Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan - RISDP as SADC has named this document - there are certain timelines set to meet certain objectives. For instance, in 2008 we would like to have across all of SADC a free-trade area. That means that our tariff books must be aligned and we must then be able to facilitate trade between all the countries in the region.
The second trend of issues relates to the need to have macroeconomic convergence. We can see from evidence from around the world that countries that have moved within the same balance of payments pack of key macroeconomic indicators tend to be able to grow together. In the RISDP there are convergence criteria for fiscal deficits for balance of payment deficits or surpluses for inflation and so on. If you look at the common monetary area, CMA, or the Southern African Customs Union, which is the CMA plus Botswana, you will see that there is very, very high level of convergence.
Now, part of what we need to do is to bring in countries that are converging. Some may have to be brought in and then have their currency pack. There would be proposals along this side even with countries that are far out of line at the moment. But these aggravate some tough decisions because once you've taken that decision the group of countries that have taken it will need measures to ensure enforcement, like you see in the EU after the Maastricht criteria were set down. When the criteria were there, if a Minister of finance violated the deficit rule they had to go and account to their colleagues. And you need similar rules and you need some supernatural powers to be able to deal with some of these tough, tough issues.