Chairperson, Minister, comrades and friends, allow me, in the first instance, to congratulate you, Chairperson, on your reappointment as Chairperson of this august House. I am particularly struck by the fact that you served from 1994 onwards in the very committee of the same portfolio in which the Minister and I served. While he was MEC for Local Government in Gauteng, you were in the committee. So I would ask Mr Watson to bear in mind that, when he is very critical, he is critical, no less, of his very Chairperson who had a big hand in shaping the co-operative governance system through the Constitutional Assembly process, and in fact should have taken account, let me add, Mr Watson, of the practical issues that might arise.
But having said that, it is a pleasure to be here, and to say that we live, of course, as many if not all of us know, in an ever-changing, dynamic, globalised world, whose key characteristic is the speed and sweep of events. We have to be constantly on guard, always prepared to change, not just reactively, but, very importantly, proactively. Our principles, values and goals need not change, but our means of fulfilling them may have to change.
As for our basic goals, we are very clear: It is to deepen democracy, advance nation-building, and ensure the development of our people, particularly the poor and the disadvantaged. And if these three major tasks cannot be separated, it is also clear that there cannot be any significant advances in entrenching democracy or nation-building without substantial development of the people and a significant reduction in social and material inequalities.
So the development of our people is fundamental, and though we have made major strides since 1994 in advancing development, we still have a very long way to go, and far too limited a time to get there. We need to accelerate service delivery and development. The next five years are crucial to ensuring this. They are, as many of us say, our do-or-die years, not just for the government, but for Parliament too, not least this House, as you directly represent the people, and have to hold us as the executive to account.
So any failures on our part are failures of yours as well, which is why we stress - the Minister and I, and indeed the department - the importance of Parliament and this House exercising vigorous oversight over us. A strong, effective Parliament is in the interests of the executive too. You will serve to ensure that we deliver on our mandate. Indeed, the President too has made this clear: He has repeatedly stressed the need for an activist Parliament. Our department fully endorses that. Indeed, we too define ourselves as an activist department, and the Minister and myself as an activist Ministry.
Just how activist we will be depends in part on how activist you are, and as the Minister said earlier in this debate, the NCOP has a vital role to play, particularly in respect of the responsibilities of our portfolio. It is interesting, too, that members such as Mr Watson are raising issues here about local government, but here again, we think the NCOP has a major oversight responsibility as well, within the constitutional constraints, in ensuring that municipalities work. It is not just the responsibility, may I add, of the executive. Accelerating service delivery and development will be particularly challenging, as we all know, over the next five years, given the impact of the global economic crisis on our shores. Yes, we are not as hard hit as other countries, but hit we are, and we have to confront this hard reality.
So it is against at least three backgrounds that we have begun, and are taking further, a review of the form of the state that we arrived at. As many of us know, including Mr Watson who was here in 1994, Mr Mahlangu, the Chairperson of the House, and others of you, we shaped this Constitution and the form of the state we derived from that Constitution in the negotiating process, on the basis of give and take, and on the basis of our political negotiations. So what is there in the Constitution is not necessarily objectively in the best interests of a developmental state. What we have there was for that particular context, of early 1994 to 1996, when we were trying to consolidate a consensus around our democracy, and we wanted to ensure that the needs of nation-building were met. So that is the first background.
What we now need to look at, with regard to the state and what the powers and functions of the spheres should be, is what is necessary to accelerate service delivery and development. Therefore the second background against which we are reviewing the powers and functions of the tiers is the recognition that we need to accelerate service delivery and development.
A third issue is the recognition, particularly over the past nine months and more, of the need for us to have a strong developmental state to withstand the economic crisis that we are experiencing all over the world. Only strong developmental states will actually survive, and when we talk of a developmental state, it is not your East Asian tigers, although there are many lessons there; it is our own African and South African form of it, which derives from the active participation of people, as the Minister has said.
We are a department of co-operative governance, not "co-operative government", so we are saying we want a democratic developmental state. We are clear that a system of co-operative governance is enshrined in the Constitution - that system is not going to change. What is going to happen is that we are going to strengthen that system to ensure that it works better.
The imperatives that are underpinning our review are not ideological; they are actually very practical. They are about ensuring that we are able to accelerate service delivery and development. They are to take account of the lessons that we spoke about when we appeared before the relevant committee, about the failures of the past 15 years.
Co-operative governance has not been working the way we wanted it to work. That is what it is about. It is about throwing open a discussion. It is about recognising that one needs to change and adapt as conditions require. But it is very clear that the hoo-ha in the press and the media is rather misplaced. The Minister does not have the power to say "Let's abolish the provinces". Indeed, the President doesn't. And if either of them or both of them did have that power, I doubt very much whether they'd ever do it, because they both recognise the need to consult with the people out there.
This Constitution was shaped through the active participation of our population. Some two million and more people, as we all know, contributed to shaping that final Constitution. It cannot be changed willy-nilly. There will be a discussion, and we are not going to be stuck in the past, we are not going to be fossils; we are going to be creative, imaginative thinkers. All the Minister and the department have done, is throw open a series of questions that all of us, whichever party we come from, need to discuss.
The questions that arise are: Is it best to have two or three spheres to advance our democracy, to build a nation, to accelerate service delivery and development? If so, whether it is two, three, or however many spheres, what should be the relevant powers and functions for the period that we are entering into, in the context of the three or four points that I have set the background against?
What I am saying, in short, and what the Minister is saying, is that there are various considerations here about service delivery and development, whichever party we come from.
It is very instructive that when we appeared before the committee this morning, across political parties, people were asking: Why is this department not intervening in all these difficult challenges that municipalities are having? On the one hand, people are saying this department, this Minister, must intervene. On the other hand, they are saying, don't change the Constitution. How can you have both? In fact, the Minister is limited in what he and the Ministry can do, because of what is there in the Constitution.
I think we can certainly do more than we are currently doing, even within the constraints of the Constitution, but we cannot intervene in the interventionist sense that was presented to us, not least by the DA representatives, when we appeared before the committee. In short, we need to look at this Constitution in the context of the needs of the time. We are saying to our friends that we need a discussion.
There are various options that are possible. One is that we retain all nine provinces, with basically the same powers and functions, but clarify them and fine-tune them. The second option is that we keep the nine provinces, but with a review of the powers and functions that would make them more developmental. A third option could be that we reduce the number of provinces and that can be done in various forms. Either you merge provinces, or you redraw certain boundaries, if it's necessary. Or fourthly - I am just thinking of four options now, there could be many more, but we need a discussion - we could dissolve the provinces, but strengthen local government. Those are all the options. There is going to be a discussion, and this House will play, as the Minister has said, an especially leading role.
We should not say, on the one hand, that the governing party closes the discussion, and, on the other hand, when we open a discussion, say "No, no, you can't have that discussion".
So, friends, I want to echo what the Minister has said: You as the National Council of Provinces will play, as indeed Parliament as a whole will play, a fundamentally important role. And if you look at the developmental state, elements of it are there in our Constitution, in Chapter 7 in particular. They are there in the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act. They are there in the recognition that the private sector alone cannot deliver. For market failure reasons the state needs to intervene. But as much as for market failure reasons, the state needs to intervene to ensure partnerships, to ensure that the private sector is directed in a particular way, and many states do.
I need to wrap up. I thank you very much indeed, and we look forward to the fullest co-operation of the NCOP and wish you well. I thank you. [Applause.]