Date: 12/10/2009
Source: The African National Congress
Title: ANC: Zuma: Address by the African National Congress President, at the second annual Raymond Mhlaba Memorial lecture, Port Elizabeth

Programme Director,
Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela
Metropolitan University Council Judge Ronnie Pillay;
Hon Vice-Chancellor and
CEO Prof Derrick Swartz;
Hon Premier of the Eastern Cape,
Noxolo Kiviet and
all provincial EXCO members present;
ANC Provincial Chairperson, Pumullo
Masualle and all provincial leadership,
Executive Mayor of Nelson Mandela
Bay Municipality, Ms Nondumiso Maphazi,
ANC Regional Chairperson, Nceba
Faku and regional leadership,
Mrs Dideka Mhlaba in absentia, and Ms
Nomawethu Mhlaba, daughter of Oom Ray,
MPs, MPLs, Mayors and district
Mayors, councilors,
Traditional leaders,
Chairperson of the Raymond Mhlaba
Trust, Mr Weza Moss;
Academics and students;
Ladies and gentlemen,

It was
Karl Marx who observed that: "People make history, but not as they please,
not under the circumstances of their own choosing".

This is indeed true in
the case of our stalwart, Comrade Raymond Mpakamisi Mhlaba and many other
illustrious leaders of our movement.

It is correct and proper that we
should spend a few moments remembering Oom Ray, to draw lessons from his
leadership in this phase of building a developmental state.

Raymond Mhlaba
lived a life of selfless commitment and dedication to the struggle for
freedom and justice, an experience that is important to share, especially
with the youth born to freedom.
We must today also recall all our stalwarts
of the same generation, Govan Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, Harry Gwala, Oliver
Tambo, Ahmed Kathrada, Ruth Mompati, Gertrude Shope and a host of
others.

Through their noble work we reclaimed our humanity as a nation, and
proudly draw leadership lessons on discipline,
selflessness, dedication,
commitment, people development and advancement.

The possession of
qualities of leadership for development begins with one's own value system
and outlook.

In his own words, it was from his grandfather that Oom Ray
learnt one of his memorable lessons, the value of fighting for respect and
human dignity.

His father instilled in him the value of honesty and the
courage and willingness to die for the truth if need be.

He assumed this
as his lifelong commission.
Ladies and gentlemen;

The essence of political
leadership, as we learnt from Oom Ray, is the ability to analyse and
appreciate the objective conditions that one operates in.

It is the
ability to understand the changing and dynamic conditions of the time and to
adjust accordingly to avoid perishing as both an individual and
organization.

Without an appreciation of this simple fact, any organization
would become extinct.

To understand the objective conditions requires
political clarity. This was one of Oom Ray's greatest strengths.

He
believed in political education and development of cadres, and had the
ability to produce cadres and leaders of a high quality for underground work
for the SACP.

He was able to provide the type of ideological preparation
for cadres which made them ready to pay the ultimate price if need be, for
the cause of freedom and justice.

In this post-liberation phase, we need
such outstanding commitment and discipline, as we take forward the mission
of building a better life for all.

The historical mission of the ANC has
always been to achieve the social, political and economic emancipation of
the black people in general and the African people in particular.

Although political freedom has been attained, the socio-economic
transformation of the State and society is yet to be completed.

All
components of the Tripartite Alliance, under the leadership of the ANC, have
as the common task, the implementation of the National Democratic
Revolution, a perspective that has been forged in struggle over more than
seven decades.

The character of this NDR is articulated in key policy
documents such as the Freedom Charter and the Strategy and Tactics of the
ANC.

The strategic objective of the NDR, as understood by all generations
of leadership and members of the Alliance, is the creation of a united,
non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous and democratic society.
The ANC has for
over 97 years led the struggle to unite the nation, and to bring about a
South Africa that belongs to all our people, black and white.

It is our
view that the ANC has the capacity to unite all South Africans, given its
history, size and reach. It has the capacity to make change happen faster to
improve the lives of all our people.

Our mission as the Alliance is
therefore to ensure a strong and united ANC, which will use state resources
to implement a progressive programme of action that should result in faster,
effective and more humane service delivery.

Our election Manifesto and
subsequently government's programme of action, outline clearly what the new
administration seeks to achieve during this term.

You will recall that we
made a bold commitment to the electorate.

We said: "In the period ahead
South Africa will need a government with both experience and political will,
a government that fully understands what needs to be done to address our
apartheid past, a government that puts people first and builds a
participatory democracy. The ANC, working together with the people, can form
such a government''.

We stated in the ANC Election Manifesto and the State
of the Nation Address that this government would improve the quality of
education and health care. We said we would prioritise the creation of
decent work.

We stated that the fight against crime would be a key
priority.

Rural infrastructure development and agricultural reforms were
placed at the heart of our plan to improve our country's food security.

Most importantly, we pointed out that we would work tirelessly to promote
national unity and social cohesion.

