NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: Madam Deputy Speaker, colleagues, hon members and dear friends, one of the privileges I have is to welcome the members of the National Planning Commission, NPC, a number of whom are with us here this afternoon, seated in the directors- generals', or DGs' box.
This House has just acknowledged the remarkable lifelong contribution of Mama [Mother] Albertina Sisulu, one of the most distinguished former members of this House ever. Her life as mother, wife and comrade was a sterling example to all of us of what it means to live one's beliefs. Ma Sisulu lived life true to the best values of our struggle and of our Constitution. Her selflessness and humility have inspired generations of freedom-loving South Africans. It is a privilege for me today to address this House to honour one so great who has been amongst us. It is in paying tribute that we also seek to advance those issues that our Mother lived and struggled for. So, it is fortuitous that the NPC can offer its first outputs to this House and all the people of South Africa on this day.
Today the NPC is releasing the elements of a vision statement for the kind of country that we must attain by 2030. We are also releasing a diagnostic report, analysing the key challenges that confront our country and people. The elements of the vision and diagnostic report lay the basis for a national conversation about the country that we want by 2030, the key challenges in achieving our vision, and how we fix them collectively as South Africans.
In April 2010 President Zuma appointed 25 members of the NPC from civil society to work with me to develop this plan. These appointments were made against the backdrop of a Green Paper that had been debated in this House.
In inaugurating the NPC in May last year, President Zuma was abundantly clear about his expectations of the commission. He said, and I quote:
The mandate of the commission is to take a broad, cross-cutting, independent and critical view of South Africa, to help define the South Africa we seek to achieve in 20 years' time and to map out a path to achieve those objectives. The commission is expected to put forward solid research, sound evidence and clear recommendations for government.
The commission will also work with broader society to draw on the best expertise, consult the relevant stakeholders and help to shape a consensus on what to do about the key challenges facing us. Government has often taken a sectoral and short-term view that has hampered development. Taking a long-term and independent view will add impetus, focus and coherence to our work.
The establishment of the National Planning Commission is our promise to the people of South Africa that we are building a state that will grow the economy, reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of our citizens.
This mandate given to private citizens is without precedent anywhere in the world. As a rule, governments examine their strengths and weaknesses behind closed doors, and the marginal changes that flow from these processes seep unnoticed into society. In a show of confidence and entirely in the spirit of our great Constitution, the President took this measure in the interests of ensuring a better quality of life for all of our citizens.
This boldness should not go unnoticed. It is not premised on party- political lines. It is an act of commitment to our shared beliefs. It is an act of strength, not weakness. So the steps taken by President Zuma are based on a deep belief that democracy is built with the people, not merely on their behalf. As we say, "Amandla awethu!" ["The strength is ours!"]. It is possible, because we are of a people and of a generation that was able to make the most remarkable strides to deliver a constitutional democracy premised on the highest values.
The task of the NPC starts with this experience and builds on it. It has a mandate against forgetting, and for change. The path that it has chosen has involved undertaking a detailed analysis of the achievements of our still young democracy. It has also identified those issues that we can measure as preventing the fruits of democracy from touching the lives of all. It is an approach that requires that we recognise what we have achieved and what remains to be done. We have called the part of this that focuses on what remains undone, a diagnostic. In the diagnostic report very particular challenges for all of society have been identified.
To address these we will have to draw on all our strengths, capabilities and collective experience of uniting and achieving a common purpose. South Africans are a remarkable people. We have done the following: stared into the abyss of violence and disintegration in the 1980s and decided that dialogue was the only way forward to achieve a peaceful settlement; come together to negotiate a transition from apartheid to democracy in a process that today is still the envy of the world; held our first election on the basis of equal suffrage peacefully; and drafted a Constitution that has given all South Africans dignity, rights and freedoms that seemed unachievable years ago.
Since then we have united as South Africans to achieve so much. The experience of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught us humility and to appreciate the suffering of people with different views and historical experiences of South Africa. Since 1994 we have established institutions of state, integrated racially divided public institutions, and established provincial and local government, and key economic governance agencies. We have a respected and independent judiciary and legislatures tasked with making laws and overseeing the executive.
Our economy was turned around, employment grew, and the health of public finances was stabilised; we achieved unity on the sports field and numerous successes in the international arena. Today we are nonpermanent members of the United Nations, UN, Security Council, partly in recognition of the fact that we have taken our place in the family of nations, striving for peace and security on our continent and in our world.
