SPEECH – FW DE KLERK: DEMOCRACY AND AFRICA
2016-12-03
It is a great pleasure for me to visit Scotland. I have always had an affinity with the Scots.
It is a great pleasure for me to visit Scotland. I have always had an affinity with the Scots.
On 23 November 2016, Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) in the National Assembly called the Minister of Social Development, the Auditor-General and members of the Hawks, together with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), to a hearing on the weighty matter of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
There should be no doubt about origins, intentions and consequences of the Expropriation Bill that President Zuma is about to sign into law.
The Bill has its origins deep in the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which calls for “the elimination of apartheid property relations”. This, according to the ANC, will require “the redistribution of wealth and income to benefit society as a whole, especially the poor” – and in particular “the deracialisation of ownership and control of wealth, including land…” In 2007 the ANC stated that “the central task in the current period is the eradication of the socio-economic legacy of apartheid; and this will remain so for many years to come.”
Much has recently been made of reports that Egypt has overtaken South Africa as Africa’s second largest economy and that we have now slipped to third place – with Nigeria in first place. All this has added to South Africa’s sense of national decline – after having prided ourselves for so long as being in an unassailable position as the continent’s largest economy. Commentators must now console South Africans with the reassurance that we are still the most “highly industrialised” economy in Africa.
The relative size of economies is generally measured by assessing their Gross Domestic Products on a PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) basis – which irons out kinks caused by the differences between official exchange rates and the actual purchasing power of the currencies involved.
There is an eerie unreality about the debate that has followed Moody’s decision to retain South Africa’s rating at two notches above junk grade status (with a negative outlook).
Moody’s explained its decision on the basis of three principal considerations:
Workers’ Day provides us with an opportunity to assess the nation’s labour relations and the degree to which our economy is succeeding in its responsibility to provide jobs for all our people – and particularly for our youth. We are confronted with the reality that, according to a recently released Statistics SA report, The Social Profile of the Youth, 2009-2014, approximately three-quarters (3.4 million) of the more than five million unemployed South Africans in 2014 were youth (aged 15–34 years). This alarming statistic requires an honest introspection into South Africa’s current modus operandi in the labour arena and calls on us to confront the failures that are crippling our ability to create an inclusive and prosperous South Africa – particularly for our young people. There are four obstacles to solving the youth unemployment crisis.
There are several aspects to the current “state capture” debate.
To start with, there is nothing new about state capture. It has always been the ANC’s openly proclaimed, and profoundly unconstitutional, policy to capture the state to promote its own political and ideological interests. According to its Strategy & Tactics documents, a key task of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) after 1994 was
“to strengthen the hold of the democratic movement (i.e. the ANC) over state power, and to transform the state machinery to serve the cause of social transformation (i.e. the NDR): The levers of state power include the legislatures, the executives, the public service, the security forces, the judiciary, parastatals, the public broadcaster, and so on.”
In his remarks to the ANC’s National General Council on 9 October 2015 President Zuma provided some crucial insights into how he views his Alliance partners and how he foresees their future relationship after the goals of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) have been achieved. (President Zuma’s comments in isiZulu are indicated by italics.)
President Zuma spelled out the ANC’s role as follows:
“The ANC, the leader of the Alliance, is a multiclass national liberation movement advancing the NDR, the primary objective of which is the establishment of the National Democratic Society, which is united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous. That is the objective of the ANC.”
Almost all South Africans agree that our country is in a crisis. Most government departments are paralysed by incompetence, corruption and a culture of entitlement.
The state of the economy, education, health services, infrastructure and safety are at a low point. The evil triplets of poverty, unemployment and inequality are thriving.
Moreover, a well thought-out plan to “Africanise” society in the name of transformation is being applied relentlessly.