debate on the Budget Vote of the Presidency: National Assembly
13 June 2007
Madame Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
Honourable Deputy President,
Honourable Members and guests:
Apart from the President, the Deputy President and the Minister in the
Presidency, 25 Honourable Members participated in yesterday's debate on the
Budget of the Presidency. I would like to thank all the Members for the support
they expressed for our Budget, and the constructive proposals they made to
improve the functioning of government.
Apart from anything else this emphasised the need for the Presidency, and
the President in particular, at all times to be conscious of his or her
responsibility and accountability to all our people without discrimination or
partisan considerations, consistent with the prescripts contained in our
Constitution.
I would like to believe that in this context we all heard and agreed with
the appeal made by the Hon Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi concerning the need for all
of us to respect the Office of the President. I presume that Parliament will
give itself time to consider whether the route he proposes to address this
matter is correct and therefore examine his Private Member's Bill. However,
whatever the outcome of that process, I do believe that he was indeed correct,
as he has been in the past, once again to put on our agenda the vital issue of
respect for the institutions of state as provided for in our Constitution,
including the Presidency of the Republic.
I must say that I was also very encouraged by what seemed to be a great deal
of consensus among the parties represented in this House about the challenges
we face, and the need for all of us to respond to these challenges in a manner
intended to build the kind of South Africa prescribed by our Constitution.
On many occasions in the past I have tried to communicate the message that
the most fundamental and historic problems facing our country and people should
be a matter of common concern, transcending the partisan boundaries that
separate us.
Among these are the tasks of:
* building a non-racial and non-sexist society
* promoting national reconciliation, social cohesion, a shared national
identity and inspiring our people with a feeling of hope
* ensuring that we develop our economy to end poverty and guarantee a more
equitable distribution of wealth
* building a government machinery that responds adequately to the challenge of
service delivery and,
* placing South Africa among those countries on our continent and the rest of
the world that fight for peace, democracy, human rights, tolerance, equality
and mutually beneficial cooperation among the nations.
During yesterday's debate I gained the impression that by and large and if
nothing else, at least we had indeed come to understand that all these are
common challenges, even if our responses to them might differ.
However, the mere fact of recognising that these are problems we must all
address together lays the basis for us to engage one another in constructive
debate to see whether we could develop a national consensus about what needs to
be done to change our country for the better.
Once again, I would like to thank the Honourable members for their
interventions yesterday, which may indeed take us some distance away from our
endless fractious debates to equally vigorous engagement in pursuit of common
national goals, but, of course, without losing our individual party
identities.
In this sense the Honourable Members did respond to the plea made by the Hon
Craig Morkel when he suggested that we should replace the word "Opposition"
with the words "Non-Governing Party", citing the Hon Dr Buthelezi when he said,
"The word 'opposition' itself is loaded with gladiatorial connotations.
Confrontation is inferred. Seizing the initiative often means waiting for the
government to stumble or exposing some scandal or irregularity."
Happily, yesterday, it did seem that, again by and large, we came into the
House without our gladiatorial armour and weaponry.
The Hon Mdlalose pointed all of us in the right direction when she quoted
from Sandile Dikeni's poem, "A Love Poem for my Country", as follows:
My country
Is for unity
Feel the millions
See their passion
Their hands are joined together
There is hope in their eyes
We shall celebrate
But despite everything I have said, some comments made by the Hon Stanley
Simmons and the Hon Sandra Botha perhaps correctly brought us face to face with
the hard reality we have to deal with, of perceptions we have to confront,
centred around what the Hon Leader of the Official Opposition denounced as
"racial nationalism". Because of the important issues the two Honourable
Members raised, I would like to deal with these two instances in some
detail.
The Hon Simmons accused the Hon Minister Membathisi Mdladlana of making a
racist remark directed against the Coloured people. The Hon Minister is not
with us today as he is attending the annual International Labour Conference in
Geneva. I will find occasion when he is in the House to address the grave
accusation against him made by the Hon Simmons.
The Hon Simmons also criticised my Parliamentary Counsellor, the Hon John
Jeffery. In this regard the Hon Simmons said that in response to his request
"for an opportunity to discuss this issue (of a sense of belonging) around
Brown people", my Parliamentary Counsellor had said "no one is fit to discuss
the issue of coloured people".
Because of the seriousness of these assertions, I consulted the Hon Jeffery
about what exactly had happened. He confirmed that indeed the Hon Simmons had
requested to meet the President to discuss "concerns experienced amongst
coloured people of being marginalised (sidelined) in the greater South African
context".