We have indeed delivered a better life for many people. More people have access to housing, water, electricity, sanitation and schooling than ever before. These are tangible improvements in the lives of millions of South Africans, which will make all of them proud. I can go on for much longer singing the praises of our country, people and government, but my job today is not to be an imbongi [a praise singer]. My task today is to present on behalf of the NPC, represented by its members here, an honest, critical appraisal of what our key objectives are, and to list the key challenges in achieving these objectives.
South Africa needs to recommit to the kind of country we want, a place where we can raise our children in comfort and security, with renewed and ongoing hope, and opportunity. The NPC has been tasked by the President with helping to develop such a vision for our country and a plan to deliver that vision. The document we are releasing today contains the elements of the vision statement that are drawn from the preamble of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which in turn are drawn from the tradition of the Freedom Charter.
This is not yet the vision statement from the NPC. These elements are the key pillars or parameters of what we think should be covered in the vision statement. In launching it today, we invite all South Africans to discuss, criticise, add to and remove from it, and to contribute to a process that will culminate in the Vision 2030 that we will publish in November this year.
Our vision statement contains 10 elements. Firstly, there is a democratic state, rooted in the values of our Constitution, working with all sectors of society to improve the quality of life; secondly, people are united in diversity, recognising the common interest that binds us as a nation, and we have achieved greater equality for women in all aspects of life; thirdly, high-quality education and health care, and adequate provision of housing, water, sanitation, energy and transport give impetus to human development; fourthly, a system of comprehensive social security covers all citizens in need; fifthly, our natural wealth is harnessed sustainably, in a way that protects our environment, using science and modern technology to ensure a growing economy that benefits all; sixthly, people who are able to work have access to jobs, workers' rights are protected, and the workforce is skilled; seventhly, business is afforded an environment to invest and profit, while promoting the common interests of the nation, including decent work; eighthly, an efficient state protects citizens, provides quality services and infrastructure, and gives leadership to national development; ninthly, individuals and communities, at work and at play, embrace mutual respect and human solidarity; and tenthly, government, business and civil society work to build a better Africa and a better world.
These are the elements that we put before our nation and say, "Discuss them! Disagree with us! Amend them! But come back and talk about these issues." That is because we in the NPC fervently believe that these 10 elements are amongst the planks of the kind of society that we want to construct in 2030. We present them to begin that process, so as to involve all citizens in this national dialogue.
Despite all our achievements, our conclusion as the National Planning Commission is that we have not made sufficient progress in ensuring that growth is inclusive, and that the benefits of growth are shared amongst all South Africans. Poverty and inequality remain stubbornly high. Eliminating poverty and reducing inequality are our key strategic objectives, objectives that are an obligation of our Constitution and, we believe, are shared by all South Africans.
Apartheid was designed to achieve social exclusion and marginalisation, and actually did so with stunning success. This has not been adequately reversed. Using R524 per person per month as a benchmark, the percentage of South Africans living in poverty has fallen from about 53% in 1995 to about 48% today. This suggests that we have made some progress, but clearly not sufficient progress, given the length of time since democracy and the pace of economic growth. Too many people live vulnerable and precarious lives in informal settlements without services, seldom in employment, burdened by diseases, and having accumulated too few skills or too little experience to transform their lives.
The level of inequality in our country is amongst the highest in the world. By most measures, this elevated level of inequality inherited in 1994 has not fallen sufficiently. In 1995, the richest 20% of the population earned 72% of national income and the poorest 40% received about 6% of income. Today that picture is almost identical, with the richest 20% receiving 70% of income and the poorest 40% a mere 6%.
There has been a change in the racial composition of the top 20%. In 1995, about half of the top 20% were black. Today it is about two thirds. This is a significant positive development, but it does little to change the pattern of poverty. The poorest South Africans are still black, mostly female, and live in the former homelands. What is deeply concerning is that the income received by 40% of the poorest has shifted from wage income and remittances to social grants. Social grants are a positive development, but mask deep marginalisation and exclusion from the labour market.
Our diagnosis identifies nine key challenges that we face in eliminating poverty and reducing inequality. We raise these issues so that we can come up with solutions to ensure even faster and more inclusive progress going forward.
