Cape Town — President Mbeki addressed a wide range of issues in his annual address on the state of South Africa, ranging from the supply of drinking water and sewage systems to the development of broadband internet capacity and the promotion of blacks in business. Extracts:
On water:
"By 2005, South Africa had already achieved the Millennium Development Goal in respect of basic water supply, with improvement of access from 59 percent in 1994 to 83 percent in 2006. According to the United Nations Development Programme, South Africa is one of the few countries that spend less on military budgets than on water and sanitation… But it is a fact that eight million people are still without potable water."
On "bucket" toilets, which stand outside houses waiting for collection each morning:
"We are proud that within one year, we have been able to reduce the backlog in the eradication of the bucket system in established settlements by almost half. We are on course to put an end to this dehumanising system in these areas by the end of this year."
On the economy:
"At an average of over 4,5percent, the rate of growth of our economy over the past two and half years has been at its highest since we attained our democracy in 1994. Investment in the economy, by both the public and private sectors has been increasing at about 11 percent, with overall public sector infrastructure spending increasing by an annual average of 15,8 percent. Today, fixed investment as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product – at about 18,4 percent – is at its highest since 1991."
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On jobs:
"Over the past three years, the economy has created some one-and-half million jobs. It is encouraging that in the year March 2005 to March 2006 alone, 300 000 of the jobs created were in the formal sector outside of agriculture, representing a growth rate of about 4 percent."
On telecommunications:
"Telkom (the communications group) will apply a special low rate for international bandwidth to 10 development call centres, each employing 1,000 persons, as part of the effort to expand the BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing) sector… The special rate will be directly comparable to those for the same service and capacity per month offered in any of the comparable countries….
"We will also take a variety of steps to improve competition in the economy, among others to lower the cost of doing business and promote investment, including… developing high-speed national and international broadband capacity, finalising the plan to improve the capacity of the rail and port operators, and strengthening the effectiveness of our competition authorities."
On black advancement:
"We have seen steady progress in the advancement of Black people in the economy. From owning just over three percent of the market capitalisation of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2004, this has increased to close on to five percent, and the proportion of blacks in top management has grown from 24 percent of the total to 27 percent. Yet we must remain concerned that these figures are still woefully low."