The Hon Jeffery then inquired whether this would be a delegation of the
United Party of South Africa (UPSA), arguing that no single political party,
including the UPSA, could claim to represent and speak for the Coloured people.
According to the Hon Jeffery, the Hon Simmons said he was speaking of a
non-partisan delegation and mentioned some of the people who would be in the
delegation, all of whom are among our leading citizens.
He undertook to speak to these, constitute the non-partisan delegation and
revert back to my Parliamentary Counsellor. This has not happened.
The Hon Jeffery still expects the Hon Simmons to come back to him so that he
take the necessary steps to arrange the meeting with the President requested by
the Hon Simmons. I would like to assure the Hon Simmons that the Hon John
Jeffery and I have agreed that I should meet the Simmons delegation whenever it
is ready and available.
There is a rule of simple logic which says, two diametrically opposed
statements about the same thing cannot both be correct. I must assume that the
account I have just given represents what is sometimes described as a breakdown
in communication, rather than an example of bad faith or misrepresentation of
the truth.
However I must, at the same time, make the point that the story also tells
us something about the persistence of the issue of racism in our minds and
social reality, which resulted in conclusions being arrived at, that what was
said in good faith in fact constituted a manifestation of vile racism.
Consistent with this frame of mind, the Hon Simmons said yesterday that,
"The United Party of South Africa subsequently came to the conclusion that the
Honourable President concurs with the Honourable Minister of Labour's (racist)
sentiment, putting a question mark behind the sincerity of the Honourable
President's calls for cohesion."
The best I can do in these circumstances is to assure the Hon Simmons that
the President has been involved in the organised and conscious struggle against
racism in our country for over 50 years, and assume that he and the United
Party of South Africa reached the conclusion he announced yesterday about the
anti-racist credentials of the President once again because of a breakdown in
communication.
I am more than ready to meet the non-partisan Coloured or brown delegation
he has presumably gathered, whenever he indicates to the Hon John Jeffery that
the delegation is ready to meet us. I wish the Hon Simmons success in his work
to constitute the delegation, and will formally inform the House once the
requested meeting has taken place.
For her part, the Hon Leader of the Official Opposition said:
"Here, Mr President, are two latest examples of how the policies of racial
nationalism divide our people and compromise service delivery.
"Just two weeks ago, the choices for three top medical posts at two Western
Cape Hospitals were rejected by the Provincial Health department. Why? Because
the candidates chosen by the institutions involved were white.
"The result is a double loss to South Africa, because one of the candidates
has given up hope and is now going - as it were â into voluntary exile in
Australia. This, while disadvantaged South Africans dependent on the hospitals
in question are having to wait longer to get the treatment they need, because
the posts are now empty.
"I cannot, for a moment, believe that is the intentional outcome of what you
would like to achieve. But it is the outcome and, Mr President, you must take
responsibility for it."
First of all I must express my appreciation for the remark made by the Hon
Leader of the Official Opposition that I would not intentionally seek to deny
our people adequate healthcare, as indeed I never would.
Secondly, I must assume that the Hon Sandra Botha said what she said in good
faith, because she and the DA do care about the welfare of all our people.
Thirdly, I must presume that the Hon Leader of the Official Opposition based
her comments on media reports and not any noxious concoction of fabrications
brewed in the think tanks of the DA.
The specific media report to which I refer is an article that was published
in the June 3, 2007 edition of the Sunday Times, under the heading "Race quotas
cripple hospitals", with the subtitle "Surgery cancelled as province insists on
hiring nonexistent black doctors".
And indeed, as the Hon Sandra Botha said, this article does state that the
Western Cape Provincial Health authorities refused to appoint three white
doctors to senior positions, that one of these has decided to emigrate to
Australia, and that patients have to wait for long periods for treatment,
because of the imposition of racial quotas.
Again because these, like those made by the Hon Stanley Simmons, are very
serious allegations made by an elected representative of our people, I thought
it was my responsibility to investigate what the Hon Sandra Botha said, in
order immediately to correct what was evidently an eminently unacceptable
outcome of our policies to build a non-racial society.
I would like to inform the Hon Leader of the Official Opposition and the
House that the Sunday Times report, on which the Hon Sandra Botha based her
comments, is entirely false. To repeat - the Sunday Times report, on which the
Hon Sandra Botha based her comments, is entirely false.
Here are the facts. In 2005 the Western Cape health authorities published an
advertisement requesting applications to fill the post of Principal Specialist
(Anaesthesiology and Critical Care) tenable at Tygerberg Hospital. Three people
applied, but one decided to withdraw before the interviews were conducted.
It was then decided to re-advertise the post in the hope that this would
attract a larger number of applicants. Again only three people applied.
