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Address to the Parliament
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Premier's Office

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EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

Speech by Premier Makhenkesi Stofile

Address to Parliament
 12 February 1999



INTRODUCTION

Comrades Speaker and Deputy Speaker,
 Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature,
 Distinguished Guests,
 Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is the last session of this Assembly before we move towards our second general elections for the renewal of our mandate to govern 
South Africa. It is therefore the most opportune time to reflect on the past four and half years of democratic government in this Province, 
and indicate the strategic direction into which we want to take government during this last term of the present legislature.

Before we begin with this session, I would like to call on the House to observe a moment of silence in memory of those who tragically lost 
their lives in the recent natural disasters in Umtata, Hogsback and Mount Ayliff. We should also remember those who lost their lives in 
recent months on our roads.

(Minute of silence in House)

Honourable Members,

A famous British politician once said, "a week is a long time in politics". In the face of the challenges which confronted us when we swept 
away the old order in 1994, and ventured into the cobwebbed corridors of power bequeathed to us by the Apartheid order, the past four and 
half years had been short indeed. It had been short if we examine this period against the herculean efforts we have to muster to dismantle 
a system nurtured for over three centuries. From this point of view, I suppose our understanding of our power, its possibilities and 
limits, imposes a greater sense of reality.

One could talk about the scale of the problems, which faced us before 1994 in rather general terms. Coming as I do from a small village 
near Alice, I prefer a more personal approach. Lest we forget where we come from, I would like to reflect briefly on what it meant to live 
in this Province under apartheid.

It is after all, not long ago when our people were prohibited from being in certain areas at certain times because of the colour of their 
skin. MaDlamini had to walk long distances with a baby on her back to collect drinking water or firewood and on her return from this 
arduous task she might find Sipho working till late by the light of a flickering candle to ensure that he completed his education. If this 
education was not disrupted by the demands of looking after cattle and the long distances he had to walk to school, Sipho still faced the 
inequities of education at a second rate bush college if he was one the lucky few to make it to university. And if by incredible powers of 
perseverance and a good measure of luck, he finally managed to qualify with a degree, Sipho would find that his life at work or in the 
labour market dogged by a host of humiliating discriminatory barriers. If Sipho, as many of us did, took it into his head to cast all 
caution to the wind and become politically active in the cause of freedom, he faced harsh repression, imprisonment or even torture and 
death at the hands of the apartheid security apparatus.

How easily we forget! Yet it was a matter of five years ago that this was the grim reality in South Africa and the Eastern Cape.

Our people are extremely forgiving but we dare not forget. And neither should we allow those now suddenly masquerading under the banner of 
democracy, but who gingerly benefited from the fruits of apartheid, to forget the past. Even today, we have some openly yearning for 'the 
good old days'. Even today, they are hopelessly blind to the intense pain and suffering caused to millions of people during those so-called 
'good old days'.

As we move towards asking the people for a new mandate in the general election, my job here today is to take a closer look at how we have 
done and what we still have to achieve. We need to draw up an accurate balance sheet of where we succeeded but also where we fell short. 
More importantly, we need to agree on why some things have not progressed as well. For this task, I cannot think of a better place than 
this democratic Assembly.

1. WHERE DO WE COME FROM:

In 1994, the ANC went into the elections with a clear vision of the changes it wanted to bring about in South African society - a vision 
requiring nothing short of the fundamental transformation of the apartheid political and social system, and its replacement by a non-
racial, democratic order. Today it is appropriate to remind ourselves again about the historical basis of these values - non-racialism and 
democracy - that lie at the heart of our vision and policies.

These values have not suddenly or miraculously sprung to the political imagination of our movement. It did not creep into our policies in 
1994 as is the case with some of the new and half-reconstructed converts to democracy. Our commitment to non-racial democracy has grown 
with the passing of the ages, made in the furnace of many generations of struggle - from the roaring forties led by the young Nelson 
Mandela and ANC Youth League, the turbulent fifties when our people defiantly burned passes and swamped apartheid jails; during the 
difficult and lonely years of exile and underground of the 1960s; in the throes mass struggles in the '70's and eighties, and our final 
triumph over apartheid. Ours has always been a movement for democracy. Our commitment to non-racialism and democracy was born from our 
efforts to annihilate its very antithesis - racism and tyranny.

For us, the values are not simple cliches. They define the very essence of our long and hard efforts to free this country for the rule of 
tyranny and our present attempts to transform South African society. And it is a task that we take very seriously. It is a task that we 
shall win.