Our challenges are as follows. Firstly, too few South Africans work; secondly, the quality of school education for most black people is substandard; thirdly, poorly located and inadequate infrastructure limits social inclusion and faster economic growth; fourthly, spatial challenges continue to marginalise the poor; fifthly, South Africa's growth path is highly resource-intensive and hence unsustainable; sixthly, the ailing public health system confronts a massive disease burden; seventhly, the performance of the Public Service is highly uneven; eighthly, corruption undermines state legitimacy and service delivery; and ninthly, South Africa remains a divided society.
These challenges have been identified following an exhaustive process of research, consultation and engagement. If left unattended, they will delay the achievement of our objectives and could even reverse the progress that we have made since 1994. Progress and development are never a given; they must be worked for actively, consciously and continuously.
While all nine of these challenges are important, in the view of the Planning Commission two stand out as being our priorities. These are that too few South Africans work and the quality of education for the poor is substandard. They are the biggest factors in explaining the persistence of high levels of poverty and inequality. Tackling these two challenges should be our highest priority, and if we are to make progress in doing so, it will support our efforts in dealing with the other challenges.
For every 100 adults between the ages of 18 and 60, only 41 work. This ratio is extremely low by international standards. In most countries, in excess of two thirds of adults do some sort of work. The causes of the low level of employment are the product of centuries of social exclusion and decades of racism in education, in where people live, in what jobs people can do, in land ownership, in owning a business and in accumulating assets. The structure of our economy has built into it a bias against employment, and in particular a bias against the advancement of black and unskilled people in the economy. Despite progress since 1994, these biases are still present and still formidable.
Our country inherited a legacy of apartheid education that really stifles our human potential. Despite progress in increasing school enrolment and in achieving a greater degree of equity in the financing of school education, quality for the majority of learners remains poor. Of the 68% of learners who passed matric last year, only 15% received an aggregate mark of above 40%. I want to repeat that. Of the 68% of learners who passed matric last year, only 15% received an aggregate mark of above 40%. So, the question asked should be: What about the rest?
We also know that a significant proportion of young people drop out of school even before reaching matric. Poor performance is predominant in schools that are formerly African and Coloured. These statistics are derived from the Department of Basic Education's own reports. Government is aware of these problems and has put in place several positive initiatives to address these challenges. The day before yesterday, President Zuma, Minister Motshekga and Minister Chabane were in the Eastern Cape dealing with precisely these kinds of issues. Nevertheless, the performance of township and rural schools remains a major blot on the copybook of the entire nation.
Contact time in township schools is almost three hours a day less than in former Model C schools, and absenteeism is high. Improving the quality of teaching and getting better school principals are our biggest challenges, apart from significant backlogs in school infrastructure, which must be attended to.
Allow me to briefly elaborate on the seven other challenges that we have identified. South Africa missed a generation of investment in our infrastructure. The infrastructure we have is often poorly located and designed for a set of economic activities and settlement patterns that have changed since the early 1990s.
While the increase in public spending on infrastructure since 2003 signals a positive shift towards renewing and modernising our infrastructure, this level of investment is still too low to meet the needs of our economy and people. It is of concern that we seem to have an inherent bias against maintaining our infrastructure, which will cost us very dearly in the future. We lack institutional mechanisms to co-ordinate, design, finance, operate and maintain our infrastructure networks.
The spatial effects of apartheid remain with the poorest, still living in remote rural areas far from economic activity today. Even in urban areas the poor live far from city centres. These settlement patterns have probably been made worse since 1994, with many new housing settlements on badly located land. They reinforce social exclusion, raise the cost of living and make it harder for the poor to break out of poverty. Our economic path, settlement patterns and infrastructure all combine to place our country on an unsustainable growth path from a resource utilisation perspective.
We are the 27th largest economy in the world, but produce more carbon dioxide emissions than all but 11 countries in the world. We are a water scarce country, but use our water inefficiently. We have to change these patterns of consumption and learn to use our natural resources more efficiently. We must do this with appropriate consideration for jobs, energy and food prices.
We confront a quadruple burden of HIV and Aids, and other communicable diseases such as tuberculosis; high rates of infant and maternal mortality; high levels of violence; road accident fatalities and injuries; and rising epidemics in noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases. At the same time, we know that our health system is ailing, both because of the disease burden and also because of policy errors that we have made since 1994. Addressing these challenges will require the following: more resources, but also a firm commitment to improving the quality of health care in public institutions; putting the concept of care back into health care; and dealing with longer-term causes of ill health such as our lifestyles, diets, the level of violence, and our bad driving.