It was therefore resolved to consider whether these applicants met some
particular requirements, despite the evidently poor response to the
advertisement. Principal among these requirements was the consideration whether
the applicants were registered with the Health Professions Council of South
Africa as Specialist Anaesthesiologists with experience in all areas of
Anaesthesiology and Critical Care. On this basis it was decided to interview
all three applicants, all of whom are white.
However, two of them withdrew their applications before they were
interviewed. The interviewing panel then went ahead to interview the one
remaining applicant, the determination having been made that the obligation to
provide healthcare to our people required that the post should be filled
without further delay.
I am certain that the Western Cape will shortly make an announcement in this
regard, based on the recommendation of the interviewing panel. I trust that the
Hon Leader of the Opposition and the House will accept that all of us must
await the announcement of the Provincial Government in this regard.
Reporting on this process, the Sunday Times said that "Dr Fred Mattheyse â
one of the candidates whose appointment was deferred â is now leaving for
Australia." It quoted Dr Mattheyse as saying, "I'm leaving reluctantly but I
have reached a ceiling in my career here."
The truth however is that Dr Mattheyse was one of three doctors who were
scheduled to be interviewed for the post at Tygerberg Hospital. He, together
with another doctor, withdrew his application before he was interviewed, and
therefore, naturally, was not interviewed.
In this regard I must repeat that Dr Mattheyse was competing for the post at
Tygerberg Hospital against two white doctors, with no possibility that he could
be passed over simply because there was a black, and less qualified, black
doctor applying for the same post.
Dr Mattheyse may indeed have decided to emigrate to Australia, as the Sunday
Times and the Hon Sandra Botha have said. But it is entirely false, and
dishonest of the Sunday Times, to suggest that this was a result of the
implementation of government policies that the Hon Leader of the Official
Opposition characterised as "racial nationalism".
The Hon Sandra Botha spoke of "three top medical posts at two Western Cape
Hospitals (that) were rejected by the Provincial Health department (because of
this racial nationalism)". So far I have spoken of only one of these posts.
The Sunday Times said the Head of Surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital,
Professor Del Khan, had said "the filling of two top posts at the hospital in
the last six months had taken more than two years to finalise because the
candidates had been white." Presumably, these are two of the three to whom Hon
Leader of the Official Opposition referred.
Unfortunately, in the short period between yesterday evening and now, my
office has been able to have only a telephonic conversation with Professor Del
Khan, who confirms that both the posts that he referred to in the article have
been filled with two white candidates. He stated that he had expressed concern
about the delay in the filling of the posts, although he accepts that in order
to redress the imbalances of the past it is necessary to do everything possible
to find appropriate candidates, which may result in delays. The Western Cape
Provincial Government is aware of a few cases where there were delays in the
appointment of some senior medical staff, but, in the absence of particulars of
which posts are referred to, is unable to confirm the allegations made by
Professor Del Khan.
However, the Sunday Times article quotes another Professor at Groote Schuur
Hospital, Professor Bongani Mayosi. He, contrary to what Professor Khan is
alleged to have said, is reported to have said that "he had successfully
motivated for three senior posts to be filled by white specialists, while
training black specialists for the future."
This wording is highly tendentious. It is deliberately intended to convey
two impressions consistent with the thesis alleging "racial nationalism". One
of these is that in the Western Cape, it is always necessary to motivate for
the appointment of white specialists, who would otherwise be excluded from the
public service because of the existence of racial quotas. The other is that the
days of the white specialists are numbered, as they will be replaced by black
specialists once these have been trained.
Let me now deal with the truth. With regard to the three posts to which
Professor Mayosi referred, these being three Principal Specialist posts, (and
one Chief Specialist post), Professor Mayosi has said that in terms of the
relevant employment policy:
* the applicants had to be medical doctors and,
* the applicants had to be recognised as scholars within the medical profession
and registered with the Professional Health Council of South Africa as
such.
It would only be after these two requirements were met that issues in our
legislation concerning employment equity would kick in as only one of the
factors in the selection process. It was on this basis that the three Principal
Special posts were filled by three qualified white doctors, with no need to
persuade anybody about the suitability of these candidates.
Professor Mayosi also says that, "No appointment of a deserving candidate
has been refused on racial grounds in the Department of Medicine" at Groote
Schuur.
Professor Mayosi insists quite correctly that our country is experiencing a
serious shortage of many medical specialists. He sees it as his task to train
as many young professionals as possible, including black professionals, to
address this shortage. In the future situation of equitable skills availability
across the racial divide, the playing field will have been levelled, making it
unnecessary to invoke the equity provisions in our Constitution and
statutes.