The apartheid system left us a difficult legacy deeply rooted in almost every sphere of South African socio-economic and political life. 
Without understanding these roots, one cannot begin to understand the present and could certainly not build a lasting future. Let us be 
clear. No institution of government, no institution in our economy, no single household, no-one individual can claim to be free from this 
history - not in South Africa. To ignore our past, is to go blindly into the future. And this we can never do.

The past continues to shape our present. It is all around us. You cannot be blind to this. The past is revealed in the millions for who 
living is nothing but a desperate and endless struggle to suppress the pain of hunger every night. The past is present in the colonies of 
shacks around our province's towns and cities. It stares you in the face as you drive from work. It meets you at the stop street, begging 
for food as you desperately try to ignore it. It refuses to be silent. And so will we.

For us, to acknowledge our past is already a step towards dealing with the present - because many of our present problems have their roots 
in the past. This is we find it so massively insulting when the very perpetrators of the racial tyranny of the past, or those who have 
directly or indirectly benefited from its own affirmative action policies, are now so quick to insist on forgetting the past. They now cry 
wolf. They insist, no, they demand our commitment to a collective amnesia.

The struggle for democracy, a famous writer from Latin America once wrote, is the struggle of 'memory against forgetting'. Our 'memory 
against forgetting' is the only way we know how to avoid the mistakes of the past and find our way to the future.

2. OUR MANDATE TO THE ELECTORATE:

Our mandate was to accomplish two fundamental tasks - 1. to comprehensively and irreversibly dismantle the structures of apartheid in every 
sphere of South African life, 2. and to build a non-racial and democratic society in its place. This strategic objective underpins every 
initiative taken by this government since 1994 and especially policy reforms promoted in the State, economy and society. It is to these 
three frontiers of transformation that I shall now briefly turn.

Our first objective was to dismantle the Apartheid State. The ANC took office in 1994 with the view to changing the State from within. Our 
mission was not simply to 'take' power, but to transform the very basis of state power itself - to establish a people's democracy. This had 
to be undertaken in the context of a political settlement that preserved the jobs of civil servants from the previous dispensation for at 
least five years. But this has not deterred us.

Since 1994, huge efforts have been underway to transform the old Apartheid State machinery - the executive, legislature, military, police 
service and civil service - that was once used to violently suppress democratic interests. We have pledged to make these agencies of the 
State more representative. We insisted it must serve all citizens, but especially the poor and disempowered. We pledged more open and 
transparent government. We vowed to evict corrupt and reactionary elements from public institutions, and those who abuse power for their 
self-interests. And we have committed ourselves to taking government to the remotest corners of this country, to bring it closer to the 
people.

In the Province, our policy programme on the transformation of the State has been based on four critical goals:

* To amalgamate and integrate three separate administrations into a single provincial public service;
* To create a new policy framework which placed the interests of the majority of the province's citizens at the heart of our mission;
* To restructure and realign the agencies of government to implement new policies;
* And to ensure that services are rendered in the best possible manner to all citizens of this Province.
The second front of our programme was focused on economic transformation. We have inherited an economic system in which power rested, and 
still continue to rest, in the hands of a small minority. The fact is that to this day the critical centres of wealth and wealth-creation 
belong to this minority - despite most recent advances in black economic empowerment. For centuries the vast natural resources of this 
country was stripped off and appropriated by a small section of the population at the expense of the majority of people. It produced a 
society of two nations. The first, a minority controlling the commanding heights of the economy. The other, a majority, excluded from any 
real control over the nation's economic resources, and subordinated to medieval laws of social control.

Structurally, the South African economy developed in relative isolation from the international economic system. Since the post-1945 period, 
apartheid rule provided conditions for the emergence of a largely inward-looking and racially-stratified political economy. Externally, it 
was unable to compete in foreign markets because local businesses, by and large, became docile under the hefty dose of protectionist 
tariffs and incentives. Internally, all these companies benefited in one way or another, at least for some time until the early eighties, 
from a labour market that was rigidly controlled by the apartheid state machinery. This system fed a dual labour force, based on white, 
skilled and black semi-skilled and unskilled labour to our enterprises who generously benefited from the racial affirmative action policies 
for much of this time - until this system in later years could no longer sustain their profit margins.

