Date: 04/12/2003
Source: Department of Home Affairs
Title: Buthelezi: Home Affairs year-end function


ADDRESS BY MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, MP, MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS, AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOME AFFAIRS YEAR-END FUNCTION, Pretoria, 4 December 2003

This is the tenth year-end function of the Department of Home Affairs over which I have had the privilege to preside. As I was preparing myself for this function, I reflected on how I felt like pointing out on this occasion that the end of our year marks a real turning point in the life of our Department. It dawned on me that at the end of this year we are closing a chapter, to prepare ourselves for the opening a new one as the new year begins, and that the year which has now passed has been an extraordinary year, filled with crises and challenges alike, but it has also been a year in which we have achieved tremendously, in spite of the adverse conditions in which we find ourselves to work and we now prepare the ground to turn our Department around as the new year begins and give to it a new beginning.

As I was preparing myself to put on paper and elaborate this very thought, which reflected my earnest observation of what has happened during the past year, I began having a nagging suspicion that this was not the first time that I would make such remarks on this type of occasion. This prompted me to go back to the addresses I gave at the year end functions of this Department for the past ten years and, to my great shock, I found that I effectively said the same things almost every time. This discovery shook me profoundly because I fear that perhaps I have reached the stage that I end up saying the same things over and over again. Therefore, I set a few hours aside and went back to consider the history of our Department to see whether there was, indeed, justification for me to say at the end of each year that we were at a turning point, and that each year was closing a chapter to enable the next one to open a new one which carries even greater challenges and opportunities.

To my even greater surprise, after hours of research, it became clear to me that, in fact, year after year I have been well justified in repeating myself. I wanted on this occasion to bring to the attention of my colleagues and friends who are assembled here today, the full list of events which justify the observation that in the past nine years our Department has, indeed, gone through an incredible obstacle race and that every year as we convene here, we could rightly look back at what we have achieved with a sense of satisfaction and completion, mixed with a sense of anticipation for the challenges which we knew the new year would bring to us. I felt that this would have been a very interesting exercise, as it would have spelt out the history of our Department for the past ten years, and highlighted the intensity, enormous difficulties and undeniable successes of the journey we have undertaken. However, I feel that I must leave this tempting presentation for another opportunity because I fear that most of you might not enjoy the presentation of an historical excursion requiring a speech of several hours. Therefore, I am afraid that at this juncture, those who doubt me, must take my word for the fact that this year we are, indeed, closing a major chapter in the history of our Department with a view to opening another one next year, and that such is the case in spite of our having the perception of this being an often repeated d