Independent Democrats Response to the State of the Nation Address – Bridging the Divides by Patricia de Lille
2006-02-07. Honourable President, South Africans may indeed be optimistic about the future, but do we all have the same vision as to what that future should be. The Independent Democrats vision is one where the destructive divides of our society are bridged.
We will only succeed as a nation if
we recognize the problems that are faced by all our communities and are
prepared to make the necessary compromises needed to address them. The
problems of the poor are the problems of the rich and the challenge of
building social cohesion rests on all of our shoulders. The task at
hand cannot be restricted to the government alone, and ID would like to
see a hand being extended to our citizens, making them partners in our
development. Citizens are not just consumers but active participants in
our economy and we need to encourage them to play this role.
Unfortunately the divides in our society often lead to the poor having to compete over scarce resources. This also leads to unscrupulous political parties exploiting these divides for short term political gain. We have graphically seen this in the campaigns that some parties have chosen to run in this city for instance.
The theme for this year’s address was equality, which seems ironic given that South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. Inequality threatens all of our achievements and makes the job of uniting our country an impossible task. As many economic models show, reducing inequality in the country will in fact provide a more sustainable economic base and allow us to achieve that elusive six percent growth rate. The Independent Democrats is happy to see the term shared included in the Accelerated and Shared Growth initiative. We hope that this finally leads to benefits going to all our people. The infrastructure is clearly not in place for benefits to trickle down to the poor. What we need now, is for those benefits to bubble up.
Many of the poorest communities live in the rural areas, and ID has constantly been arguing for a comprehensive rural development strategy that will improve their actual livelihoods. The government must partner with these communities and address their real needs for basic services and training in subsistence plus agriculture. It is also depressing to still see children in rural areas being educated in broken mud structures without any form of electricity, water or sanitation. This is despite your promise two years ago that no child would have to suffer that indignity. Honourable President, if we do not address the educational divide in this country we will inherit a divided future.
The Independent Democrats has always supported the concept of a Developmental State. Only a fool can’t see that the state needs to play an active role in addressing the huge socio-economic challenges that confront us. This developmental state also needs to become a partner to business and put the necessary investments into key growth areas. ID welcomes the agreement that has been reached with China over the protection of our clothing and textile industry. Honourable President is this not a little bit too late though. We have already seen the closure of many factories around the country and over a quarter of a million people being put out of work due to the government removing protection too quickly. This is not the only industry in which the government has destroyed the livelihoods of people through its actions. Many poor fishing communities are currently been torn apart by unjust policies that deny fisherpeople their right to practice a centuries old tradition. To them the age of hope has become the age of despair.
Although we need a strong developmental state our current public service is weak. Capacity is often quoted as the excuse. You are the government and you have had 11 years to build capacity. Your failure to do so is holding the entire country back. By putting in political appointments you have undermined the public service and made it a less attractive place for people to work. The public service needs to become a prestigious institution where skilled people compete to find work and vacancies are non-existent.
Corruption also plays a huge role in preventing the public service from delivering on promises. There are a few corrupt people in government who are making a mockery of our attempts to deliver quality services. ID wants to help you, Honourable President, in rooting out this corruption so we can all be better served.
The ID welcomes the JIPSA initiative but we hope that it is able to succeed where the National Skills Authority has not. Honourable President we support your stand against budget roll-overs, but we would like to see strong action taken against those Ministers who are unable to spend their budgets. In a country which has such enormous socio-economic backlogs it is a crime for us not to be able to spend our budgets. ID hopes for the day in which government departments are able to spend their money as efficiently as SARS is able to collect it.
Honourable President when you talk of the age of hope you talk about our future. Those who will inherit the future are our children, but it is their present reality we have to worry about. Seven out of ten children in South Africa live in poverty and those that live in poverty are four times more likely to die. Honourable President, 1 out of 10 children in South Africa do not live beyond the age of five. This is a shocking statistic we should all be ashamed of, and it has gotten worse over the last 11 years. Hope and the promise of sanitation will not prevent these children from dying of dhyeria. Hope and the promise of clean water will not prevent these children dying of gastroenteritis. What these children really need is delivery of basic services now. Your age of hope will be nothing but a pipe dream unless we put the needs of children first in this country.
HIV/AIDS is a major contributing factor to child mortality in South Africa. It is one thing to state that we have one of the largest ARV roll-out programmes in the world, but we also have the largest number of HIV positive people. Our programme is currently only reaching 5 percent of the actual need in the country. Almost three million South Africans are in stage three and four of the disease and need these life saving drugs now. It is also unclear what the criteria are for people in need gaining access to these life-saving drugs. ID had to march on the Department of Health in Pongola to get the regional hospital to actually administer ARV’s in an area with the highest HIV prevalence in the country. This is not the time for us to be patting ourselves on the back, nor is it the time to be creating political divisions over this issue. We need to give South Africans hope, both those who are positive and those who are still too scared to go for the test. Only in this way will we be able to confront one of our greatest challenges.
