Minister Lindiwe Zulu: Black Business Chamber’s Grassroots Business Accelerator Awards

Speech by the Minister of Small Business Development, Ms Lindiwe Zulu, At the Black Business Chamber’s Grassroots Business Accelerator Awards, Cape Town

I am honoured and humbled to be standing here this evening to pay tribute to the recipients of the Grassroots Business Accelerator Awards. These are hard-working men and women who consciously chose to take the initiative and take their destinies into their own hands.

One of the most striking things about South Africans that continues to confound critic and admirer alike, continues to be our incredible capacity to rise everyday to defeat despair and steadfastly refuse to be passive participants in the process of rebuilding our country.

This is the most practical and visible response to the clarion call our government is making for all of us to play their part in the ongoing reconstruction and development of  our  country.  In the true spirit  of vukúzenzele, the enterpreneurs we are recognizing tonight did not ask: “What will our government do for us?” Instead, they are posing the most challenging question: “What can we do create a better life for ourselves and our fellow patriots?” So tonight, we are gathered here to say “thank you” to them for responding to this question in the most direct manner and practical manner.

Together, we will succeed to turn the tide against poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Our freedom and democracy has liberated South Africans from a culture of passive submission to a culture of v’ukuzenzele and to make a complete and decisive break with our ugly past. 1994 gave our people a passport to take control of their lives and responsibility for their destiny. The heroes and heroines we are recognizing tonight are the embodiment of vukuzenzele.

Tonight, we celebrate the work of our fellow citizens who seized the opportunities brought by our democracy and freedom to create a better life for themselves and their fellow citizens. They have refused to be placed into pigeon-holes. They have refused to be passive recipients of government services. They have refused to be passive spectators in the ongoing reconstruction and development of our country. Instead, they consciously chose to dirty their hands, and not pontificate from the pulpit; to contribute rather to complain and criticize from the sidelines; to make mistakes and rise up again in the course of creating a better life for themselves and their fellow citizens.

Indeed, we are here today to reward and acknowledge excellence in service of our communities. They have become the crystallization and personification of Vuk’uzenzele. By putting their collective shoulder to the wheel, they have contributed immensely towards improving the lives of our people for the better.

Indeed, government alone cannot overcome the challenges of poverty eradication and job creation. It is for this reason that our clarion call is for a “people’s contract” so that our collective wisdom and muscle can be brought to bear on all the scourges that make it difficult for many of our countrymen and women to taste the fruits of our liberation.

Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have come a long way in less than fifteen years of democratic rule. Acting together, we have made decisive advances over the last thirteen years and our goal of building a South Africa that truly belongs to all is now firmly within reach. We continue to register good progress in our effort to broaden access to basic services.

We are succeeding in positioning our economy on a growth trajectory that will allow us to respond more appropriately to our developmental needs. We have recorded many a milestones along this long and difficult journey. We were only able to achieve this impressive record of success because of the commitment of ordinary men and women of our province, some of whom we are honouring tonight.

Government is confident that together, hand by hand, we will be able to eradicate the legacy of many years of apartheid and colonialism. Collectively, we will succeed in rebuilding our once battered society. Let us all remain informed by our resolve never to abandon our vigilance.

The road ahead is long and hard. The huge legacy we seek to eradicate will not surrender with sheepish timidity. It demands that all of us must put our collective wheel to the shoulder. To relax our collective efforts now will be a mistake. To let loose now would be to run the risk of aborting the sacred mission of building a better society.

We are proud of the achievers of today and are moved by their selflessness and dedication to serving our people. Wherever we are, in churches, non-governmental organizations, private sector or  civil service, we must continue to intensify our offensive on poverty and underdevelopment in our province.

On this special day, we want to salute these special individuals, organisations and corporate citizens who continue to occupy the front trenches in the struggle to ensure that all our people can say with confidence that our country belongs to them too.

I am certain that the late Aggrey Klaaste will agree with me as I challenge all South Africans who consider themselves patriots to follow the example of these patriots and their selfless service to their people.

Awards ceremony of the winners of the Grassroots Business Accelerator competion