Today, many beneficiaries of this system complain about affirmative action policies that seek to open up opportunities for previously 
disadvantaged groups! They forget how they ascended on the economic ladder of the past. But the historical evidence stares us in the face. 
And if this is to be ignored, speak to those who suffered most. I remember the many stories of black factory workers for years doing highly 
skilled tasks on the assembly lines, but being totally ignored for promotion and paid at unskilled levels. And how they would be asked by 
managers to train white recruits, barely out of school, into a job for which these workers would never be considered.

Today, we face the difficult challenge of making our economy internally more equitable and externally more competitive. Changes must and 
are taking place in respect of each of these imperatives. Since 1994, this government has introduced several policies in this direction:

* a massive public works programme aimed at creating new jobs especially for the poorest of our people;
* increasing the amount of state funding for skills training, in the context of an integrated and modernised system of accreditation and 
placement in the labour market;
* a vigorous programme of local industrialisation along the coastal zones of this province as seen with our SDI initiatives;
* active promotion of small, medium and micro-enterprises with the view to boost black economic empowerment and job creation.
I shall return later to our achievements with respect to these interventions.

The third front of our programme was focused on transforming relations in civil society itself. This country has seen far too much 
polarization during the dark days of apartheid - divisions that continue to this day. In the past, the economic divisions imposed between 
so-called 'first' and 'third' worlds were replicated in social divisions in civil society. Economic privilege combined with racism to 
create a system of two peoples artificially separated for hundreds of years from each other. Our schools, our cultural institutions, our 
churches, our places of residence continue to be treated as sanctuaries of racial insulation. We live in a world where institutionalised 
racism has been substituted with a new form of 'social racism'.

We have taken great care in ensuring that people understand the link between the imperatives of 'reconciliation' and 'justice'. The TRC was 
set up by government with the purpose of uncovering our most recent past. We are still coming to terms with many of these tragic events. I 
do not even want to think of the centuries of brutality dealt out by the colonial system. We have long said that the responsibility of 
reconciliation and justice does not lie merely with government.

It lies with our communities and citizens. It is in civil society that we need to rebuild the foundations of the old order. By rebuilding 
we mean not only houses and schools. I also mean rebuilding human relations. Unless and until there is a conscious attempt to accept that 
things have changed, and that things have changed irreversibly, there can be no true democracy in this country. Much remains to be done 
here - a point I hope to return to later in my address to the House.

The RDP programme was developed by national government to provide a framework for addressing the legacies of the past. Its message is 
simple but utterly profound, based as it were on six core goals, namely:

1.  meeting of basic needs;
2.  reconstructing the state;
3.  transforming the economy;
4.  developing human resources, and
5.  linking reconstruction to sustainable development.

3. WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED?

A government that attempts genuine transformation will, of necessity, have to challenge vested interests. In doing this, we have of course 
been attacked by those who purport to be defenders of vested interests. But this is to be expected - and we know if the pips squeak, then 
we must be pressing the right way. These critics bark loudly that 'nothing has changed' and that 'things have been worse' since the days of 
apartheid. We shall reply to these spurious claims.

We need to begin to ask the simple question of 'who is saying this'? For the ones who stand on the hilltops, the river below looks small. 
They stand too far away to see the new life that has sprung from the river below. They have never even been to the riverbed themselves. But 
for those standing down below, the river has made a change in their lives. They can see a new life beginning. They know what was there 
before.

Our government, since 1994, had made exceptional efforts to bring hope to those who used to be considered the 'forgotten people' by 
apartheid's architects - those millions of people living in the remote corners of our country. We have asked them how things have been 
since 1994. The answers, not surprisingly, have been very different from those who now suddenly want to speak on their behalf.

The plight of many MaDlaminis and Siphos have improved in significant ways. For the first time ever, they have now access to clean drinking 
water. For the first time, electrification has been brought to these communities - many of which were hardly noticed during the days of 
apartheid. Today, many of these villages have clinics. Our primary school nutrition programme and free health care for mothers with babies 
are reaching into every household and changing the lives of millions. Access to telecommunication infrastructure is improving by the day, 
hundreds of homes are linked to a telephone line while thousands of rural people are beginning to gain access through local info-centres. 
Even in education, there has been construction, renovation and electrification of hundreds of schools and access to quality education is 
being opened to people from diverse backgrounds.

