Hon Speaker, Mr President and hon members of this House, Cope takes this opportunity to thank the President for his address to the nation yesterday, and welcomes the opportunity to offer reflections on the speech and the plans that he outlined. Many South Africans welcome and agree with the President's analysis of the problems facing our country. Where we need greater engagement is on how we will respond to these.
Cope commends the President for reminding us that we have a nation to build, together. We support this call, as it is at the heart of our own agenda for change and hope, an agenda on whose mandate we stand here to speak and an agenda that would guide Cope in being a patriotic opposition.
The prudent economic policies that South Africa pursued over the past 15 years are in part responsible for shielding South Africa from the global economic crisis. Looking at the President's response to the recession, however, a few questions yearn for answers.
We would like to hear more about the government's practical intervention plans as a response to this recession. The country is left guessing about suggestions made by some to consider huge bailouts, as well as suggestions made by others to bankroll companies and/or banks in distress. A clear statement in this regard needs to be made. The investor community cannot be left guessing.
Baza kuncedwa njani kwaye bakhuselwe njani abantu ekuweni koqoqosho lwelizwe lakokwethu? [How are the people going to be assisted so that they can be protected during the economic meltdown in our country?]
We believe that we need to go beyond the generic mention of the social partners' consultation that would stop retrenchments. This is challenging. What we need is to hear more about the plans and details of the industries involved in plans that are going to assist us to overcome this problem. How are the fears of ordinary people going to be addressed? Job losses, repossessions and retrenchments are already the order of the day.
I missed in the President's speech a programme that inspires confidence among ordinary people, and how they should weather the storm in the face of repossessions by financial institutions. We need to hear more about a plan to engage these institutions in the face of the high repossession rates. Is there at least a call to these institutions by government to present a plan that would shield people from their crumbling financial situations?
All of this happens in the face of debilitating poverty. As the President correctly pointed out, 13 million people are reliant on social grants. It cannot be right that a quarter of the population has to be reliant on grants. We agree with the President that we need to extricate our people from this dependency.
We need to hear how the government plans to create stable and decent jobs for our people. We will look closely at the promised half a million jobs in the next six months, hoping these will not merely be job opportunities where people who have worked one week here and another day there are counted as having had one job. [Applause.] We believe that it is crucial to ensure that the government mobilises all the people to intensify the efforts of building and supporting small businesses and new enterprises.
In the past, the government of the Republic has had programmes such as the RDP, Gear, Asgisa and Jipsa. One expected that we would hear the President's analysis of the impact and effect of these schemes. We are left with a feeling that reference was not made to these programmes because they were not successful. Where is the follow-up on these programmes? Or are we going to see new plans without a proper evaluation? What is the plan to tackle poverty on a sustained basis? How are we planning to utilise social grants and public works as stepping stones to sustainable job creation, thus dealing with systemic poverty and turning South Africans into economically self-sustaining citizens?
We welcome the fact that a new department has been established to look at rural development. Of course, it is disappointing that after 15 years we still do not have a well-tried and developed strategy to transform our rural areas into economically active hubs. We will watch the pilot project in Giyani with bated breath.
There is a need for Parliament to be fully exposed to the plans to tackle poverty. Here is another issue that is beyond party politics, but must be the business of all of us in this House.
We welcome the President's call for nation-building. We also need to caution that such a call can no longer be made lightly. Members of Cope in the Public Service are being hounded out of their jobs. [Applause.] We will encourage them to use the President's hotline to complain and ask his office to take up their plight. The harassment of Prof Pityana, Prof Nkuhlu and many others calls for your intervention. [Interjections.]
Nation-building must become more than just a slogan. We welcome and embrace Mandela Day, as Madiba truly belongs to all of us South Africans and the people of the world. [Applause.] His legacy will inspire us to build tolerance. Finally, we are pleased that the President has highlighted the culture of learning. We support the rallying of children to study and the rallying of teachers to teach. It is the success of education in the long run that will help our people to extricate themselves from poverty as well as lay a foundation for the building of a value-centred society.
Because of the importance of education, we need to invest seriously in infrastructure to make education a success. The phenomenon of schools under trees, for example, is an embarrassing act and continues to say that we need to plan well for the education of our children. This is a matter of national concern which, unfortunately, did not find its way into the President's speech.
As we have said many times over, the problem in our country has never been policy. The state of our nation is that of despair when it comes to service delivery. That is why we welcome the President's determination to hold Ministers accountable. We look forward to a discussion between the Ministries of Evaluation and Planning about how Parliament will be included to ensure overall accountability. We also hope that this focus will permeate all levels of government, particularly the local level.
Mr President, we respect the choice of our people at the polls. And we wish you, Mr President, and your government well as you implement the promises that have been made. Where you excel, we will commend you. Where you falter, we will be there to point it out and work with you to build a country where all our people can be safe and prosperous. Thank you very much. [Applause.]