NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION: House Chairperson, hon members, let me start by expressing appreciation to those who participated in the work of the ad hoc committee. We understand that it was akin to working in a "pressure-cooker", but we are very appreciative of the quality of the report prepared.
And, of course, we were there to witness the detail of the debate as it proceeded. In saying that, we clearly want to express our appreciation to the hon Mufamadi who chaired the committee, amongst other responsibilities he had in the context of Parliament. We also want to express our appreciation to all the parties that supported this.
Now it does appear that between all of that which happened in the committee and the report here, something happened. Something happened. I'm trying to understand, hon Trollip. "Ndisoyikiswa nguGodongwana." [I'm threatened by Godongwana.] Why have you created this straw man? That is what we have to deal with.
That brings us to the scope of this discussion: Why the straw man? What is the origin? You see, yesterday I sat in my seat and I listened to the hon Trollip. He was exceedingly erudite on the successes of the Constitutional Court in terms of its history and certainly under the tenure of former Chief Justice Pius Langa.
What he was articulating yesterday is that South Africa's Constitution and the rights of people are protected by the strength of the Constitutional Court. Today, he says "abandon hope". We don't have a Constitution. We don't have a Constitutional Court. We are as unprotected as the United States was in 1835 when De Tocqueville wrote that piece - in trying to understand what had happened between the French Revolution and the time that he wrote that piece.
If you treat history in that way, sir, you will be trying to create what the hon Narend Singh said - pretending that there is a snake that isn't actually there. [Applause.] That is part of the difficulty about the way in which the DA has constructed the debate to argue against the importance of planning.
Firstly, we must go back to the Constitution. The Green Paper starts with the Constitution. It starts with the preamble to the Constitution. Part of what the preamble to the Constitution entreats us to do is to deal with the ravages of the past. It requires of us to build a South Africa that is different from that which apartheid created. It asks of us, it compels us, the preamble creates a mandatory circumstance that requires of us to deal with the inequality and poverty that arose from apartheid. The question that we therefore have to answer in the context of planning is: How do you discharge that? That is the mandate. That mandate is in the preamble. Chapter 3 talks about co-operative governance and asks of us to recognise the distinctiveness, the interdependence and the interrelatedness of the spheres of government. That is a check and balance. But it doesn't in any way detract from the mandate given to those of us who make laws in this House, to advance a South Africa that is premised on the recognition of the wrongs of the past.
So, as we deal with those issues, I think we then need to look at how government needs to operate. Apart from the Constitutional Court, there's Parliament. One of the things I've said - I said it in the committee and I'll say it again - is that the way in which we can get planning to work is to take out narrow sectional interests. The way in which the National Planning Commission is constructed is a web of narrow sectional interests. Also, it is necessary to plan beyond the term of a single government.
By planning beyond the term of a single government, we are saying to opposition parties, "for heaven's sake, have some ambition". Have some ambition. You are not going to remain in opposition unless you think yourselves in opposition for life, and then we must wait until Jesus comes. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
But if you are going to change these issues, then it is important that you understand that the planning deals with the shadow of history. Now, you see, there is this wonderful quote from Galbraith. He says, "In the discourse inherited from the age of Reagan, syphilis, leprosy and planning more or less rank together: they are all no longer frightening, slightly ridiculous, curable afflictions from another time."
What Joseph Schumpeter thought drearily inevitable, what Friedrich von Hayek denounces as the greatest threat to freedom, a later generation has reduced to a sound bite. He says then that, after all, "the Soviet economy was planned" and it has collapsed. "Does anything more need to be said?" Instinctively, the epithet "central" is affixed to the word "planning" in order to discredit it.
No economic topic except price control is more easily pushed off the table. No declaration comes more easily than one that favours the market and opposes planning - that needs to change.
If there is anybody in this House who believes that right now the market will resolve the problems of inequality, of the absence of jobs, of the absence of adequate health care, of the absence of access to adequate public services, raise your hand because you are in the wrong place. But if you understand that you are here because you have taken an oath that ensures that we treasure the Constitution, then to suggest that the market will resolve these problems places you outside of the oath that you took right here before this podium. That is the issue we have to take forward. It's nothing else; it is that.
The issue is about understanding that we have to then deal with the shadow of history, and, in dealing with the shadow of history, we must understand that the state has to be an activist one. It has to be developmental. It has to do that especially right now in the world. In fact, the two walls are very important. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall collapsed; on 15 October 2008 there was the almost collapse of Wall Street - the two walls.
But the collapse of Wall Street put to bed the notion of market fundamentalism. It brings us back to what the Constitution requires of us, and that is the discussion that we need in the context of planning.
This then brings us to the issue of the developmental state. This is what Buck Gee suggests. Let us see what the developmental state means in the era of the global spread of capitalism. It is a state that puts economic development as a top priority of government policy and is able to design effective instruments to promote such a goal.
The instruments would include the forging of new formal institutions - the National Planning Commission - the weaving of formal and informal networks of collaboration among the citizens and the officials, and the utilisation of new opportunities for trade and profitable production. Whether the state governs the market or exploits new opportunities thrown up by the market depends on particular historic conjunctures.
That is what we have to take account of. Our mandate is to improve the quality of life of all South Africans with a focus on the poorest. Our mandate is to deal with the shadow of history that has denied access to so many people in our country. Our mandate, therefore, must understand that poverty is passed on from one generation to the next. And, if we want to deal with it, then we have to do a lot better than what we have done in the past 15 years.
I commend the Green Paper to this House, and ask for your support. We will deal with the issues in the manner we committed ourselves to in the ad hoc committee: that we would take up all of the issues. We have the report. There are many formulations that are rather awkward in the document. We will deal with those issues. But we ask that this House supports us as we proceed. The object is to be measured in the lives of the poorest South Africans. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.