Professor Mayosi also says: "I must point out that we are striving to
normalise the demographic profile of our staff at all levels in the Department
(of Medicine), and we support the employment equity policy of the Department of
Health of the Western Cape. In our search and selection process, we diligently
seek qualified people who were previously excluded from training and employment
opportunities at Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town by
apartheid laws and racist practice at these institutions. We use the register
of the Health Professions Council to identify suitable equity candidates and
invite them to apply for the positions. We work closely with hospital
management in the process, and also ensure thatâ¦an appropriate succession plan
is being developed in all divisions of the Department."
The Sunday Times reported that, having heard the details of its fabricated
story, "The Democratic Alliance's health spokesperson, Gareth Morgan, said:
'this amounts to playing racial politics with patients' lives'."
Responding to this story, one of the Sunday Times readers wrote: "Perhaps
the ANC will use this for their next re-election propaganda speeches, showing
that they are determined to give black people a chance that they'd even
sacrifice the lives of other people to make sure that the whites don't have the
opportunity to take their jobsâ¦
"They will certainly spare no lives to make sure white people don't get a
job in South Africa, which I've been saying over and over. It's not about
racism or correcting the wrongs of the past anymore, it's about getting white
people the hell out of Africa where they don't belong."
Let us once again return to the difficult matter of the truth, contrary to
the falsehoods peddled by the Sunday Times, which were seemingly readily
accepted by the Honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.
Since last year, 2006, the Western Cape Provincial Health authorities have
appointed 72 specialists, 55 of whom are white and 17 black, to serve in the
public health system. The Sunday Times could have accessed this information
without difficulty, before it published its dangerous falsehoods, as could have
the Honourable Leader of the Official Opposition, before she advanced the
extremely serious allegations she made yesterday.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was not done because the
false story told by the Sunday Times was, for particular partisan reasons, too
good to check and verify. This same mind-set informs the persistent negative
propaganda about our preparations for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, which
strives to use the power of the word, conveyed in print and the airwaves, to
present the actual and positive physical bricks and mortar story, visible to
the naked eye at all the relevant stadiums, as being nothing more than a
conjurer's trick, or a desert mirage, even where there is no desert!
I believe that anyone among us who decides to resort to untruths, thus to
advance their cause, dreaming that this would indeed promote their cause,
should bear in mind the difficulty to which Shakespeare's Hamlet referred when
he spoke of the false comfort of false dreams and said â
Perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us cause.
As I said when I began this response to yesterday's debate on the Budget of
the Presidency, I felt that we were at last beginning to move beyond the
needlessly fractious debates of the past and had come into this House without
our gladiatorial armour.
Despite everything I have said about the unfortunate remarks made by the Hon
Stanley Simmons and the Hon Sandra Botha, I would like to think that I was not
wrong.
Nevertheless I would like to say that there are some in our society who see
it as their task to pull us backwards towards a future defined by the racial
divisions and conflicts of the past from which we are striving to escape, the
conflicts that killed Steven Bantu Biko, and Mapetla Mohapi, and Onkgopotse
Tiro and countless others, sustained by the lies that were told then, which
have as their kith and kin the lies that are told today.
I believe that those of us who serve in this House as the democratically
elected peoples' tribunes, have a responsibility to repudiate all falsehoods
propagated to provoke confrontation among our people, that are invented to
impose on us non-existent differences that are impossible to irreconcilable,
and that are designed to abort the birth of the new, by imprisoning our minds
within an inert world of thought, that has no capacity to break out of an age
of darkness that had required floods of human blood to destroy.
I believe that the Hon Mdlalose, borrowing the voice of a poet, and
regardless of what might be happening on our streets today, was correct to say
to us:
My country
Is for unity
Feel the millions
See their passion
Their hands are joined together
There is hope in their eyes
We shall celebrate
Tomorrow, H.E. President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo
will address a Joint Sitting of Parliament and our nation from this podium.
Whatever our own problems, this should give us an opportunity to salute and
applaud the sister Congolese people for the truly great effort they have made
and are making to pull their country out of unimaginable depths of despair.
Hopefully, we will request him to convey a message to his people that the
people of South Africa, because of their own experience, remain determined to
hold hands with their sisters and brothers in the DRC as they begin their
journey along the difficult road towards transforming the Democratic Republic
of Congo into the progressive African giant it must and will be, towards the
resumption by the Democratic Republic of Congo of its place as a bright star
over the African sky, towards its reassertion of loyalty to the agenda of
African renewal for whose accomplishment the immortal African patriot, Patrice
Lumumba, and esteemed member of our National Order of the Companions of OR
Tambo, sacrificed his life.
