Hon House Chairperson, hon Minister of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, Minister Dr Naledi Pandor, all Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon Chairperson of the committee, hon Mahambehlala, hon members, esteemed Guests, ladies and gentlemen and fellow South Africans.
It is indeed a special pleasure and honour for me to address this house on the occasion of DIRCO Budget Vote.
It is befitting that this debate is taking place in the month of July when we pay homage to an illustrious world icon, the founding father of South African democracy, President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela who laid a firm and solid foundation for human rights and active involvement in multilateral processes.
For us as the ANC this month is made even more sacrosanct and firmly rooted in our hearts because it is also the month when we commemorate the inspiring life and death of the 9th President of the ANC, iNkosi Albert Luthuli.
These two great icons of our people have left us all of us with important lessons of how to serve our people, of the need to put the interests of our people before our own personal interests; to be prepared to sacrifice for the greater good and to refuse to sink into the cesspool of greed, of lust for power and the betrayal of the noble ideals and traditions that many heroes and heroines of our protracted struggle, such as Inkosi Bambatha, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, John Langalibalele Dube, Mahatma Gandhi, Charlotte Maxeke and others had bequeathed to him and to us.
Hon Chair, the late former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan asserted in his book titled Interventions: A Life in War and Peace:
What do we stand for as a global community? What are the responsibilities for our common fate in a world that is simultaneously coming together and coming apart-and how do we exercise those responsibilities? How do we strike the balances between growth and development, equality and opportunity, human rights and human security?
The ANC as a government has over time used progressive internationalism including commitment to multilateralism, peaceful resolutions of conflicts, human rights, social justice and the reform of global political and economic order as prism of its role in international affairs. It has been guided by the need to link the national interest to the achievement of a better Africa and a better world as envisaged by the forbearers of our liberation struggle.
These developmental imperatives are in line with the objectives of our chapter 7 of our lodestar visionary document, National Development Plan,