Hon Speaker, hon Deputy President, hon Minister and members, when we reflect on the past 15 years, with all the progress that has been made, we agree that we have not lived up to our full potential as a country.
Our governments, in their successes, failed to reach the many goals that they had set for themselves. This was not because there were no resources, as most government departments would each year return funds to the fiscus, but mainly due to incoherent planning and a lack of co-ordination.
Cope welcomes the much anticipated clarity that the national planning Ministry has provided in its Green Paper regarding its mandate and how it will function. In seeking to right the wrongs of the past - as in those of apartheid - it is indeed heartening that government also recognises the injustice of punishing the people of South Africa for mistakes made by recent governments and their institutions, such as the recent electricity price hikes by Eskom and that to rectify these, long-term planning has to be embraced that will guide not only the government, but also the South Africans, in the challenge of rebuilding their country.
The wisdom of defining where one is going and how one will get there can never be overstated. The operative word that the Minister uses in this process is inclusivity. It will require a conscious paradigm shift for all South Africans to move from partisanship to a sense of national consciousness that seeks to design a process that will take all to such a common destiny and a sense of common good.
The Ministry in the Presidency is the custodian of this collective desire of the people of South Africa. The ideas outlined in the Green Paper have to be examined in an open spirit and through transparent processes that in the end will legitimise them in the eyes of all South Africans.
We urge the Minister to ensure that this commitment is not compromised. The people of South Africa must be assured that this process will not be used to stifle innovation and that all efforts will be made to ensure authentic inclusivity and that, indeed, the process will not be used merely as a tool for co-option. I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]