So, if you want to know how life has been for the past four years since democracy, ask those who have never had any meaningful life under 
apartheid - ask the villagers, ask the people. They have never had any voice. Even today, this is the case. Our media, despite its claims 
to the contrary, still see itself as the mirror of the &#145;whinging minority. There is an old English saying: that until lions have 
their own hunters, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter. If you want to hear the voice of the lions, see what will happen when 
our people go to the ballot box.

So, whilst it is correct to pose the question whether things are better or worse now than before, the answer depends on who do you ask this 
question to!

3.1. Transforming government

In the realm of Government, we have worked furiously to change things from the way they were before. Firstly, by successfully merging as 
early as 1995, the three ethnic administrations and integrating this into a single Public Service. In spite of loud, but vain calls by some 
for a re-introduction of old-style apartheid divisions between the former &#145;white South Africa and 'black' Transkei, we have pushed 
ahead and successfully completed this process.

Secondly, as early as 1997, this government began to restructure and streamline almost all government departments and agencies. With the 
administrative reforms, we have reduced unnecessary duplications, brought together agencies that belong together, and focused the outputs 
of each department and agency. The next step was to improve the actual operational functioning of these departments and agencies. The key 
problem had to do with capacity.

In the previous order, skills training was either totally absent, or focused in areas that are no longer relevant to the policy goals of 
this government. Both white and black civil servants, in the main, had not been properly trained. With this in mind, government introduced 
a series of professional training programmes from 1995 to address the most critical human resources deficiencies. This is dealing with 
areas such as finance and budgeting, human resources management, communication and information technologies, leadership and organisational 
management.

Government has mobilised the energies of external providers such as universities, technikons, private companies and international 
development agencies to provide focused professional training to civil servants. In this respect, the commitments of the German, UK, 
Swedish and Canadian Governments had been tremendous and continue to assist our efforts. These efforts are however not nearly enough, and 
much more remains to be done. We want to shift the locus of training from head offices to regions and districts, as well as to the many 
institutions and agencies that directly provide services to the public.

In terms of recent legislation promulgated by national government, we will soon see government moving in the direction of more 
decentralized decision-making and management - taking services closer to individual communities. We want to move away from the old-style, 
monolithic model of the 'public bureaucracy' to a modern, internally differentiated public service. We want to break up our large 
departments into smaller, more flexible but coordinated centres of decision-making closely connected with our communities.

Managers in future will all be placed on performance-related contracts, directly linked to the quality and scope of service provision and 
satisfaction by those who make use of public services. This process is already underway. In addition, once national government clears the 
way, this government will immediately proceed to implement far-reaching decentralization. This will confer comprehensive authority over 
every aspects of policy-making and service delivery to MEC's in the context of overall government policy. We expect every MEC in the next 
government to have direct control over the running of their departments.

In terms of service delivery, this government has already begun to improve the rate, scope and quality of many government services. We have 
implemented the Batho Pele campaign that sets minimum standards in terms of quantity and quality of service. Within this framework, 
campaigns such as Masakhane should not be treated as special projects, but become part of the mainstream approach of every government 
department and agency.

We had to change the machinery of government at the same time as the Public Service was still required to continue delivering services to 
communities in every sphere of government business. This, as many people will agree, is nothing easy to do. It is like trying changing the 
wheel on a car that is in perpetual motion! Indeed, it is expected that this car must also travel to more destinations and faster than 
before as we struggle to change its wheels from below!

So, to expect the transition to democracy to be an easy road would be to ignore the historical context I had earlier referred to. Yet, we 
have accepted this challenge and we are committed to carry out our mission.

During the past four years, this government has significantly raised the scope of service delivery to our communities. Examples, to mention 
a few, have been the following:

* 267 new school-buildings and 1020 toilets in schools especially in rural areas;
* 2000 new emergency classrooms and 28 'disaster-area' schools;
* 32 new rural clinics and 250 electrified rural clinics;
* 13 new extensions to hospitals and 84 renovations to hospitals in the former Transkei, including construction of the new Umtata-Mandela 
hospital complex;
* 79 635 discount benefit housing units transferred to local communities;
* 29 800 new houses for low-income groups;
* 13 263 subsidy-based housing units and more than 500 houses built under the pilot project scheme.

We have also assisted the enormous task of restructuring and strengthening local government, at both local authority and district-level 
administrations. We have been involved in new land ownership extension and water supply schemes, in conjunction with national government 
departments.

