Hon House Chairperson, South Africa as a democratic state is founded on the provisions of the Freedom Charter, the national democratic revolution, the Constitution and the ANC manifesto. These provisions uphold the values of human rights, human dignity and human freedoms.
I want to reassure the hon Trollip and the hon Ngonyama that the ANC-led government will indeed improve the lives of the people through this Green Paper and this strategic national plan.
In the situation that we are in now, we find that South Africa is grounded on the national strategic objectives as entrenched in Chapter 2 of the Constitution - the Bill of Rights - to render this country nonracial, nonsexist, united and democratic in order to redress the atrocities of the past.
In the past 15 years significant progress has been made by the ANC-led government through the establishment of a stable economic platform that has enabled investment and the provision of basic quality services to our communities to improve their lives. However, through massive public participation processes, research has shown that, in order for South Africa to realise its strategic objectives and its vision, we need a coherent, co- ordinated, long-term plan that will provide clear and consistent policies, and for there to be sustainable monitoring and evaluation tools which will enhance quality implementation of our co-ordinated programmes that are envisaged to provide quality service delivery to communities.
In order to overcome this challenge, the Presidency, led by the Minister in the Presidency: National Planning Commission, tabled a Green Paper on National Strategic Planning in Parliament on 8 September 2009. The Green Paper calls for a vast public participation process in which different stakeholders will take part.
This led to the ad hoc committee processing 56 written submissions to ensure a democratic, open and consultative process. The ad hoc committee found that most submissions agreed on the need for the establishment of a national planning body, as captured in the report, known as the National Planning Commission, for the development of a strategic, national, coherent, long-term plan for South Africa. A national, strategic, long-term plan is critical, as it will clearly define the measurable objectives a country such as South Africa has set for itself. It assesses at a micro level where a country is in relation to its strategic objectives, and describes the policies, programme options and trade-offs required to achieve those measurable objectives in terms of the desired outcome for the country.
As the ad hoc committee, we therefore call on Parliament to support the Green Paper on National Strategic Planning as well as the National Planning Commission in order to promote intergovernmental work, interrelatedness, as opposed to working in silos by the different spheres of government, a co- ordinated approach to matters of national interest, sustainable monitoring and evaluation tools for quality service delivery to our communities. As we all know, working together we can do more. I thank you. [Applause.]