Speaker, comrades and hon members, the APC would like to congratulate you, Comrade President, on your state of the nation address. It has been our long-standing belief that freedom is supposed to help to address the appalling material conditions of our people, thus the fight against poverty, inequality and unemployment must be seen as liberation imperatives.
The APC believes that the role of the state in the economy has been highly minimised and it is long overdue that this is reserved. The APC therefore welcomes the thinking in the new growth plan of giving the state an active role in driving job creation.
We believe there is room and we need to do more to stimulate economic development. After all, the private sector does not have a proud track record of job creation since 1994.
The APC reiterates the call for the immobilisation of labour brokers. These are modern-day slave merchants. We agree with you, Comrade President, that South Africa and Africa, in general, cannot be wholesale exporters of raw materials and importers of finished products. Local beneficiation must be appreciated in the context of job creation and growing the economy.
The APC believes that our challenge in the public sector goes beyond the high vacancy rates to include, crucially, the orientation of our administrative cadres. South Africa needs public servants who have a sense of public duty, a common value system, norms and standards.
The APC would like to suggest that perhaps we need to strengthen the Public Service Commission by making it the point of entry into the Public Service - the recruiter and trainer of departmental officials. There is too much fragmentation, lack of control and central co-ordination, thus there are no common norms and standards within the current setting. Some officials, clearly out of depth in terms of their competence, rotate within government, leaving a trail of destruction.
The APC is on record for praising some of the measures you have taken in the drive to tackle corruption. We believe there should be enhanced co- ordination amongst the various agencies to deepen and advance the fight against corruption. Here we are referring to Sars, the Special Investigation Unit, SIU, National Treasury and Department of Public Service and Administration, DPSA.
The APC would like to suggest that we perhaps need a Special Investigation Unit Act that would make the SIU the primary body to investigate public sector corruption and do forensics. After all, they are a state entity and the cost for their services is less than half of what their counterparts in the private sector charge. Yet, they do thorough and comprehensive work which includes helping their clientele deal with systematic problems. As things stand, the work of the SIU is hindered by a lack of financial means, and having to wait for entities to ask for their intervention.
The challenges of education and health must be tackled head-on with added vigour and urgency. If we fail to do so, we face a future where we will be disaster-prone as a nation. In the Millennium Development Goals, it is in education and health that we are lagging behind.
In the provinces, it is these two departments of health and education that are poorly managed and yet they affect all our people and constitute a very high percentage of the provincial budgets. There is, once again here, a need to act with vigour and haste, firmness and determination.
The politics of regime change represents the crudest form of neo- colonialism. Yesterday it was President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe by the British; today it is President Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast by the French. Who will it be tomorrow?
The genie is out of the bottle. The compradors have been toppled in Lebanon and Egypt, thus the fervent wishes and attempts to have protesters in the streets of Tehran. What happened in Egypt is a revolution. What they are attempting in Iran is a counter-revolution.
What does this all mean to the long-suffering but heroic people of Palestine? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain - their situation cannot be worse than it is at present. We are called upon to deepen our solidarity with the people of Palestine. After all, we are all Palestinians. Thank you. [Applause.]