3.2. The Transformation of the Economy

This arena of social transformation is without doubt the greatest challenge to our emerging democracy. For it is in the economy that the 
effects of apartheid have been, and continue to be, most pervasive and deepseated. This Province, in particular, faces a monumental task of 
turning the tide against the inheritance of history - an exceptionally high unemployment rate, huge disparities between urban and rural, 
wide wealth gap between white and black, growing poverty amongst those left outside the mainstream economy, and an alarming increase in 
social crime.

The link between economic wealth and crime is one that does not require explanation in most countries. Yet in this country, there seems to 
be a persistent blindness to the fact that unless and until you give people a stake in a social system - no matter what ideological blend 
this might be - there cannot be peace and stability. Crime, in its essence, is a social phenomenon, a product of society. And it is in the 
nature of our society that we must look for the answers. In our view, the first and most important challenge is to solve the 'economic 
problem'. Unless we do so, we will never prosper - neither rich nor the poor.

The government asserts that we have to secure a minimum of conditions to swing this Province in a different direction:

* creating jobs on a sustained and accelerated scale;
* attracting new and more long-term forms of investment in the local economy;
* expanding the export-potential of local industry in order to create additional jobs;
* boosting the growth of small, micro and medium-scale enterprises so as to bring larger numbers of black people into the economy;
* modernize the skills structure of our work force in order to take advantage of new job opportunities in the labour market.
Since 1994, this Province, despite efforts by some opposition parties to create a 'swart gevaar' syndrome, we have seen an encouraging 
increase in foreign and domestic investment in the local economy. In addition to a steady stream of newer companies opening operations 
locally, we have seen impressive plans by long-term manufacturing companies such as VW and MBSA to expand their operations in this 
province. Government welcomes this vote of confidence in our workforce. A number of government programmes are designed to impact on the 
productivity and competitiveness of existing industries, key amongst these are the Industrial Cluster Process and the Workplace Challenge.

Major infrastructure programmes that will boost the economy include the DWAF Rural Water Supply Programme, Coega Harbour facilities, East 
London IDZ, National Governments Local Government Infrastructure Programme, Eskoms low-cost electrification programme, Telkoms 
telecommunication programme. We have prioritised tourism as an important growth sector. The Wild Coast SDI, the Greater Addo elephant park 
and a host of other initiatives are aimed at bolstering our tourism industry. Another important area is the revitalisation of our rural 
economy. A lot of ground has been laid for further intensification of this programme, but more focus should be given to access to land, 
including better utilisation of government land, training, support and finance for small farmers and rural dwellers.

In this context the province has extended land reform beyond what is possible using the National Departments limited funds. We have made 
land available to small farmers through leases, grants, extension of commonages, and outright purchases of farms from willing sellers. If 
this is sustained we may succeed in raising agricultural output to provide food security for all our people.

Government is also giving support to the use of community property association, to increase opportunities for collective land ownership. We 
would urge all those participating in the process to ensure that there is adequate understanding of this important form of tenure amongst 
all key actors.

But the key to effective and sustained economic development will also be determined by the quality of our human resources development.

3.3. Human Resources Development:

Without a highly trained and educated workforce, we cannot hope to effectively take our industries into the economy of the future. For this 
reason, we place strong emphasis on training and adult basic education. The R70-million grant by EU is intended to boost tourism training 
as a basis for expanding tourism in the Eastern Cape. The grant will make a significant contribution to the boosting our training capacity 
and a creation of a skilled labour force in the Province.

We believe this Province - not only Provincial Government - should take its own initiative to lay the foundations of workforce renewal. The 
basis for this has been adequately laid by national government with new legislation on workplace equity, education and training, and 
affirmative action. We believe the Province, as a whole, must chart an integrated human resources development strategy aimed at preparing 
our workforce for the challenges of the future.

The central challenges in this respect include the need for:

* a common vision of specific human resources challenges facing our workforce into the next millenium - a Eastern Cape Provincial Vision 
2020;
* an effective strategy aimed at turning around our educational and training institutions, at all levels, to ensure that they serve 
developmental needs of this Province;
* a closer and symbiotic link between formal education and training at pre-school, school and post-school levels;
* a more dynamic link between private and public sector training, particularly at strategic, corporate and managerial levels;
* the mobilization of our educational and training institutions and professionals behind a workforce renewal programme for the next 
millenium.
Today, we see a situation of institutional fragmentation insofar as this important objective is concerned. This is evident not only in 
different government agencies responsible for training, but across commerce and industry, tertiary and technical institutions, as well as 
small private, community, NGO and co-operative type programmes. Generally, we have a picture of fragmentation, with each actor trying to 
define its own role to human resources development. But we are not making the connections. We are not exploiting synergies. We are not 
capitalizing on the creativity and innovations of one sector to the benefit of the other.

