Rasool, State of the Province gala dinner
16 February 2007
My job here tonight is simply to thank all of you for having come here this
evening and for spending tonight with us. I think that, as I've said before,
the Western Cape has many difficulties. We've got many challenges. We have
extreme opulence and we have extreme poverty. We try very hard to find each
other and unite with each other and we often have great political contests and
all of that makes life in the Western Cape exciting. I don't think that there's
any other place that I'd want to be but in the hurly-burly of this cosmopolitan
province that we have.
I want to tell you that it is actually worth fighting for the Western Cape
to go forward. This is the crown jewel of the country and so those of us who
were charged with political leadership and the business leadership and
community leadership and faith leadership, whatever leadership there is,
labour, whatever leadership we are charged with, we�ve got to maximise the
opportunities that come with that leadership and that's the opportunity to do
good in the Western Cape. We've included a full copy of the speech for you in
your folders that are there at the table. I think that a good summary of it
appears on the front page of the Argus today, so those of you who are lazy to
read, read the Argus and you�ll get a glimpse of what it is and maybe it will
entice you to read and to flip through the speech but I'm hoping that what you
see in there is the commitment of a government at work.
One would never say that the actual things that we list there as
achievements, whether in social security, in welfare, in health, in basic
services, all of those things, in crime and in the economy, one would never
believe that in the midst of all the sound and fury of the politics of the
Western Cape, when it appears that we fighting with each other all the time,
one would never believe that at the same time we are achieving all of those
things and I think that that says that it's a focused government, that it's a
government who's sincere in its work and that it's a government who is going to
refuse to be distracted by the sound and fury of the politics of the Western
Cape.
You know the sound and fury of the politics makes me so scared even to
inform you tonight that it is Leonard Ramatlakane's birthday because it may be
that tomorrow the newspapers will say "Premier uses government money to give
Leonard a birthday bash" or one of the opposition speakers on Tuesday when they
debate the Premier's vote will say that that R1 billion to fight crime and
gangsterism has been a birthday gift to Leonard Ramatlakane but the fact of the
matter is that we are hoping that those of you who have glimpsed into what was
spoken about today, those of you who will read the speech or just glance
through the speech, those of you who read the newspapers that the overwhelming
impression we want you to have is one of hope, is one of optimism and it's one
of commitment because I believe that today we have been at our most
practical.
We have cut out all talk of policy, we have cut out all talk of strategy and
what we've tried to give you is ten areas of action that really matter to the
people of the Western Cape. We have shown you a R1 billion to fight crime and
drugs and gangsterism in the 50 most affected areas and the 109 most affected
schools. I'm hoping that you feel that the fight is on against the gangsters
and the drug lords in the Western Cape. I'm hoping that the announcement of the
R1,2 billion for the next three years per year for housing is going to say to
you that we may not solve the problem in the short term or even the medium term
but the government is committed to house as many people as possible with the
money that we have and that we�ve doubled the budget as a sign of that
commitment.
I'm hoping that all the things that we've said about the economy will begin
to say to you, "Stay with us. Don't go away. It may be difficult" but I believe
more than ever before we are on the threshold of a sound growing, in fact a
booming economy in the Western Cape. The President has asked us to reach a
growth rate of 6%. I want to tell you as we speak here we are already at 5,7%
in the Western Cape. You�d be a fool to leave now. Stay with us, we are
perfecting the ways to share the benefits of that economy and there will be
people who like the way we share it and there will be people who don't like the
way we share it but if a government sits on a property basis of R30 billion,
why should we not unlock its potential by using it for housing, by using it for
economic growth and by finding transparent, honest and sustainable ways to use
that property portfolio and so we�re experimenting, for example, with the
Somerset Hospital site, not selling it but leasing it.
Not letting Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) play lottery and compete
amongst each other by putting up a guaranteed portion for all who qualify for
BEE upfront. Whoever wants to develop Somerset Hospital must know that they
must do business with a broad base of BEE in the Western Cape and more
importantly they must know that you cannot develop Somerset if you don�t at the
same time build housing, gap housing or social housing for the poor on that
precinct as well because the poor have a right to be between the Waterfront and
the World Cup Stadium.
Those of you who sit in the traffic jam in the mornings and in the evenings,
you may be frustrated. I think you'll be frustrated in Gauteng but we will tell
you that by 2010 you will see the basis of a good, safe, reliable public
transport system in the Western Cape where commuters can have one ticket and
they can get up onto a taxi with that ticket at home, stop at the terminus, get
onto a bus, stop at the station and get onto the train with one single ticket.
That's the vision we have for the Western Cape and we didn't say this as a
dream.
We didn't say this as a philosophy. All of these things we've said, we will
do it in this time. We will do it with this money and I want to say to all the
members of Cabinet, all the heads of departments, all the officials of this
government, I want to say to you we are going to be busy for the next three
years because we have made our commitments public today and we know that the
people who are in this room will trust you to get the job done. The last thing
I want to say is that we thought that we will take a debate that we have been
avoiding for the last 13 years. We will take that debate by the scruff of the
neck.
It is not comfortable to live in a city and to live in a province where your
heroes from your community who not recognised. We cannot go home any longer and
cross the Hendrik Verwoerd Boulevard to get to a house or the D F Malan Avenue
and the Oswald Pirow Boulevard. We've got to be able to say "Our communities in
our great diversity have all contributed to this freedom, this democracy and
this economic growth that even those who oppressed us before are enjoying."
We're asking them and we're asserting to them, it is time for the Western Cape
to change and truly to become a home for all reflected in the street names and
the public State names.
We're asking you not simply to trust the government to do the running. We've
have put into the public domain that the Cape Town International Airport should
become the James la Guma International Airport and that's very important
because here we go to a comrade who started in the 1920's and was active in
struggle even in World War 2. I think that those are the calibre of leadership
that we must be able to honour.
I want to thank everyone for the truly collective effort that has resulted
in the speech that has been delivered today. This is no false modesty but I
simply delivered a speech at Cabinet, the heads of departments and the
Ministers and officials at various levels, thrashed out for two days at Goudini
on Monday and Tuesday. We were amazed at how much we�ve done and how much we
are capable of doing. I want to thank all of them because as we sat there I
could feel a pride emerging in our capability as a government by everyone. I
want to thank people also in my own department, the DG, people in my office.
You know Edgar Petersen who helped with the final drafting of the speech and
did a lot of the leg work, he was despairing at the beginning of writing the
speech when we sat and thought about it two weeks ago.
He said "Last year's speech probably said all the things, are we just going
to repeat it?" By last night after we put the final full stop in, we believe
that in our turning from strategy to implementation we have been able to find
in practicality, the best thing to give to the people of the Western Cape and
so, thank you very much for being here. I particularly want to thank Rosieda
and my children Taghreer and Tanweer. They've been wondering where I've been
the last few nights but Leeuwenhof is quite big. We can be busy downstairs
somewhere and be absent completely.
I want to thank all the Rasool families and the Shabodien families who are
here. They were duly invited. They didn't smuggle themselves in, so please I
ask the DA to be understanding and I particularly want to invite all the
leaders and all the friends who are here. I believe the next half of our term
up till 2009 is going to be significantly better than the first half was.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
16 February 2007