In Comrade Raymond Mhlaba's time, they
made more with less, but at this historical juncture, we are called upon to
do more with the resources at our disposal.

As leaders in the public or
private service, we must therefore remain true to the undertaking to serve
people with humility, discipline, honesty, efficiency and distinction.
The
non-negotiable factor is that the dignity of our people must be restored
through the services we provide. That is what our stalwarts worked for and
sacrificed for.

Our view of Leadership for Development in the 21st century
is centred on how best to involve people in governance, and how to create an
interactive government that listens and responds.
Effective leadership of
government by a developmental State requires two way communication with the
population, to create a government of the people, by the people, for the
people.

Effective leadership should mean accessibility and the ability to
respond to the needs of the people, especially the poor.

The Presidential
Hotline and public liaison service we established last month is of the
mechanisms through which we seek to promote participatory democracy, to work
with our people to solve their problems.

We are engaged in an unprecedented
massive conversation with the nation.

The Hotline has received a total of
312,137 calls from the South African public, between 14 September and 08 Oct
2009. This excludes letters sent through fax and email.

Many scholars,
including researchers at this very university may at some point want to
study this service to ascertain what the attraction is, and what lessons it
teaches on interactive governance and leadership.

Ladies and gentlemen,
effective leadership globally as we speak requires the ability to respond
effectively to the global economic crisis.

The crisis was not of our making
as the developing world, but we
have to suffer the
consequences. The
impact of
the crisis on the poor will take
longer to undo.

We have to
be prudent in our
actions, but without reneging
on the undertakings we
made to
our people.

Reports indicate that we lost
more than 180 000
formal jobs
in the first quarter of 2009.

We have to undertake practical
steps to enable us to defend our economy and to advance our developmental
agenda, in the face of this crisis.
Nations are responding in
various ways
to mitigate the
impact and plan for recovery.

As you are aware we also
have the Framework Agreement with business, labour and the community sector
to respond to the economic crisis.

As part of the agreement, we have
invested an amount of R2.4 billion in a National Jobs Fund, drawn from
resources in the National Skills Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Among concrete steps in the Framework Agreement is the setting up of a
training layoff scheme as one alternative to retrenchment for workers and
companies affected by the recession. We committed ourselves to the creation
of decent work.
We have also acknowledged that the pace would be slower
given the recession. However this does not affect the Expanded Public Works
job opportunities that we spoke about earlier this year.

Work is ongoing
to create those work opportunities to alleviate poverty and provide our
people with skills to search for
permanent employment.

We are also working
to improve the nature of work. In our Manifesto and government's programme
of action, we undertook to introduce laws to regulate contract work,
sub-contracting and outsourcing.

We also stated that we would address the
problem of labour broking and would prohibit certain abusive practices. Some
of the processes are already before parliament.

As part of creating decent
work we also want to promote more labour-intensive production methods and
procurement policies that support local jobs.

In addition, we have launched
a new national youth development agency. Its focus is on promoting access to
funding and employment creation as well as skills development and decent
work opportunities for young people.

The economic crisis has underlined the
need for the fundamental reform of international financial institutions such
as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

This includes
revisiting their mandate, scope, governance and responsiveness.

The
current arrangements are inadequate, unfair and do not reflect the changes
that have taken place in the global economy.

Our view is that emerging and
developing economies, including the poorest, must have a greater voice in
these institutions.

During our participation in the United Nations General
Assembly debate last month we also called for the urgent reform of the
United Nations system, especially the UN Security Council.

As South
Africa, we continue to support an expansion in both the permanent and
non-permanent categories of the Council as a means to meaningful reform.

We
will play our role as part of the developing world leadership collective, to
make these debates to result in the meaningful transformation of all
international institutions.
Esteemed guests,

We can speak about several
leadership imperatives but these would be meaningless without an investment
in education and skills development.

Very early in their lives, Comrade
Raymond Mhlaba and his peers appreciated the immense emancipatory potential
of education.

In the 1940s they used whatever little political material
they had to conscientise and teach the people about the situation in the
country.
The Communist Party organized night schools throughout the
country, and they produced leaders of the revolution.

We have decided to
invest in basic and higher education. The adult literacy campaign has now
reached more than 500 000 people. We are well within target to ensure South
Africa is literate by 2014.

We are also putting extra efforts into early
childhood or pre-school education. About 600,000 children attend crèches and
pre-schools, and government subsidizes poor children attending registered
Early Childhood Development centres.

We must also rise to the challenge of
improving access to higher education.
On the one hand we have to find ways
to improve the performance of our learners at secondary level, so that we
create good options for them post-matric.

In addition we have to look at
financial constraints of most students.

So far, about 140,000 students
have been supported through our national financial aid scheme in the higher
education sector.

We must also take a qualitative look at the factors that
affect student pass rates. We cannot afford a system where students stay for
ever in the system.
Our target is that by 2014 we should have increased the
completion rate by 20%.