This is a province boasting five universities, a number of technikons and training institutions, yet with a level of co-operation that is 
frankly speaking disgraceful. This brings us to the crisis in some of our key institutions of higher learning. We must acknowledge that 
democratisation and the broadening of the access to education have had its downside on a number of cases. The reality is that demand for 
higher education has increased. Unfortunately the resource base and management capacity of many institutions has not grown in tandem with 
this demand. It is precisely for these reasons that the crisis cannot be left to the universities themselves. All key stakeholders need to 
come together to find solutions and creative ways of dealing with the challenge. We cannot afford the collapse and disintegration of these 
important institutions.

Of equal importance, is a need for a focus on addressing resource problems of historically disadvantaged schools in the Province. We must 
avoid the danger of perpetuating a situation where historically white school continue to enjoy the lions share of government resource 
whilst schools in marginal and rural areas are left to lapse into decline. The campaign for improving the culture of learning and teaching 
has shown initial results, but must be intensified. We have taken strong steps to impose effective and efficient financial systems in a 
department which consumes a large proportion of the provincial budget. We believe that this in turn will be translated into more efficient 
and cost-effective delivery of education on the ground.

3.4. Crime and Society:

An issue pre-occupying commentators in the Province, is that of crime. Although crime statistics show a steady decline in the Eastern Cape 
and relative peace compared to most other provinces, we need to link the debate on crime to the wider social and political context. In 
dealing with the direct threat of crime itself, this government has already linked up with national law enforcement agencies to ensure more 
effective policing in our communities.

Together with the important role played by community policing forums in bringing our police services and communities together around common 
problems, there is also a need to emphasise the need for all our citizens to become involved in efforts to combat and reduce crime levels 
in this Province. This is not simply and only a government responsibility. The single major challenge we face is to change the mindset of a 
section of the population that still continue to see crime as being the exclusively responsibility of the State. If crime stems from 
society, it is also society itself that must find solutions within.

In dealing with the wider issue of crime, this government has consistently insisted on the need for addressing the underlying causes - the 
endemic poverty, over-population of our townships, unemployment, and a general breakdown of moral authority within families. Tackling these 
problems means abandoning the quick fix, simplistic solutions offered by those who were responsible for this system in the first place. 
Criminal justice actions by our law enforcement agencies to put rampant criminals behind bars must be complemented by measures that will 
people a stake in the democratic system - by creating jobs, improving education, increasing the quality of welfare services, etc. Only 
through these measures, in the long run, shall we be able to rebuild family structures, re-instill respect for human dignity and authority 
of mothers and fathers in our communities.

We see a situation where some of our township schools are relentlessly broken into and vandalised by criminals without our police services 
seemingly able to break their stranglehold of these communities. We see a situation where teachers and pupils are threatened by violent 
criminals especially in black schools. This situation must stop. We will take new and drastic steps to improve protection of school 
property and lives in order to restore a culture of learning and teaching. In this effort, we must call together local communities, 
including parents who must restore household authority, teachers who must ensure discipline in classrooms, churches and mosques who have 
enormous moral authority in our communities. Together with government, they must ring fence and ostracize those who are bent on destroying 
our communities.

3.5. Communities, Citizens and Social Transformation:

There is still a persistent perception amongst a section of our population that the imperative of 'social transformation' is not only 
simply a problem of government, but also a 'black' problem. This is a message we are consistently getting when one reads the comments in 
some of our newspapers. This is what we hear when we speak to communities in this Province. It expresses a form of 'political absolution' 
by especially, though not only, a large section of the white community - an issue that even by F.W. De Klerk has recently admitted. Almost 
invariably reinforced by media stereotypes of government, for them, 'Bisho' has become another substitute for 'black' in expressing their 
prejudice and often outright arrogance.

Just read our daily newspapers about the so-called 'embattled' Bisho government, being 'on the brink of collapse', and contrast this with 
the positive images portrayed of white role-players. Now, let's make it clear: we are not insisting on having simply 'positive' images of 
black people. But if we get a consistent portrayal of our situation in terms that blatantly disregard many success stories that had truly 
changed the lives of people, and genuine attempts to give people a better stake in the future, then you could understand why we become 
suspicious. If stereotypes of 'incompetence' and 'collapsing' institutions are the only image that the public is given, then we worry about 
how 'independent' the 'free press' really is.

