Chairperson, hon Ministers, colleagues, officials and members of the public, I wish to take this opportunity, participating in my first debate in this House, to wish us, as a collective of public representatives, a five-year term in which we, as the President requested, work together for the betterment of the lives of all the people of this country.
Let our work in this House have a direct and measurable impact on creating a better life for all. It is in the interest of all political parties to ensure that government succeeds in meeting its policy objectives and implementation targets. Not since the "Madiba years" have we been extended such an opportunity. Let us embrace it. Let us walk together down the road less travelled, for together we can do more. The adoption of the Constitution is made enforceable through law and democratic participation by the citizens in affairs of the state is a constitutional right for all South Africans. The proliferation of new policies between 1994 and 2000 attempted to set the stage for reforming the public sector and defining aspects necessary for institutional change and delivery of services to be carried out within.
The reform process and associated re-engineering of institutions to give effect to new policy was and, to a limited extent, still is taking place at the institutions that were expected to continue delivering services, based on apartheid era policies and regulations, while at the same time transforming it both internally and externally.
The foundation, however, has now been set through a painful and, at times, confusing birth of a new framework for public sector managers to operate within. The success of government in meeting the public's needs of sustaining and improving existing services, while addressing expectations and backlogs associated with apartheid planning, will to a large extent be reliant on strategies and structures that support our strategies as well as progressive committed public sector managers who ensure that policies are applied in a manner that gives effect to the true spirit and intent of these policies. The formation of a tourism Ministry and department creates an ideal opportunity to construct a department from the ground up that delivers services to its stakeholders both internally and externally.
Through an extensive consultative process with these stakeholders, the department can be constructed to meet their needs. It is only when we understand the needs of our stakeholders and relevant policy prescripts pertaining to development, service delivery, and monitoring and evaluation that we can design a department that meets these objectives.
The effective implementation of policy to improve the lives of the rural poor will by definition have a direct benefit for the rural poor. Rural communities are disempowered in comparison to urban communities in terms of tourism infrastructure. A progressive development-focused department must balance their international, African and local tourism opportunity investments against the investments in rural communities.
The department will have a role to play in directly absorbing the unemployed through actively engaging with the tourism industry to develop targeted rural tourism packages. These should not only focus on what is currently available, but it should incentivise capital investment in tourism infrastructure within these areas, bearing in mind the massive potential and growth the tourism industry has to lever in our economy.
It is critical for the cluster tasked with rural development issues to factor into their planning the issues of rural tourism, for their success in rural development will directly impact on the growth trajectory of tourism in rural areas. This will have the intended consequence of raising rural incomes and building local economies. The tourism sector is critical for the economic development of rural areas and a country as a whole because of its potential to create work, both as a direct employer and through its linkages to other sectors.
It is our responsibility and strategy to support the growth of rural market institutions through the provision of infrastructure and by helping rural communities and small rural enterprises to build organisations which will help them to access markets, build links with formal sector value chains and co-ordinate their activities to realise economies of scales.
Realising that the poor rural communities are the bulk of the poorest communities in the country, when tourism infrastructure is being implemented, how do we ensure that rural communities benefit from these initiatives? It is clear that, even if the department applied procurement policies in rural areas with procuring infrastructure, urban communities with access to resources would in all likelihood secure these tenders. This observation may not only be relevant to the specific sector under discussion, but may also be part of a broader issue linked to a procurement policy that requires a class review. This is meant in the context of the previously disadvantaged and the currently disadvantaged. Here I refer to all South Africans that are trapped within poverty.
The ANC realises that answering the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality means that we must simultaneously accelerate economic growth and transform the quality of that growth. Our most effective weapon in the campaign against poverty is the creation of decent work, and creating work requires faster economic growth. Moreover, the challenges of poverty and inequality require that accelerated growth takes place in the context of an effective strategy of redistribution that builds a new and more equitable growth path.
The skewed patterns of ownership and production, spatial legacies of our apartheid past and our economy's tendency towards inequality, dualism and marginalisation will not recede automatically. As the economy accelerates, decisive action is required to transform the economic patterns of the present thoroughly and urgent in order to realise our vision for the future. Rural development is critical in this context with rural tourism being a major driver in achieving this goal.
All of the above challenges require those driving these programmes within the public and private sector to have requisite skills. Our tertiary education facilities are amongst the best in the world and produce some of the world's leading brains, a commodity in a global economy that is highly sought after and one without which a developing state cannot meet its development objectives. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]