We have decided to broaden tertiary education
through an improved focus on Colleges, Further Education and Training
Colleges and Sector Education Training Authorities commonly known as SETAs.

It is our contention that the education our institutions provide should
empower our graduates to be fully functional after completing their studies.

The knowledge produced by university graduates should contribute to
international, national, regional and local policy formulation and other
practical uses.

We trust that the Raymond Mhlaba Institute of Public
Administration and Leadership will assist us to fill the much-needed skills
gaps, for example in local government.

Esteemed guests, ladies and
gentlemen,

This Memorial Lecture enables us to reflect on the legacy of a
man who was a strong believer in discipline.

Oom Ray strongly believed in
iron discipline, with a clear idea of how to behave in a manner that was
constructive and which would build the organization and the Alliance.

The
youth in general and ANC cadres and members in particular must draw lessons
on discipline, clarity of purpose, action, commitment and dedication to the
cause he believed in.

We recall his outstanding contribution in the
development of trade union leadership.
Oom Ray was part of a generation that
created the revolutionary trade union movement.

He reminded cadres that
being a worker on its own, does not make one a revolutionary.

His
membership of the Laundry Workers Union magnified his early experience of
childhood deprivation as a result of the menial wages that his father
received.

He became an organic intellectual who worked to produce others
that he wanted to be in the same mould as he was.

That is the essence of
leadership in the 21st century, the ability to train, develop and empower
others. Oom Ray made it his mission to make workers understand labour
theory and to become politically conscious.

He posited that workers had
to fully appreciate both the national oppression and class exploitation.

The leadership challenge facing us in this post-liberation period, is how
to use the resources at our disposal, to take forward the objectives that
Oom Ray and his peers, and those before them, worked for.

We learned from
Oom Ray and his peers, that leadership means working to unite the
organisation one belongs to.

Taught by generations of ANC leaders since
1912, we emphasise the importance of the unity of South Africans as
citizens, the unity of the ANC and that of the Tripartite Alliance.

To
Comrade Mhlaba, the question of unity was fundamental and key to the success
of our movement and our struggle.

We were schooled in the notion that no
personal interest could be bigger than the ANC or the need for the unity of
the movement.

Oom Ray personified the unity and harmony of the collective
forces against oppression, another key lesson on leadership.

He was a trade
unionist, a Communist and an ANC member, all in one, without a slightest
tinge of conflict. In all these organizations, he started as an ordinary
member and later became a leader.

This indicated the maturity of the
highest order, which was shared by many leaders of his generation who played
this role.

What was unique about these leaders was their deep understanding
and high sense of responsibility to maintain unity and good relations
amongst Alliance partners.

They were all sensitive to anyone who would act
in a manner that would undermine this important attribute of our
struggle.

The imperative of freedom and democracy has always prevailed as a
strong thread that binds the Alliance, under the historical leadership of
the African National Congress.

The ability of Oom Ray to belong to all
components of the Alliance without contradiction reminds us of many other
ANC leaders in the past, for example, Comrade Moses Mabhida.

He was a
member and leader of the ANC, SACP and the SA Congress of Trade unions.

Addressing the funeral of Comrade Mabhida in Maputo, Mozambique on 29
March 1986, Comrade OR Tambo stated:

"It was part of Comrade Mabhida's
greatness that, having quite early on understood the importance of the unity
of these great movements, he succeeded in ably serving each one of them
individually, and all of them together, as a collective front for national
and social emancipation''.

He added that Comrade Mabhida always worked to
ensure that these formations respected one another and developed among them,
a deep-seated feeling of revolutionary unity and interdependence.

Comrade
OR Tambo stressed that:

"Moses Mabhida could take no other position
because he had learnt and absorbed the lesson passed on to him and to us by
the late Chief Albert Luthuli, that the ANC and SACTU were to each other a
spear and a shield''.

In memory of our departed stalwarts such as Comrades
Mabhida, Mhlaba, Chris Hani, Oom Govan Mbeki, Harry Gwala and others we
should keep the revolutionary Alliance united, strong and focused on the
goal of consolidating the gains of freedom and to build a better life for
all of our people.

We should keep our people united behind the goal of
building a prosperous, united and democratic South Africa.

Unity is
paramount, as it has been since 1912. That is the task of the ANC as the
leader of the Alliance and the task of ANC leadership at all levels.

It is
also the mission of the leaders of the Alliance - to keep the ANC strong and
united so that it can lead the Alliance and the country effectively.

At
this juncture in our history, the Alliance is the only existing political
entity that is capable of completing our mission of transforming our
society.

The Alliance leadership carries the hopes and aspirations of the
greatest majority of our country and beyond.

The unity of the Alliance is
therefore paramount and fundamental.

Our duty is to unite the Alliance.
That to us, is the effective leadership challenge of the 21st Century in our
country, and we believe we are equal to the task.

I thank you!