Madam Chair, comrades and friends, as ever, the old gives way to the new. And so, on 22 April the Department of Provincial and Local Government died, and on 11 May the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs was born. This is not just a name change. It is a new department with a new, expanded mandate and new ways of doing things, with a new determination and a new, activistic leadership.
But we must be clear. Even old departments are new! We all have to be new. We have no choice. We are under enormous pressure. Yes, we got 65,9% of the vote. But no, the people's patience is certainly not endless. The next five years are do-or-die years. Either we drastically improve on service delivery and development or we begin to sink. It's as simple as that. As a department, and indeed as a government, we have made our choice. We are determined to deliver. And we want you, as Parliament, to hold us to account. And even more, we want the people out there to hold both you and us to account.
But holding us to account is not enough. We want people actively to engage with us in accelerating service delivery and development. We are clear: The state alone cannot deliver. People have to be actively involved in shaping their own lives. They must do so in many ways, but crucially, this must be done through working with government. Of course, people will create their own space for this. But as a department, we are also fundamentally obliged to create the space for this. Hence it is that we are the "Department of Co- operative Governance", not "Government".
The people, we believe, must be at the centre of development, now more than ever before. For as we all know, the world is going through its most severe economic crisis in some 80 years, and our country is also being hit by this crisis, not as hard as other countries are, but we are - and we have to confront this hard reality.
It is against the background of the economic challenges we face, as part of the global economic crisis, and the need to drastically improve service delivery and development, that the department's new focus on strengthening co-operative governance as part of building a developmental state must be understood.
We shaped, through massive struggles and adroit negotiations, a system of co-operative governance. This system is enshrined in the Constitution. We do not intend to change the system fundamentally. We want to strengthen the system to ensure that it serves our developmental needs more effectively. So there isn't an ideological imperative that underpins our review of the powers and functions of the three spheres of government, but a practical one based on experiences of the past 15 years.
Co-operative governance, as we know it, is not working well, as the Minister indicated in his input. We want to ensure that there is far better co-ordination and cohesion within and between the spheres of government, and also between government and the people. We need a more developmental co- operative governance system. We are very clear that as a national government we cannot just fold our arms and say, "Ah, well, local government is not delivering. What can we do about it? They are an independent sphere." Yes, they are independent, but they are interrelated with the national and provincial spheres.
What we are effectively saying, is that we are not fundamentally deviating from the co-operative governance system; we are tinkering with the powers and functions to ensure a more developmental orientation for the state as a whole. Not least in that, is the participation of the people. There will be no review of the powers and functions without the active engagement of the people of our country, as indeed occurred when we shaped the current configuration of powers and functions when some two million or more people were actually involved.
Listening to the DA, one is struck by the contradiction, on the one hand, between the bleating about the "crisis", as it is called, in local government, about the failures in the system, and on the other hand, their objections when we say that we want to review section 100 or section 139 of the Constitution. These sections, by the way, are there in the Constitution anyway, and there is provision, moreover, for legislation to give effect to those particular two sections, that is, intervention by national government in a provincial government when it does not function properly, or for provincial government to intervene in a municipality or municipalities when they don't function properly. All we are seeking to do, is to ensure effective delivery and development, so that the people out there don't suffer.
So, in short, we are very, very clear: Co-operative governance ain't working. We need to improve it. But it is going to remain a system of co- operative governance.
I am very struck, moreover, Madam Chair, that somebody from the opposition suggested that the Minister is implying, or suggesting, or hinting, that provincial government is going to dissipate or disappear or be truncated. I know of no such position. What I know about this Minister is that he teasingly points out to Lechesa Tsenoli and myself, who were responsible in part while we were here in the Constitutional Assembly process and in the roles we played in this modelling of the system of co-operative governance, that we haven't in fact focused enough on provincial government.
It is also instructive, though, that the Minister is communicating that we are not the old department; we are a department of co-operative governance, which means we also have to secure greater co-operation at national level. For the most part, members of the opposition - and I hope it won't happen next year - are focusing solely on local government, while of course indeed we accept that local government is very important.
Now very closely linked to co-operative governance is the notion of a developmental state. There is nothing fundamentally new about that. All of you who endorsed the Constitution in 1996, all of you who were in this House in 2001 when we passed the Municipal Systems Act ... [Interjections.]
Madam Chair, can you tell me how much time I have? I'm not sure, is that allowed? I just need to know. [Laughter.]