Even the victims of crime often get treated differently. Over the past few months, we have seen brutal murders of farmers in many parts of 
the country. This government, in cooperation with national law enforcement agencies, have made unprecedented efforts to bring an end these 
heinous crimes. State President Mandela had made this one of his policy priorities. But we have also seen other types of rural crime 
committed with black people being victims. We regularly meet with farm workers to hear of horrific stories of brutality and racism by 
farmers who still believe they can whip and chain without impunity. We read about a woman recently brutally savaged by dogs on an East 
London beach with owners, apparently, not keen to intervene. Of farm owners forcefully preventing workers from registering at registration 
stations.

Yet, we still see newspapers in this region continuing to portray death of black people as mere statistics. Murders occurring in our 
townships do not get the same coverage as that in our white suburbs. In most cases, they are merely listed as statistics - names and ages. 
Compare this with long running stories probing into the background, the family ties, the emotions, the love and anguish of the Sweeny Pai 
(Thorne) family, Ciska, and Allison. Now, we are not saying that this coverage in itself was wrong. But I have never seen this happening to 
blacks. No, it would seem as if black victims have no stories to tell, no love, no pain, no identity beyond a name and age. Surely, 
something is wrong.

These events cannot but embitter our communities and further drive a wedge where our President and countless others had made so many 
overtures for improving the relations within our communities. If you think of the enormous compromise we had made with the official rugby 
symbols a few years ago, and you wonder why the mood has changed, we challenge you to ask why.

You cannot have reconciliation coming only from one part of the population - from the ones who have suffered the most terrible brutalities 
of this century, and continue to meet out the same treatment. A truly non-racial society cannot be only build in our public institutions. 
It must pervade our schools. It must permeate our suburbs. It must find its way in the minds of our young who have no direct experience of 
the past, and who must be given the skills to become full citizens in an integrated society. Non-racialism must find its way into our 
hearts.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been a well-meaning effort to help South Africa deal with her past. While much was exposed in 
the TRC hearings, a lot still remains unsaid. Some injustices still have to be brought to the public imagination. Because it is only 
through recognising the past that we can come to terms with what we want to do in the future. But for us, the real tragedy of apartheid 
does not only lie with the name of the likes of Gideon Niewoudt or Craig Williamson who have paraded our stages. The real tragedy lies in a 
society that has made it possible for these individuals to have the power in the first place. Its moral sanction lies in a society that has 
convinced itself of its superiority to others, in a way of looking and treating others that in many ways continue to this day - and that 
will continue to haunt us, unless and until we begin to free ourselves from its chains.

If we do not owe this to ourselves, we certainly owe it to our children. For it is they that will inherit this earth, and it is they that 
must live in our world tomorrow. It is they that must find their rightful place in the future, not as prisoners of a terrible past, but as 
builders of tomorrow.

4. In Conclusion:

I wish members of this House, convened on this very special day of the last session of this current Legislature, a fruitful period of work 
in preparing legislation and deliberate on the work of government. Despite many problems, I have been impressed at the

Like President Mandela recently said, there are many areas where we have not been able to accomplish social change. There have been some 
failures. There had been constraints to carry out our ambitious policies. A lot still needs to be done. It is often said that "failure is 
an orphan". When it comes to the crunch, few are prepared to admit responsibility for the neglect of our roads system, failure to get all 
schools working well, getting textbooks to our children, ensuring smooth running of healthcare institutions. We are honest enough to say 
that these areas still require a great deal of serious work. But we have been the first to roll down our sleeves and walk down from the 
hilltops, and work with the people to plant seeds on the riverbeds of the future. We have done so before, and we shall do so now.

For this next session of the House, our government has marked out a number of tasks requiring our most urgent attention:

* to complete the administrative reform process now underway and aimed at improving public service performance, accountability and 
delivery, including decentralization of responsibilities to regions, districts and institutions;
* to consolidate our campaign on a culture of learning and teaching in each of our schools, with maximum involvement of local communities;
* to drastically improve the most decrepit road networks in our Province in order to improve citizen safety and commercial activity;
* to improve crime fighting by improving police and social services;
* to be place the fight against HIV/Aids high on the public agenda;
* to secure a common commitment to improving our human resources in this Province.

I thank and wish you well.

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