Date: 15/02/2010
Source: Congress of the People
Title: Cope: Dandala: Speech by the Leader of Cope, during the Debate on the State of the Nation Address, Parliament

Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker, Mr. President and Deputy President, Honourable members of the House;

Twenty years ago a dream of a new and non racial South Africa was given new life when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison. On behalf of the Congress of the People I pay tribute to Nelson Mandela and all those who worked with him to bring us the wonderful freedom we enjoy. There are very few stories of exemplary leadership around the world than we have seen with Nelson Mandela. He is selfless, disciplined and is dignity personified. He is an icon of world peace! The portrait of Raymond Asquith as drawn by John Buchan applies aptly to Dalibhunga, "Our roll of honour is long, but it holds no nobler figure!"When the world honoured him with the Nobel Peace prize amongst countless honours, we became proud. South Africans can stand anywhere in the world and claim his as our contribution to the triumph of good over evil. When he ascended to high office the state of our nation was one full of hope and as Bantu Biko once said: "We had set out on a quest for true humanity and somewhere in the distant horizon we could see the glittering prize", the glittering prize of triumph over hopelessness.

Honourable members, the question we need to ask ourselves is, what is the legacy that parliament asks us to celebrate through this reflection on the state of the nation. The legacy can be summed up in a few indicators;

· South Africa and the ANC gave us a great leader with a sense of honour and a strong moral focus - he raised our eyes to what we can become as a nation

· He trusted and respected the law and the constitution, even allowing his decisions to be tested by the law

· He insisted on the separation of state and party powers

· He spurned patronage in all its forms

· He had depths of compassion for the poor, always treating them with utmost dignity.

His hallmark was, and still is the sense of honour!

Twenty years on, the state of our nation is sad and we have not captured that glitter of hope; we have not made that walk to freedom meaningful for all South Africans. We have debilitating poverty for millions of our people. In a country with our resource base it is simply a shame that so many people live below the bread line. We have millions of our children unable to read or write owing to an education system in collapse, and we are not safe in our own homes owing to high levels of crime.

Indeed we can defeat these, provided that we first acknowledge that this is the true state of the nation, and then rally to galvanise the nation to rise to the challenge. What this nation needs Mr President is the inspirational yet transformative and action orientated leadership. In her book ‘Laying ghosts to rest - Mamphele Ramphele says, "successful people are those who make and admit mistakes rather than fail to confront failure. We need to acknowledge where we have fallen short as a nation", and determine to take corrective measures. This is the only way we can triumph over these many challenges; to build a nation that the whole world will watch in admiration even as we host the FIFA world cup.

South Africans are waiting for the government to invoke our collective sense of honour so that together we can rise to overcome; just as we have done in the past, to win against odds.

I call on the President to listen to the pulse of this nation. Our people are angry at the promises made but not fulfilled. And so the Congress of the People asks, why should South Africans believe you now?

Jobs and the Economy

You promised 500 000 jobs or job opportunities. The fact is that almost a million jobs have been lost during the same period of promise! Will you tell the South African people what your Macro strategy is for reversing the Apartheid economy that marginalised the majority of our people from being innovators in the creation of their economic destiny, and in fact continues to inflict itself on the nation? For how long will the making the Townships and Rural areas mere consumers of economic output rather than key drivers of economic innovation? Your speech gave one a sense that your government is content with patchwork rather than apply its mind on the issues of industrial policy that would make the citizens pull themselves out of the spiral of poverty. Small businesses are still waiting with anticipation for the single ‘business registration system' that you promised when you took office. We are still waiting for your economic blueprint instead of only references to temporary jobs produced by public works. The Congress of the People asks Mr President, how will South Africans under your leadership transform their parlous economic state that is marked by the growing gap between the rich and the poor? What initiatives are we going to see from your administration to stimulate investments and strengthen the country's productivity?

Land and the Economy

By the President's own admission, land redistribution, a tool in the hands of his government, will not meet its target of 2014. Many of the farms bought by the government under this scheme have dropped in productivity, if not left as ghost farms threatening the livelihoods of communities. Our food security as a nation is under threat. Many undertakings to fix this situation by creating post settlement support for emerging farmers have not materialised. Now there are new promises........Why should South Africans believe you now Mr. President?

Accountability of Government

In response to your previous state of the nation address, you promised that in order to ensure service delivery and executive accountability, you will make all your ministers sign performance contracts by the end of July 2009. You have not told us if any ministers have signed these contracts to date. Instead of acknowledging this glaring gap you have now further promised us a new outcomes approach that will make 2010 a year of action. Why should South Africans believe you Mr. President, when your own office according to the auditor general's most recent report, has failed to get an unqualified audit and the man you put in charge of evaluation of his colleagues goes shopping with a state credit card? Why should South Africans believe that your government is pro-poor when in fact all we hear about is the high life of your ministers, concerned about five star holidays at our expense and traveling in the lap of luxury - Mr. President why should South Africans believe you now?

The Congress of the People welcomes the ministerial committee to combat corruption. Yet as late as last week this committee could not sit due to unavailability of ministers. Why should South Africans believe that you are serious about stemming out such corruption in your ranks? Why has the President not told us how he is going to deal with the crisis of conflict of interest among his ministers? Is it because the President is not able to see this as a problem at all? Shouldn't the cabinet lead by example in these matters of values and principles that should characterise our national life?

Education

Mr President, we welcome your emphasis on Education and the initiatives you have announced to focus the nation on this priority. Successive ANC governments have promised that no child will study under a tree. The question of infrastructure to allow teachers to do the things highlighted in your speech has become urgent. What kind of pupils can we produce, where over 79 percent of our schools don't have libraries and laboratories? In the week preceding your speech another report was released pointing a finger at SADTU, the teacher union aligned to your government - pointing out that they have been out of school for 42 percent of all the time that has been lost by the country through Industrial action since the dawn of democracy. The Congress of the People calls on you to declare a state of emergency in Education wherein teachers may not use innocent children to fight their battles with the state. While we welcome your proposed monitoring system by the department, we note that SADTU is already rejecting it. You have made promises before about strong action to be taken - since you have taken office we have not seen such action. Your speech has conveniently not mentioned the unacceptable matriculation results that are as a result of this ill discipline and how government will eradicate impediments to ensure that this trend is reversed. Once again we have new promises on improving the quality of our education: Why should South Africans believe you now?

Health and HIV/Aids

Mr President, most of our state hospitals are in a parlous state. We welcome your stated commitment to right this wrong. We also welcome the mooted policy of National Health Insurance. But South Africans will ask with justification: why should we believe that this time your government will honour your promises? South Africans want to know Mr President why they should have hope when your own conduct as Head of State has set our fight against HIV and Aids backwards once again. While we welcome your government's approach to HIV and Aids announced with much fan fare on world aids day, the country is entitled to ask: why will you not lead the implementation of this policy by example. Twice before, the President has apologised to this nation for lapses in his judgment. The Congress of the People would like the people to forgive him yet again. But the consistency of these lapses leaves us no option but to call on the Parliament of the Republic to invoke the constitution of the land, provision 89.1b, and call on the President to do the prudent thing and stand aside. In this regard, the Congress of the People will be bringing to this house a motion of no confidence in the leadership of the President.

I thank you.