Dear Speaker, Mr President, dreams do come true.
Tonight please dream about Apla cadres who are still languishing in South African jails and when you wake up tomorrow, please release them. They fought for the land. They fought for the for the noble course on earth which is the liberation of mankind
Mr President, what you missed in your entire speech last week is that the inequality, poverty and unemployment cannot be tackled without tackling the land question first. That is why the Pan Africanist Congress, PAC, always said land first and the rest shall follow.
Note that you narrowly define land because you want to appease our oppressors and international capital. And by doing so, you are hurting the majority of the dispossessed Africans. To you land means mainly a place for building residence
IsiXhosa:
Sifuna ulwandle; sifuna umoya; sifuna izinto eziphantsi kolwandle; sifuna izombiwa; sifuna isibhakabhaka; kwaye sifuna neenyoka, zezethu kuba zezase- Afrika. [Kwahlekwa.]
English:
Mr President, as the PAC, we want that productive land to be controlled by the collective masses of our people and we want the value created by labour in that land to serve the interest of the African people. As the PAC, we want the African people to control their labour power which creates value. This is how you solve problems related to inequality, unemployment, poverty, racism and dependence on foreign capital. This is just economics 101, Mr President.
You also say you will create 2 million jobs in the next 10 years. This is the same story your predecessors have been saying. As the PAC, we advice you to wake up from your dreams and attend to realities that our people are faced with in the rural areas of Centane, Xholobeni, Alexandra, Vuwani and other townships - and rural where the African majority stay
Land restoration and repossession cannot be a dream deferred.
IsiXhosa:
Ootishala bayafa Mongameli ezikolweni, nceda vuka Mongameli. Isizwe silambile.
English:
Students want free education and the youth is unemployed. Youth is unemployed.
IsiXhosa:
Thina silulutsha lwase-Afrika asinayo enye indawo yokuya Mongameli.
English:
We are Africans. We are born in Africa.
IsiXhosa:
Asinayo enye indawo yokubalekela.
English:
If we do not get jobs here, we cannot go anywhere. Let those who want to go leave.
IsiXhosa:
Vuka Mongameli. Enkosi. [Time expired.]
CLLR T NKADIMENG: Hon Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, the hon Chairperson of the NCOP, Your Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa, His Excellency Deputy President David Mabuza, hon members and fellow South Africans, the Lion of the East, Gert Sibande, when he was asked how did he dismantled the massive farming value chain in the Eastern Transvaal which was traditionally known for butchering and murdering black people to make them manure in the Eastern Transvaal, he said:
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
It is my honour and a humbling privilege ... [Applause.] ... to address this august House leadership on behalf of the leadership of the organised local government. The SA Local Government Association, Salga, stands proud to associate with leaders of the Sixth National Assembly, many of them who have been drawn from the local government sphere to serve the people of South Africa today.
Hon Speaker, allow me to refer to the NCOP Chairperson today as a former President of Salga who once stood in the position that I am standing in today, on the same vein, I would have failed in my duty, on behalf of the sphere of local government, not to highlight the appointment of one of our own, my predecessor, the President of Salga and currently the President of United Cities and Local Government President Parks Tau, who has now been
appointed ... [Applause.] ... as the Deputy Minister of Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. As a result of his dedication and commitment towards influencing the international agenda, hon Tau has not only placed South African municipalities on the global map but has extended our local government into the world. We sincerely hope that his new responsibilities will allow him to enrich and continue to transform local government not only in South Africa but in the world.
We must also recognise the appointment of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the first female Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. We equally wish her well in her duties. [Applause.] Mama, local government is known for its complexities and challenges, but I was taught through our Sotho adage that ...
Sepedi:
... mmago ngwana o swara thipa ka bogaleng.
English:
No matter how hard the situation the circumstances, women always are triumphant. [Applause.] Remarkable progress have been made, hon President, over the past 25 years of our democracy in meeting the basic needs of our people to reduce poverty, to transform our devastated economy and also to serve the interests of our people.
