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

Speaker, as we celebrate 20 years of the release of Nelson Mandela we need to take stock of where we are.

Every year the Auditor General has been calling for stricter action on audit compliance. We hope that the new policy still to be implemented, where the president receives signed contracts for performance, will address this problem. We cannot have a regression from the golden republic of 1994 to the banana republic that we are becoming today. All of us who fought for liberation cannot and will not allow that.

Ubuntu was to have been the nucleus of our new humanism in democratic South Africa. This is what Mandela preached. That is the kind of African nation that we wanted to be. That humanism is not there and without it there will be no better life for all.

In this very chamber in 1994 Mandela quoted from a poem by Ingrid Jonker. In that poem the child from Langa or Nyanga who had been "present at all assemblies and law-giving", and was peering "through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers" would walk tall in Africa. That was the dream. The reality paints a different picture.

Where the Mandela administration gave hope to people, this administration under President Zuma is shattering people's hopes; where there was international acclaim for us, there is now disdain; where international investors were excited about South Africa they are now worried because we have lost so much moral high ground. Where there was clear and decisive leadership then, President Zuma is clearly too distracted to provide any kind of leadership at all.

Therefore, the President can't be serious when he tries to cast himself in the mould of Madiba. Mandela was a giant because of his integrity and moral conduct. President Zuma, on the other hand, has had to apologise to the nation on two occasions. Under such circumstances, how can this administration hope to implement the policy on HIV and Aids if the President does not lead by personal example?

The economy of a country needs to be handled with velvet gloves. Side by side with it there has to be total belief in the rule of law. This administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to undermine the respect for the rule of law and respect for the judiciary that is necessary in a constitutional democracy. Once the ANC leaders in government were the high priests of judicial independence and of judicial integrity in our country and everyone looked up at them with admiration. Can we say the same of the leaders in government today?

The new ANC administration has lost its moral compass. Everyone knows that. Most of all, this is true for those who sit on the ANC benches wrestling with their consciences. Today anything goes and the high moral standards of the Mandela and Mbeki period no longer apply. This is the anything goes regime. Furthermore, now it is no longer the constitutional imperative that leaders answer to, but something called a cultural imperative.

Mandela left an untarnished legacy. How will history judge this administration with its moral lapses, its failure to deliver services, its inability to discipline its host of members and officials charged with corruption, its failure to cut back on unnecessary expenditure, its dismal failure in pulling people out of the poverty trap? How will history judge President Zuma who has not one iota of respect for gender equality and gender parity?

Meanwhile President Zuma is trying in vain to wear the mantle of the iconic Mandela. The attempt only serves to highlight the disparity. Mandela demanded high moral and human standards from himself first and then from everyone else. President Mandela lent stature to his office not detracted from it as President Zuma is doing.

The ANC will fool no one in its pretence of taking forward the Mandela and Mbeki legacies. There is just too much fakery.

Speaker, besides the political environment there is also the natural environment that we have to be very concerned about. Section 24 of our Constitution imposes a duty on us to protect our constitution both for ourselves as well as for future generations. I understand that at Copenhagen it was very difficult to reach a far-reaching and binding agreement. Next year, however, our country will have the privilege to host COP 17 and we should begin now to canvass nations so that COP 17 becomes the turning point in our war against the emission of greenhouse gases. Government's love affair with coal fired power stations is rooted in selfish financial gains and nothing else. If this government does not want to be judged harshly by history it should begin to place the national interest above its own selfish interests. Our country must start to invest seriously in wind, wave and solar energy.

Finally, thousands of companies in our land folded and many of them because of the draconian nature of the Insolvency Act of 1936. The Insolvency Act encourages attorneys to go for the jugular because there are rich pickings for them. This, however, is at the expense of the workers. Government needs to look into this.

Speaker, let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism, cronyism, selfishness, opportunism and even outright corruption made us fail to live up to the ideals of justice or of humanism that Mandela set up for us.

Let us pursue our struggle for a better life for our contemporaries as well for future generations so that they can reap the sweet fruit of their struggle and sacrifices. What Mandela and his generation did for us, let us do for ourselves and our children.