this is
how much it is going to cost. As I say, it is somewhat of a complex process.
That is why it has to be phased in over a period of time.
AFP: Just as an aside, Mr President, the European Union (EU) candidate to
head up the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Khan is in the
country at the moment. I understand you were to meet with him. Has this meeting
taken place, and if it has how did it go, what was discussed? If you could just
give your view on his nomination to the post, I mean, in view of the criticisms
of the lack of open selection process to the post.
President Thabo Mbeki: Yes, I have met him. We are very, very keen indeed
with regard to these posts, the managing director of the IMF, president of the
World Bank, that we must discontinue this old system. It's an agreement between
the United States and Europe that the US will appoint the president of the
World Bank and Europe will appoint the managing director of the IMF. We want
this to be an open process. We've said this publicly and we repeated this when
I was with the Minister of Finance to Dominque Strauss-Khan. He himself
supports that. He would prefer that there were an open process. It's something
to which he is committed and indeed if he gets elected as the managing director
of the IMF, it's something that he wants to work on so that you do have an open
process. That's what we would prefer.
But with regards to the candidate himself, we've known Dominique
Strauss-Khan for many years. He's a very competent person and I think he would
add enormously to the work of the IMF, including responding to the challenges
that the IMF faces.
We've been raising these questions about improving the system of governance
at the IMF to make it more inclusive, more representative of the modern world,
looking at issues of the mandate of the IMF and its focus on helping the
developing countries.
I'm saying that our view is that indeed we think he's a good candidate.
eTV: While on paper there's been an improvement in service delivery,
protests have spiked recently, like the violent ones we saw in Mamelodi on
Wednesday. What is your message to those communities who still have no access
to proper service delivery? And then the DG was talking yesterday with regard
to the Browse report that it had triggered considerable anxiety, confusion
within the ruling party and within government. Have you and Jacob Zuma had a
conversation about the contents of this report and what impact it might have
had on your relationship?
President Thabo Mbeki: No, it wouldn't have an impact on our relationship, I
don't think. No, we haven't. Sure, we've informed the ANC about this, and so
everybody knows. I'm sure the leadership of the ANC is very familiar with this
kind of operation, it's not the first time. We have had to face them even
during the course of the struggle against apartheid. I'm sure the leadership of
the ANC understands this very well. We would of course want whatever action to
be taken to make sure that these kinds of things don't do the damage that
they're intended to do.
With regard to this other matter that you are raising, there's an important
message which we communicate and have to communicate all the time. And we
communicate this if you come with me to the Imbizo process, to say to the
people: that here we are, 13 years into our democracy, having inherited a
legacy which is very bad; that after the centuries of colonialism and apartheid
you have these levels of poverty, of underdevelopment, in the country; and
therefore that communities must know that it isn't possible to solve all of
these problems in a short time, and that they are going to be with us for some
time.
So that is the message which we communicate every day, and must continue to
communicate, because we certainly can't go around giving false promises that
everybody is going to have a house tomorrow - we can't do that. So that's the
first thing.
And secondly, we have been saying this; that it's critically important that
the municipal government, the councillors, must interact with these communities
and say: that here is the budget that we have for building houses this year;
and therefore that we'll build so many houses, and can't build any more because
the resources are not there.
It's very important that communities are properly informed about this, and
our own experience is that indeed the people are not fools, they're not stupid.
When you interact with the people to say: look, this is the position, these are
the resources available, and even pose the question to them, what is your
priority? You find that people say, no, no, just leave that for now, this is
the priority.
I'm saying that it's necessary to communicate. Of course you must expect
that if I don't have a house, if I sleep in a shack, then I will demonstrate in
the street. But the fact that that shack is still there, and new houses have
not been built, is because physically, practically, it is not possible to
eradicate this legacy that we inherited in a short time. That's fact, and
there's nothing that anybody can do about that.
SABC: Halfway through the last term, looking at the work government has done
since you took over the reins, the last few months left, what is the key issue
that you'd like to address or something that you would want to see
happening?
The last question is on the relationship between Deputy Minister of Health
and the Minister of Health. Are you perhaps looking at the current situation
where at times there are conflicting reports from these two offices?
President Thabo Mbeki: Yes, indeed I am. I am looking at that particular
matter.
What we want to achieve is what I'm trying to explain. These priority
challenges that we are identifying, are the areas on which we've got to achieve
the greatest movement in all of the sectors that I was talking about.
The challenge of ensuring that we expand, modernise, and render competitive
the manufacturing sector, is a critical thing. If you don't address that issue
you are going to impact generally on the way the economy grows or doesn't grow.
For instance as you can see you get these imports going up, the balance of
trade going in a particular direction and so on. It's an old historic problem
of South Africa. What happens in that case is you then have got to slow down
growth in order to reduce that inflow of imports. But you can't do that, you
can't take actions that are intended to slow down the economy simply because of
a constraint like that, so you've got to address it. That's why I'm saying it's
an area of priority focus because of its impact generally.
And I was talking about the need to intervene in these areas. The police
district of Johannesburg has 21 police stations. Two of those, Hillbrow and
Alexandra township, account for more than a third of the violent crimes. Two
out of 21; it tells you something about Alexandra township and Hillbrow. So
let's prioritise this intervention. In the context of crime fighting and social
cohesion, we've got to make a move because you can see the terrible impact that
all of these things are having on these communities, apart from scaring the
whole country. So you've got to move on them.
What I�m saying therefore is indeed that what government would like to see
happen between now and 2009 is actual movement forward.
Issued by: The Presidency
29 July 2007