This is clearly marked by our Statistics SA Non Financial Census of Municipalities which confirms that water access to our communities has increased to 72% when it was at 19% prior democratic dispensation, electricity is at 93% and sanitation is at 54%. Rural roads - 205 local municipalities just in the past financial year have build no less than 2 050 kilometres. On average, they build 10,3 kilometres per financial year. Metros, on their own build a minimum of 56 kilometres per financial year. In total, it's 448 kilometres. Notwithstanding the challenges, it is not all doom and gloom in local government. You were all born in a municipality somewhere. You grew up in a municipality somewhere. You continue to live in a municipality somewhere. Tonight, you are going to sleep in a municipality somewhere. [Applause.]
We also agree with you hon President that our country is confronted, of course, with severe challenges at local government. We are faced with daily realities of our rapid flow of people from rural areas into urban centres. These are one of the challenges which you have spoken about in terms of the inefficient spatial patterns that we need to deal with which have been left for centuries by the spirit of colonialism.
While we have made remarkable progress in building over three million houses for our people, we have unwittingly perpetuated the legacy of the Native Land Act and subsequent Group Areas Act by locating most of these people far away from the centres of opportunities.
No municipality or planner has desirably planned this; it is because of the distorted land market. It is in this context that Salga welcomes the commitment to provide well local land for housing and for the benefit of our business.
In conceptualising this spatial form and in crafting the actions need to be taken to achieve a future better spatial form, we are
reminded that there are many dimensions which include the spatial development. These dimensions include access to land which must be affordable, safe integrated commuter transport and low income households which are going to be covered, access to smart technology, community services, facilities as well as other resources.
Through these spatial interventions, special economic zones, developing of Agriparks, reviving of the local industrial parks, business centres, township economies, digital hubs and village enterprises, we will bring more development into our local areas. We will focus on all the small and medium enterprises in our municipalities, towns and rural areas to create market places where our people could trade.
Our approach in the past few years through the adoption of the Integrated Urban Development Framework in 2015 focuses on the activating of all the society approach to implement the urban transformation that we all desire to have.
So, cross-cutting goals of urban safety, resilience and strengthening urban-rural linkages are critical. In particular, linkages and interdependencies between urban and rural spaces to ensure the migration are minimised.
As Salga, we remain hon President committed in partnership with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to champion and encourage all those who use electricity and other municipal services to pay for them. We welcome this move and we ensured that though our rights were accepted by electricity supplier, Eskom, all of a suddenly we owed them but we will pay them.
With regard to our District-Based Approach - based on our 1999 White Paper on Local Government says, we would want to develop district municipalities to ensure that we are dependent on a localise area that is able to bring its own fiscus and revenue to develop its people. This is confirmed by a number of so many dysfunctional municipalities in the country which is reported to be district approach versus the local district approach.
You have spoken on an ethical leadership. Our view hon President is that while our problems are interlinked and interdependent, challenges faced by South Africa and this Sixth Administration to respond to cannot be underestimated. But for us as local government to succeed in this district approach and many others, we need to realise that human capital is widely recognised as a primary source of excellence in any organisation, business or institution.
We are proposing to this House this afternoon implementation of mandatory skills assessment mechanism at local government sector and can no longer be postponed. We need to professionalise the sector ... [Applause.] ... in the same way that we have professionalise doctors, nurses, lawyers etc. We need to professionalise the sector, regulated it to ensure that whoever is appointed in a management position has met stringent requirements desired as of a manager in a local municipality. [Applause.]
Currently, a senior manager can transgress in one municipality and be appointed in another local municipality. Hon Nhanha, if I
am wrongly pronouncing your surname, you will pardon me. The manager you proudly say was appointed in the Nelson Mandela Bay was fired in a second local municipality in Limpopo and he currently transgressed where he was appointed. He is currently on suspension. We need to find answers and not pinpoint.
As I conclude, hon Speaker, I say we support all the desires of the President that were taken out. We are alive and cognisant that this road is long. It needs desired and persistence so that we could be able to realise what is read as, government is about the people and it is about putting its citizens first. That's what hon Mandela said. I thank you. [Applause.]