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Challanges facing government
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 EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
SPEECH BY PREMIER STOFILE
ON CHALLENGES FACING GOVERNMENT
 4 SEPTEMBER 2000



The Preamble to our Constitution summarises the objectives of the Government of South Africa after 1994 as to:“heal the divisions of the 
past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights; lay the foundations for a democratic 
and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law; improve the quality 
of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful 
place as a sovereign state in the family of nations. ”

This intent and spirit of the Constitution continues to be our loadstar and our godfly. Of course there is always a difference between the 
ought and the is in all spheres of life. The essence of life, I venture to say, is that eternal struggle to change the is to be as close to 
the ought as possible.  Governments the world over are not different in this respect. This does not depend on which Party is in government 
or which ideology is dominating. Governance, like life itself, is a struggle TOWARDS an ideal.

Today I will not worry your consciences by tracing the historical basis of the challenges facing South Africa and the Eastern Cape. 
Histiography is called racism in this “New”South Africa. But the real reason for omitting the history of our present situation is because I 
assume that most South Africans know it. They simply don’t want to talk about it. Whether this denial is good or bad is not today’s topic.

The structures of national and provincial governments in South Africa derive from the 1996 Constitution. So they are less than five (5) 
years old. Local Government is still undergoing restructuring. As such, a lot has to be done still to achieve core goals that are defined 
in the Constitution.

Our central priority is to provide basis services to all within the constraints of available resources. This is a fundamental 
responsibility of government set out in the Bill of Rights (Chapter 2 of the Constitution). Rights to which all citizens are entitled are 
in areas such as housing, health, education, social security and clean water, to mention a few.

Provincial governments in South Africa carry extensive expenditure responsibilities. But their revenue-raising abilities are minimal. It is 
true that long-term strategies to improve this are being discussed. But this discussion is far from being completed.

This implies that Provinces are almost exclusively dependant on the equitable sharing of national revenue to deliver basic social services 
to our people within the norms and standards defined for each service.

I raise this as a key challenge because governance depends on resources. It is one thing to have a list of things you want to deal with. It 
is another thing to have the resources to do such things. The Constitution also takes this into account when it points out that social 
services must be delivered “within the available resources”. The religious fraternity like our mothers and sisters has a good grasp of the 
meaning of this qualifying clauses.

The moral of this is that, for any service to be delivered by government, resources are a sine qua non. As such, the disparity between 
resources and needs continues to be our main challenge. Even tomorrow, MEC Godongwana and myself will be in Pretoria to debate this issue 
with our colleagues in the National Cabinet.

It is common knowledge that about 85% of our budget goes to Education,Health and Welfare. This should not surprise anyone who knows what 
South Africa looks like. The divide between the haves and haves-not is very huge. The allocation of such resources that we have must 
attempt to narrow this gap. As Dr Pallo Jordan puts it : “this does not mean taking the shoes from one child and giving them to a bare-
footed one. ”“It does, however, mean that some areas must accept that preferential treatment in the allocation of resources can no longer 
be their monopoly. Emandileni, Jericho, Gugwini, Manzamdaka, Tsomo and many other deprived areas must get priority over Alice, PE, EL 
Grahamstown etc. I know that all South Africans claimed that none of them ever benefited from the segregation-orientated laws of apartheid. 
But of course you and I know this is being very ridiculous. Otherwise there would be no need for the healing and democratization that the 
Preamble to our Constitution talks about.

We are challenged to provide schools where they never existed before. But we must also renovate old ones, and provide laboratories and 
libraries where they never existed. We are challenged to build clinics and provide medicine at the doorsteps of our people. Big hospitals 
at the door steps of the haves cannot be a priority as we try to access health services to all. The hospitals must be rationalized. With 
the rampant poverty levels, more and more people rely on social security grants. We are challenged to relook at the laws governing social 
security grants. But we must also be careful of the sharks that are ever ready to cheat even their poor grandparents or sickly relatives.

Alongside these challenges, we must build roads where they never existed before. We must also build new ones where only dongas remain as a 
reminder of an old road. This, we believe, will assist in the tourism industry as well as in the communication/communiting of our people as 
well as in getting goods to the market-place.

With the resources that we have, we have to take one bite at time. We are currently engaged in discussing proposals from responsible South 
Africans from Alexandria, Stutterheim and Mount Frere who are proposing innovative ways to tackle these challenges. These people qualify to 
the category the President calls “ a nation at work”.

Work is progressing well in respect of farm schools and their future. Despite the big noise when we first announced our intentions to 
integrate the education of our children, even those who demonized us for no reason are now sober enough to see constitutional imperative 
behind our rationale. We will not relent in giving leadership even in such emotive issues which may not be popular at first.

Last but not least, the challenge to change the mind-set of our public servants continues to stare us in the face. The civil service is the 
cutting edge of service delivery. This is where government and beneficiary/client interface. We cannot say that our civil servants are 
doing us a lot of good. But it would be a total injustice to simply lump all of them under a banner of hopeless people. The truth of the 
matter is that some of them are simply the best in the country. The sad thing about this is that both Central Government and Provinces and 
the private sector now see us as fertile grounds for talent scouting. We are working at ways and means of retaining and motivating our 
personnel. The Assistance of European and American governments has been very helpful here. It saved us some money and yet adds a lot of 
value in HRD.

Other challenges include HIV/Aids, poverty, crime and unemployment. In many ways these are one way or the other related to education and 
the availability of resources. They are also linked to the decay of the moral fiber of our society.

CONCLUSION

We know what to do. We know where to do it. Unfortunately the resources are not always available for what they are needed. Also the image 
that we have earned is that of stupid imbeciles. Most of you know that we are not such fools. We know for instance, difference between 
history and propaganda.  We also know that it is nonsense to equate support for Bantustans with racism.  Apartheid is not the same thing as 
racism. We are aware that some people abandoned their positions of privilege and supported the liberation movements. But one swallow does 
not make Summer. At least that we know.

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