Yesterday, the Hon Themba Godi of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of
Azania ended his intervention with the words: "To our Palestinian brothers and
sisters, we humbly counsel: Peace among the Palestinians, War against the
enemy!"
I would like to take this opportunity to repeat after the Hon Themba Godi â
to our Palestinian brothers and sisters, we humbly counsel: peace among the
Palestinians!
As South African patriots, loyal supporters of the noble cause for the
recovery of the national rights of the Palestinian people, the security of the
state of Israel, and a just and stable peace throughout the Middle East, we
cannot accept that the deadly fratricide engulfing occupied Palestine,
especially Gaza, is either inevitable or desirable.
25 years ago, in 1982, addressing our own situation, our respected national
hero, Oliver Tambo, said:
"We haveâ¦striven for seven decades to build one, common nationhood, with one
destiny. Our shared experience of collective sacrifices in the struggle for a
common goal has knit us together as one solid block of liberation. The
comradeship that we have formed in the trenches of freedom, transcending the
barriers that the enemy sought to create, is a guarantee and a precondition for
our victory. But we need still to build on this achievement. All of us -
workers, peasants, students, priests, chiefs, traders, teachers, civil
servants, poets, writers, men, women and youth, black and white - must take our
common destiny in our own hands."
At this hour of great suffering to the people of Palestine, which in essence
is no different from the dismal period in our country when enemies of our
people, with their collaborators among us, instigated and sustained what was
described as black-on-black violence, we would like to convey to our brothers
and sisters in the Fatah and Hamas the same message that Oliver Tambo conveyed
to the then struggling people of South Africa.
Your shared experience of collective sacrifice in the struggle for a common
goal must knit you together as one solid block of liberation. Your comradeship
is a guarantee and a precondition for your victory in the struggle for the
emergence of an independent State of Palestine.
This victory is not possible on the basis of an internal war for hegemony,
fought by the powerless to gain power over the powerless, at great cost to the
masses that have placed their hopes in the hands of the leadership of both
Fatah and Hamas. The incontrovertible truth is that a just peace with Israel is
not possible when Palestine cannot make peace with itself.
Once more we make the heartfelt appeal â those who have ears to hear, let
them hear - above the din of the guns, the bombs, the mortar shells, and the
angry shouts and the dirges of funeral marches in the desolate streets of the
towns and the refugee camps of Gaza and the West Bank!
Let all of us learn from the inspiring African example of the Democratic
Republic of Congo that, as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, "To everything there
is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: â¦A time to kill, And a time
to heal;â¦A time of war, And a time of peace."
Again I would like to thank the Honourable Members for the constructive
suggestions they made during the Budget debate, which we will follow up.
I would also like to join the Hon Minister Pahad and the Deputy President in
thanking all our Members of Parliament, the Ministers and Deputy Ministers, the
patriots in the Presidency who constitute the hard-working staff headed by the
Rev Frank Chikane, everybody in all spheres of government, and everybody else
in our country and abroad who have facilitated and supported the work of the
Presidency, even to the point of lacing their compliments with words of
flattery that feed our vanity.
In particular, taking advantage of the fact I am speaking in this truly
august House of the elected representatives of our people, which all of us must
respect, I would also like to salute and thank the Honourable Deputy President,
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, whose extraordinary energy and dedication to her work
and the welfare of all our people, whose ability to demand and get results from
all of us without sounding like a shrew, whose humility and aversion to
personal aggrandisement in any form, whose humanity and empathy shines through
in the most adverse circumstances, whose capacity to stand up for the species
of her gender, remain feminine, and still exercise effective leadership in what
is still a predominantly masculine world, whose courage rises with danger, as
the Hon Inkosi Buthelezi said when he spoke of Albert Luthuli, whose training
as a conscientious teacher she cannot hide, and whose instinctive comradeship
and ability to listen and admit her own and the mistakes and failures of the
Presidency all serve as a glue that holds all of us together as one team, even
as we see ourselves as superstars.
I do believe that through her actions she has taught and is teaching us an
important lesson about what it means to be a true leader of the people of South
Africa in the challenging conditions of freedom, in which it is very easy
indeed for the liberators to transform themselves into self-serving masters and
mistresses, rather than servants of the people.
Life imposes on all of us, the elected representatives of our people, the
obligation to rely on our consciences, our sense of self-respect and personal
dignity, and our minds, beyond party programmes and beyond short-term personal
interests, to decide what is right and what is wrong. On all this will be based
the realisation of the dream that, as Sandile Dikeni said â we shall
celebrate.
I thank you for your attention.
Issued by: The Presidency
13 June woo7
