Cape Twon — In his State of the Nation address to the South African Parliament, President Thabo Mbeki has painted a picture of a country which has never in its entire history enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.
Reviewing domestic policy for the past year, Mbeki quoted a report saying South Africa was enjoying its longest upward business cycle since World War II, added that 72 percent of the governments programmes were being carried out more or less within the time frames set, and continued with a businesslike statement of the next years objectives.
However, he singled out issues such as classroom-building and the provision of services by municipalities as areas in which there had been -- although he did not use the word -- failure. On classrooms, he took on board criticism from Mathatha Tsedu, the outspoken editor of City Press, endorsing the newspapers finding that the backlog of classrooms still runs into several thousand nationwide, and that addressing the education crisis was an urgent priority.
Only 56 percent of the countrys municipal infrastructure grant had been allocated by government to municipalities, Mbeki added, reflecting lack of all-round capacity particularly in technical areas with regard to water, sanitation and public works projects.
Referring briefly to AIDS, he said broad trends in mortality confirmed that special attention needed to be given to health: With regard to AIDS in particular, the governments comprehensive plan, which is among the best in the world, combining awareness, treatment and home-based care, is being implemented with greater vigour.
Early in his address he quoted Rudolph Gouws, an Afrikaner economist who has observed the South African economy for more than 25 years, as recording that real domestic output growth accelerated last year to an annualised 5.6 percent in the third quarter. Gouws added: South Africa has long been underperforming its emerging-market peer group, but the newfound higher growth path is bringing the country more in line with other successful emerging-market nations.
Identifying government initiatives to grow South Africa's first, or industrialised economy, Mbeki highlighted increasing investment, lowering the cost of doing business, including more people in the economy and providing skills.
Harbours, oil pipelines and power stations would be improved or built, and banks were commended for committing themselves to providing R85 billion (US$14 billion) over three years for low-cost housing, infrastructure, small black businesses and new black farmers. And South Africans "are set to make a determined effort to speed up broad-based black economic empowerment and small business development."
However, more skills were needed, so the government would allocate R21.9 billion (US$3.65) for a five-year National Skills Development Strategy. A simpler system for paying taxes and levies and registering businesses would be introduced by April 2006.
Turning to South Africans who are not part of the industrialised economy, Mbeki said economic growth should also be reflected in the extent to which the marginalised in the wilderness of the Second Economy are included and are at least afforded sustainable livelihoods. South Africa belongs to them too, and none of us can in good conscience claim to be at ease before this becomes and is seen to become a reality.
More than R1,5 billion had been spent on an expanded public works programme, he said, creating 76,000 jobs, and the government would make more money available for early childhood development, increase the numbers of community health workers, and promote labour-intensive construction methods.
Extra money would be allocated to pay for restoring land to those who had been deprived of it under white rule. Action would be taken to ensure that free basic electricity was provided to all with minimum delay and that municipalities could provide sanitation to 300,000 households a year from 2007.
Nevertheless, said Mbeki, the government did not have resources to meet, immediately and simultaneously, all the admittedly urgent needs of our people, especially the poor.
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To applause from Parliament, he added: All of us must understand the stark reality that even illegal violent demonstrations will not produce these resources, and will be met with the full force of the law. At the same time, we have to deal with those within the public service who, because of their negligence and tardiness, deny many of our people services due to them, in instances where resources have been made available to deliver these services.
On crime, President Mbeki said that a plan to catch the country's top 200 criminals had netted 168 of them. Of 96 leaders of organised crime, 67 had been apprehended. The goverment was confident of meeting its target of reducing "contact crimes" by 7 to 10 percent a year. Although aggravated robbery and child abuse had increased, murders had dropped by 8 percent, vehicle theft by 5.4 percent, common robbery by 5.9 percent, cash-in-transit heists by 48.7 percent and bank robberies by 57.5 percent.
For the full text of President Mbeki's speech click here.