For many South Africans, the quality of public services is poor. We confront deeply embedded weaknesses in the Public Service that relate to poor skills, weak management, inadequate oversight and accountability, complex policy and regulatory systems, and significant unevenness in fiscal and human capacity across the country. The National Planning Commission has raised this issue of the capability of the state as central to our diagnosis. Planning for a future that is better, without dealing with the weaknesses in the state, is to set ourselves up for failure.
Levels of corruption are high and negatively affect our ability to deliver services to the poorest South Africans. The reasons are complex but include weak systems, insufficient oversight and accountability, fragmented capacity to tackle corruption, and poor ethical standards, not just in the Public Service, but in society at large.
The last of our diagnostic observations is that, despite good progress in uniting our country, we remain a divided society. Despite improvements in deracialising the top end of the income spectrum, race is still a major dividing line. High levels of inequality fuel these divisions but, more importantly, the lack of progress in creating jobs and improving education limits opportunity and fuels the divisions.
Redress measures are correct, both politically and economically. In several areas we have not made sufficient progress in implementing these measures effectively. The commission is of the view that, while these redress measures are correct, they are more likely to be effective in a context of faster economic growth, rising educational standards and greater social mobility. In the absence of such a dynamic environment, corrective measures appear as win/lose measures, leading to social tension and strife. Social cohesion is a necessary element of a successful nation and is critical to achieving our objectives of reducing poverty and inequality.
As we tackle each of these nine challenges to achieve our objectives, we must do so being mindful of the environment within which we live and operate. Of course, our world is changing. The rise of China, India, Brazil and other emerging markets is reshaping the global economy in complex ways. Similarly, democratisation and economic growth on the African continent provide an exciting backdrop against which to consider our own development plans.
The world is confronting several broad developmental challenges, from climate change and the need to produce more food to water security. Technology has already changed our world and provides a basis to fast-track progress and to include more people in social and economic integration than ever before. Migration, demographic transitions and urbanisation are also likely to be influential in shaping our future. These driving forces of change provide for a country like South Africa both opportunities and risks. A collective understanding of these issues will help us navigate the next two decades.
These are formidable challenges and complex issues that we are raising. They are the product of extensive research and engagement with experts, nongovernmental organisations, NGOs, and civil society. We raise them knowing that we can and must change; we can and must confront these challenges and we shall defeat these obstacles. As a country, we have united to achieve many great things since 1990. We require that same spirit that gave rise to our miracle transition, culminating in our Constitution, to once again unite to achieve these objectives. Success requires the participation and leadership of all South Africans.
On behalf of all the members of the NPC, I would like to thank President Zuma for the boldness and faith that he has shown. We table today elements of a vision statement and an overview of the diagnosis. Five supporting reports will be released on our website today - on human conditions, material conditions, nation-building, the economy and institutions, and governance - and a host of background material that serves as evidence. By tomorrow we will certainly have 150 papers that the commission has worked with on the website. So, if there is any member of this House, any member of society, who suffers from insomnia, we have solved your problems! Work with us and find the solutions!
The diagnosis report is not a plan. It is a basis for collective agreement on the key challenges that confront us as a nation. It is the first step towards developing a plan that is acceptable, credible and implementable. Starting today, over the next three months the commission will actively engage with South Africans on the vision and diagnosis.
To listen to what South Africans think and feel about the future and their solutions to our challenges we will use the following across the country: meetings with communities, experts and stakeholders; email, voicemail, text messages, online jams and social networking; and good old-fashioned written letters. We will do so in all languages in South Africa. It is imperative that our people participate in these processes. [Applause.] Parliament has a clear role to play in facilitating a national dialogue on both the elements of the vision and the issues raised in the diagnostic.
Based on the public engagement and consultation, we will release the vision statement and development plan in November this year for consideration by the country and Cabinet. In 2012 and beyond the commission will produce a select number of detailed reports on key issues stemming from the development plan. Achieving our objectives of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality will require the collective effort and self-belief of all South Africans. Drawing strength and courage from Mama [Mother] Albertina Sisulu, our struggle for a united, prosperous, nonracial, nonsexist and democratic South Africa lives on. Thank you very much for your patience on this. [Applause.]