His Excellency Mr President, Chairperson of the NCOP, Deputy Chairperson, hon premiers, MECs, hon delegates, ladies and gentlemen, visitors, dames en here [ladies and gentlemen] ...
... sanibonani nonke bavakashi laphaya phezulu. [greetings to all the visitors up there.]
Kgotsong kaofela ba re tjhaketseng kajeno. [Good day to all our visitors who are visiting us today.]
Voorsitter, die tema van vandag, vryelik vertaal, sou lees dat ons saam oplossings moet vind om die doelwit van 'n beter lewensgehalte vir almal te bereik. Dis eintlik 'n skande, Mnr die President, dat die regerende party, u party, meneer, na bykans 16 jaar van demokrasie nog steeds praat van oplossings vind vir doelwitte wat lank reeds aangespreek en bereik moes word. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Chairperson, the theme for today, loosely translated, would read that together we should look for solutions to achieve the goal of a better quality of life for all. Actually it is a shame, Mr President, that after almost 16 years of democracy the ruling party, your party, Mr President, is still talking about finding solutions for goals which should have been addressed and achieved long ago.]
The hon President has painted a gloomy picture, but he has not said it all, Chairperson, because the address to the House today is tabled in a very different climate from that in which he tabled his state of the nation address just a few short months ago.
Today we find ourselves in an environment of rising unemployment, service delivery problems, a spiralling budget deficit and a bitter fight among the elite of the ruling party for control of the economy. [Interjections.]
You can shout, but the fact is that the high hopes of the public, which accompanied the President's move into the Union Buildings, have all but faded. Instead, we have returned to the same brand of politics that characterised the previous ANC administrations: more corruption, more ineptitude, more of just the same. So, if the government wants to achieve the goal of a better quality life for all, then it must start now, by doing three things.
Firstly, the ruinous policy of cadre deployment should be discontinued immediately. Cadre deployment and, as a consequence, the fact that these deployed senior party members are often obstructive to political resolutions, is at the very heart of failed service delivery in South Africa. [Interjections.]
When loyalty to the party elite is the most important criterion for appointment, instead of competence and commitment to service, then it is the South African public who suffer. Cadre deployment is the celebration of the closed "buddy-buddy" society. [Interjections.]
In fact, cadre deployment is a formula for a better life for just a few, and it is that culture that makes it all right to spend R50 million on new cars for Cabinet Ministers, without a single pang of guilt, whilst South Africans suffer through a recession. I am glad to see that the President walked here this morning. Well done, hon President.
Secondly, the executive must start respecting independent state institutions. In recent months we have seen an unprecedented intensification in the assault on the notion of separation of powers. I needn't list every example here, but as long as the executive ploughs through the fragile stilts on which our constitutional democracy rests, we will never be able to properly achieve the goal of a better quality of life for all of our people.
Parliament must be independent from the ruling party, and from the executive. That is why it is so problematic for us, today, to be debating a topic which is merely a merger of the ANC's last two election slogans.
Thirdly, the DA has long championed the belief that services are best delivered when they are closer to the people. That is why we defended strong provinces and local government during the constitutional negotiations and why we continue to do so today.
Coming from Mpumalanga, as I do, I will be the first to recognise that local government, in general, is not working in South Africa. That is not as a result of a broken system; in most cases, it is as a result of bad leadership and corrupt management. The fact is that local governments are the best-placed agents of delivery for the basic services that are so desperately needed by our people.
In conclusion, it was Thomas Jefferson who once wrote that "the purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility". How we spend that purse shows how we really care about the poorest and most vulnerable ones in our nation and should be proof that our ideals are not just empty rhetoric and promises.
This government must stop its prolific waste. It must stop tolerating incompetence. Mr President, it must stop covering up for corruption. It must stop turning a blind eye to nepotism. It must stop its petty, internal squabbling for positions, and it must now start to deliver. South Africa is waiting, Mr President. We want you to start doing all that now. I thank you. [Applause.]