Madam Deputy Speaker, Comrade President, Comrade Deputy President, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and hon members, I feel privileged to participate in this debate.
Comrade President, the timing of your speech was absolutely exciting to us. [Laughter.] [Applause.] This is because we were celebrating, remembering those inspiring words that you took from No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: the Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: Aspects of an African Revolution, that we will be free. The African-American who visited us at Drakenstein Prison the other day reminded us that when big people make statements in public, such as they did, it is because the grassroots, their people, make them do so.
So, when they said in Guinea-Bissau that no fist is big enough, there were some who believed that that was not going to happen. They were as cynical as those who believed that we were not going to be able to make the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup happen. Now that it is happening, we welcome them in saying that we are going to host a successful 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup. [Applause.] Evidence shows that we have promised and that we are delivering systematically. We do so, knowing that that success is in no small measure because of municipalities that are described as dysfunctional. It is perhaps often also human nature only to see what is wrong and ignore the good that is happening right in front of your eyes. [Applause.]
Madam Deputy Speaker and Comrade President, the ANC, which you lead and whose 99 years of history, tradition, and customs, you carry on your shoulders, taught this country democracy. Democracy unfortunately often produces unpopular results, because to appreciate the importance of doing the correct thing, we learn from our mistakes.
The ANC every five years publicly and openly discusses its internal issues, the problems that it confronts in dealing with other problems. Our discussion documents are circulated everywhere, for people to contribute to civil society, including some of the opposition. We take this view during our deliberations at our congresses and announce the results publicly.
How can they then want to claim for themselves criticism and self- criticism? We will not allow them to claim that for themselves. We taught them that. [Applause.] Criticism and self-criticism is our revolutionary practice. [Interjections.]
It may not often be right and good for us, but we do it, because we know the value of criticism and self-criticism. We do it regularly. Our leadership does it every day. This is a crucial point, because if we didn't do that, people wouldn't believe in what we are saying today. The confidence they have in us in every election comes from that.
For 15 years we have spoken openly of government's assessment of its own work that we cannot continue on that trajectory. If we did so, people would be angry with us. This is what government said. Now you can't talk to us about things that we know, that we ourselves do and assess, and so you give the impression that this is strange to us. [Applause.]
I can't resist talking about the privatisation story that Umtwana kaphind'angene invites us to go into. President, he is correct that Einstein said madness is often defined as doing the same thing and expecting different results. Overwhelming evidence shows that whenever you do that, in many instances - and unfortunately this is the truth - things often turn out to be very expensive, if not for the consumers, then for the state itself.
In the council properties that have been given to the private sector to run, residents have had to endure three to four times the rent that they used to pay in the past. This consequently pushes out the poor to the periphery of the cities. That is not what we want to do. Is that what we want to do?
This is not a blanket story. There are different instances of overwhelming evidence, including respectable intellectual views, that suggest otherwise. James K Galbraith, for example, said quite frankly that liberals should learn from the conservatives in the USA that free markets don't exist. Indeed, they are an excuse to give to friends and an excuse to profiteer, and that those who pursue these markets uncritically do so while ignoring available evidence before them. [Interjections.]
Comrade President, your reference to the turnaround strategy, as adopted by Cabinet, is a very important one, as a report to Parliament. Parliament is already engaged in a process, firstly, to hear from the department leading that process about its current state of readiness to implement it. It is also waiting to hear from national departments and Ministers about their views on where they are. Here we must thank the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs and the Minister of Energy for their input.
Speaking to Parliament, reacting to Parliament as an activist Parliament, provided us with key issues that confront those departments in their relationship with municipalities. They provided us with insights that are very useful and that will come into play in the action we are going to take with the turnaround strategy. The turnaround strategy is a framework that will enable us - in other words, national and provincial departments - to act in a manner that reinforces the effectiveness of municipalities.
The solutions to some of the problems we are talking about, including housing, transport and some of those issues, lie elsewhere for their effective resolution. In a sense, the remedy that we seek is not only at municipal level; it is at national, provincial and also at parastatal level.
We heard an excellent presentation from the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DBSA, for example, on how and what they are doing and the resources they are able to command and bring to bear on this. The problem is effective institutional co-ordination, so that we pool our resources much more effectively to bring about improvements in these areas.
This is work in progress; it is an excellent programme. The Minister for Co- operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, with his energetic rushing across the country to interact effectively with municipalities and traditional leaders, has put that turnaround strategy in place after having consulted.
One of the things, of course, that we would interact with him on a regular basis is ...
Ntate Shiceka, baholo ba re lepotlapotla le ja podi, lesisitheho le ja kgomo. [Mr Shiceka, the elders say that when you do things in a rush you are bound to make mistakes, but when you take things slowly you reap the rewards.]
... slowly, slowly does it. In other words, we have to ensure that we give the stakeholders we interact with sufficient time to pool their resources, which includes the constituencies that they can mobilise, so that they are able to effectively assist us in bringing about this turnaround strategy.
One of those stakeholders, Comrade President, is the government that you lead. I am told that there is about R2 billion that various departments owe to municipalities. Now, we don't know for how long that has been the case. Some of the debt might be 60, 90 or 120 days outstanding, and so on.
These are complex programmes relating to the effectiveness of the municipalities' ability to bill this department in time. What we are suggesting is that it would make a huge impact if one of the things we do is to systematically work with departments, and for them to work with municipalities. This means they will be able to release and unlock those resources, so that they help with the cash flow of municipalities.
What is important is our assessment of the nature of the political and administrative problems in municipalities, those we have identified in the past. Your leadership in interacting with municipalities and mayors across the board has laid the foundation for what is emerging, amongst other things, in that framework of the turnaround strategy. Therefore, you have already given practical leadership around those issues.
We believe that with the parliamentary process that now proceeds to the provinces we will have enough of a basis to understand the state of readiness of the municipalities in provinces to shape themselves so that they are able to interact effectively with these issues. We will make a big difference to the nature of what we are going to do.
I want to return, in the last minute that I have, to where I started. If the private sector is given an opportunity - as was the case in the United States of America, where the crisis that we face today started - and if we really just allow them to go ahead and do those things, we wouldn't be where we are today. That it necessitated state intervention to bail them out is an important recognition of the failure on their own, without regulation, to do business properly.
So, in a sense what we are saying, Comrade President, is that the government that you lead must not hesitate in undertaking proactive and very effective relationship building that recognises the weaknesses that exist there, and also often the strength that the public sector has; especially in line with what we call the developmental state, which we would like to create with the features that you identified during your speech.
It must be decisive, interventionist and inclusive in how it deals with these issues, and not be a replication of what others want us to believe.
We are not amazed at the cynicism of others about the kind of leadership you are providing. They cannot but do otherwise; they are opposition, and so often what they say has no basis in reality. [Interjections.] [Applause.] We can't blame their confusion if, in spite of ANC conference policy resolutions that clarify our policies, they still get confused with the robustness of our debate elsewhere.
Our responsibility is to lead all of society in debate. Government has a policy process and so there is no reason for us in the ANC and our allies to claim confusion, because we know exactly where we are going. We understand the processes of decision-making, and we are not afraid of debate, internal and external. I thank you. [Applause.]