In conclusion, the Independent Democrats wants to warn the executive not to interfere with the independence of the judiciary. The transformation that is desperately needed in the judiciary is for justice to be made accessible to the poor.
I thank you.
Unfortunately the divides in our society often lead to the poor having to compete over scarce resources. This also leads to unscrupulous political parties exploiting these divides for short term political gain. We have graphically seen this in the campaigns that some parties have chosen to run in this city for instance.
The theme for this year’s address was equality, which seems ironic given that South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. Inequality threatens all of our achievements and makes the job of uniting our country an impossible task. As many economic models show, reducing inequality in the country will in fact provide a more sustainable economic base and allow us to achieve that elusive six percent growth rate. The Independent Democrats is happy to see the term shared included in the Accelerated and Shared Growth initiative. We hope that this finally leads to benefits going to all our people. The infrastructure is clearly not in place for benefits to trickle down to the poor. What we need now, is for those benefits to bubble up.
Many of the poorest communities live in the rural areas, and ID has constantly been arguing for a comprehensive rural development strategy that will improve their actual livelihoods. The government must partner with these communities and address their real needs for basic services and training in subsistence plus agriculture. It is also depressing to still see children in rural areas being educated in broken mud structures without any form of electricity, water or sanitation. This is despite your promise two years ago that no child would have to suffer that indignity. Honourable President, if we do not address the educational divide in this country we will inherit a divided future.
The Independent Democrats has always supported the concept of a Developmental State. Only a fool can’t see that the state needs to play an active role in addressing the huge socio-economic challenges that confront us. This developmental state also needs to become a partner to business and put the necessary investments into key growth areas. ID welcomes the agreement that has been reached with China over the protection of our clothing and textile industry. Honourable President is this not a little bit too late though. We have already seen the closure of many factories around the country and over a quarter of a million people being put out of work due to the government removing protection too quickly. This is not the only industry in which the government has destroyed the livelihoods of people through its actions. Many poor fishing communities are currently been torn apart by unjust policies that deny fisherpeople their right to practice a centuries old tradition. To them the age of hope has become the age of despair.
Although we need a strong developmental state our current public service is weak. Capacity is often quoted as the excuse. You are the government and you have had 11 years to build capacity. Your failure to do so is holding the entire country back. By putting in political appointments you have undermined the public service and made it a less attractive place for people to work. The public service needs to become a prestigious institution where skilled people compete to find work and vacancies are non-existent.
Corruption also plays a huge role in preventing the public service from delivering on promises. There are a few corrupt people in government who are making a mockery of our attempts to deliver quality services. ID wants to help you, Honourable President, in rooting out this corruption so we can all be better served.
The ID welcomes the JIPSA initiative but we hope that it is able to succeed where the National Skills Authority has not. Honourable President we support your stand against budget roll-overs, but we would like to see strong action taken against those Ministers who are unable to spend their budgets. In a country which has such enormous socio-economic backlogs it is a crime for us not to be able to spend our budgets. ID hopes for the day in which government departments are able to spend their money as efficiently as SARS is able to collect it.
Honourable President when you talk of the age of hope you talk about our future. Those who will inherit the future are our children, but it is their present reality we have to worry about. Seven out of ten children in South Africa live in poverty and those that live in poverty are four times more likely to die. Honourable President, 1 out of 10 children in South Africa do not live beyond the age of five. This is a shocking statistic we should all be ashamed of, and it has gotten worse over the last 11 years. Hope and the promise of sanitation will not prevent these children from dying of dhyeria. Hope and the promise of clean water will not prevent these children dying of gastroenteritis. What these children really need is delivery of basic services now. Your age of hope will be nothing but a pipe dream unless we put the needs of children first in this country.
HIV/AIDS is a major contributing factor to child mortality in South Africa. It is one thing to state that we have one of the largest ARV roll-out programmes in the world, but we also have the largest number of HIV positive people. Our programme is currently only reaching 5 percent of the actual need in the country. Almost three million South Africans are in stage three and four of the disease and need these life saving drugs now. It is also unclear what the criteria are for people in need gaining access to these life-saving drugs. ID had to march on the Department of Health in Pongola to get the regional hospital to actually administer ARV’s in an area with the highest HIV prevalence in the country. This is not the time for us to be patting ourselves on the back, nor is it the time to be creating political divisions over this issue. We need to give South Africans hope, both those who are positive and those who are still too scared to go for the test. Only in this way will we be able to confront one of our greatest challenges.
In conclusion, the Independent Democrats wants to warn the executive not to interfere with the independence of the judiciary. The transformation that is desperately needed in the judiciary is for justice to be made accessible to the poor.
I thank you.
