Hon House Chairperson, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers present, hon members, fellow South Africans ...
IsiXhosa:
... molweni.
English:
Hon Wessels just in passing, I am sure your great-grand ancestors are angrily turning in their heads, turning, turning in their graves shame on you! [Laughter.] You can't come here rubbish and criticize the unions, you have written to them and they never listen to you because want to maintain the status
quo, it can't be like that. ACDP your fears are very much premature, just freeze them for now, we are still going to investigate, very carefully and also soberly so. All what you are saying DA, ACDP, and Freedom Plus is the "antism" syndrome, anti-developmental attitude, ant-job creation, anti- township development and village economic transformation and growth. All what you need to do is be shame on yourself.
The National Development Plan, NDP, identifies one of the structural weaknesses of the South African economy as the low level of savings and overreliance on foreign capital to finance our investments. The NDP points out correctly that dependence on external capital flows increases the risk of volatility in the domestic economy. In responding to the challenges of the NDP, which the DA supports by the way, the ANC has presented to the people of South Africa with its manifesto which the overwhelming majority have agreed by voting us back. Which we don't take that for granted; thank very much fellow South Africans.
In our manifestos we raise five issues, I will mention just a few: We will work tirelessly to increase the levels of
investments by R1,2 trillion over the next four years as part of our plan to grow the economy and create jobs. We are within our target. These investments will help diversify the economy in sectors like mining, forestry, manufacturing, telecommunications, transport, energy, water, agro processing consumer goods pharmaceuticals, infrastructure and financial services.
May I just then zoom in on the actual issue that the DA has got a challenge on; that we are saying we are going to investigate the introduction of prescribed assets on financial institutions' funds to unlock resources for investments in social and economic development. Mentioning a few to establish an Infrastructure Fund to finance key economic and infrastructure projects, informed by the ANC manifesto, which is a public document by the way.
The President has merely started a conversation on a public and private sector compact, to spur adequate growth and jobs for the benefit of all South Africans, but guess what the DA has decided to disrupt the momentum towards a national compact. The
important question to ask is; why? We are not going to be intimidated by you and retreat from our manifesto commitments, which were promised to fellow South Africans. The DA has long positioned itself as the shop steward of rent seekers.
Prescribed assets already exist by the way, it had been said before me, and it will continue it will stay, it will stay and it will exist. Fellow South Africans, South African Pension Funds are subject to prescription under Section 28 of the Pension Fund Act of 1956. These regulations are made to guide asset management to be done in a manner that also promotes social economic objectives that benefit the nation but at the same time protect the investors such as pensioners and workers, in the first instance. That limits us to equity of 75% by the way, listed property 25%, offshore assets 30% and hedge funds 10%.
The social compact requires a contribution from everyone. It will also need sacrifices and trade-offs that is why we going to investigate. It is upon the conduct of each and every one of us that the fate of all depends in. If we are to reinvigorate the
implementation of the NDP, we must cast our sights on the broadest of horizons, which the ANC is doing. The class conscious organised workers in our country have said that South African banks and capital markets have been on an investment strike for decades and, as a result, the productive and mass job creating sectors of the economy are in trouble. As we know, once the productive sectors of the economy shrink, real wages fall, leading to a fall in aggregate demand. Consequently, we witness economic stagnation, job losses and chronic shortfalls in the collection of revenue by the State.
If the State is unable to collect revenue on a scale that supports expenditure on provision of the social services, health, education, social grants, prescribed in Section 25 of the Bill of Rights, the consequence will be the crisis of social production we see not only in South Africa, but even the most developed capitalist countries such as the United States of America and Britain.
The DA is seeking to scare workers so that they do not act in their own interest. Allow me to remind the DA what the workers are; a progressive federation have done in the recent past.
IsiZulu:
Ubabhalelile, bakuziba, usunentukuthelo. Hhayi! Banelungelo. Bayazi ukuthi bameleni. Abazolalela wena.
English:
COSATU's intervention in the Edcon deal was in the spirit of social compact and nation building. Here a viable turnaround plan for Edcon was developed by Edcon in conjunction with the lenders, landlords and Unemployment Insurance Fund, UIF, that would both protect the 40 000 direct and 100 O00 indirect jobs but also ensure a turnaround for Edcon and a healthy return on investment to the depositors. That is why even in the Public Investment Corporation, PIC, the labour is going to be part it, moving forward. You will never hear the DA objecting to retirement funds being used to subsidise private capital. What the DA has a problem with, is the use of our savings to develop our economy, particularly our townships and villages.
Corporate lobbyists who operate freely in the US congress have been able to frustrate efforts by progressive law makers to pass legislation on universal health coverage - you will be quiet, you will listen to me at the end of the day - education and infrastructure. Fortunately, the DA in South Africa is making noise doesn't want to listen. The rent seekers, who do not produce anything, but are able to accumulate obscene levels of wealth as speculators in stock markets reject investments in infrastructure, public services an education, growth, and development in the township villages and rural areas. They do this because if our society invests in its own social and economic development, they will lose some of the capital with which they have been gambling.
The phenomenon of financialization of the economy by monopoly bankers coupled with the growing political power of investment fund managers, leads society to a form of Reverse Robin Hood affair moving money from the workers and the poor to the wealthy and well fed. Put differently, it is case of moving investment funds from the factory to the casino. As we know the logic of gambling, there are many losers and few winners. Who are the
losers, the majority of the fellow South Africans, the workers and the poor?
As the previous ANC speakers have said, the growth of the financial sector from number four in 1994 to the second largest sector in our economy has been accompanied by widening inequality and deepening poverty. One of the successes of Bantu education by your fore fathers was its ability to convince many of us that as black person, black people, black race we do not have to know what is done with our retirement savings, now we know. I wonder how many of us...Thank you House Chair. Just keep your motion! [Appluase.]