Date: 04/06/2009

Source: Inkatha Freedom Party

Title: IFP: Buthelezi: State of the Nation response by the leader of the IFP in the National Assembly

Mr Speaker,

The people have spoken through the results of the last elections.
There has been electoral fraud, especially in KwaZulu-Natal. But in
spite of its extensive nature one cannot detract from the fact that
the people have spoken and the President has received a powerful
mandate to govern.

I am therefore not rising to oppose the President or his Government,
but to offer my counsel and admonition. I do not do so because I feel
I am wiser than anyone else in this House.

It is true that I may be the only one in this House who has interacted
with the Heads of Government of South Africa from Prime Minister
Hendrick Frensch Verwoerd to Prime Minister Johannes Gerhardus
Strijdom to Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster to President
Pieter Wilhelm Botha to President Frederick Willem de Klerk to
President Mandela, President Mbeki and President Motlanthe, all of
whom I have seen rise to power and relinquish office.

I have also known and personally interacted with great leaders in the
African National Congress, from its founder Dr Pixely Ka Isaka Seme
who was my uncle. From my childhood I knew the first President of the
ANC the Reverend John Langalibalele Dube. I knew Dr Alfred Batini Xuma
and had the privilege of having dinner in his home in Toby Street in
Sophiatown with his wife Madie Hall Xuma.

I knew President James Moroka and one of my mentors was President
Inkosi Albert Mvumbi Luthuli. I knew and worked with Mr Oliver Tambo
until 1979. I have known President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela for over
sixty years and I had the privilege of being one of his Ministers. I
have known President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki and was one his Ministers
for five years. I have known President JG Zuma for a few decades and
we worked together in President Mbeki's Cabinet.

But I do not speak from the strength of this experience. Today, I am
speaking with the confidence of a new found sense of freedom.
Throughout my life, history compelled me to balance conflicting
interests in my contribution to public life.

Before liberation, I was at the centre of political activities which
were not banned by the apartheid regime. This role limited what I
could do. After liberation, I subscribed to our joint endeavours to
consolidate the gains of our struggle. I accepted that in the initial
stages of our post-liberation Republic, not all things would go well.

I am now free from all constraints and empowered by a freedom of
thought and speech I never enjoyed before. I now enjoy the freedom to
speak truth to power. I do not intend to oppose or undermine the
popular mandate President Zuma has received from the electorate, but
to provide assistance in the form of counselling and admonition, so
that our Republic ? through his leadership ? may succeed in fulfilling
the aspirations embodied in that mandate.

I commend the President for his positive overture to the Opposition
yesterday to be leading players in shaping the destiny of our nation.
As patriots, we in the Opposition must work together with the ruling
Party for the sake of our people in the present circumstances of a
global economic meltdown. I also commend the President for
emphatically stating that our institutions and Constitution must be
respected.

But in speaking truth to power, there are many aspects of the
presidential debate which need to be addressed. Time dictates that I
focus on the single, most critical aspect. Nothing is of graver
important than addressing the economic crisis facing South Africa.

When I spoke in response to President Motlanthe's State of the Nation
address this year, I warned that South Africa would not be spared from
the global depression and that we were ill-prepared to deal with it.
Despite my warnings, Government officials and politicians boldly
declared that South Africa would only be marginally affected by the
global depression. The worst, they said, was already over and recovery
was in sight. This was irresponsible nonsense. We lost precious time
to formulate our response to the crisis.

Against this backdrop, South Africa has awakened to the harsh reality
that, in the first quarter, 22% of its manufacturing capacity has been
shut down, mining has been reduced by 33% and the GDP is down by at
least 6,7%. This is just the beginning. In all likelihood, the
recession will gather pace in the next quarter. And the collapse of
the real estate market, which has been held back by the expectation of
a quick recovery, now seems inescapable.

The economy is our first priority. The recession will undermine
Government's efforts, from the upliftment of the poor to fighting
crime. Mr President: the laudatory pledges you announced yesterday
would be difficult to fulfil in times of prosperity, let alone times
of severe austerity.

The recession cannot be addressed by a bureaucratic, administrative or
legislative response. We are not going to fix the economy by
establishing new Departments of State, appointing new Ministers or
holding policy summits. The delay in taking action has restricted
what we can do. We must now liken the global depression to a world
war. We must transform our thinking and build a new financial
architecture. Only the countries that adjust their economies will
survive the global economic depression.

The impact of the global depression is going to be greater than World
War II. We dare not be on the losing side, lest South Africa is
reduced, once again, to a mere global supplier of commodities and raw
materials. For years our country has tried to develop an industrial
basis. We must now protect it, as our future depends on it.

Already we are experiencing casualties. Hundreds of thousands of
people have lost their jobs, and more will. As winter sets in we will
see wide-spread hunger and despair. Under such pressures, our
healthcare system is likely to disintegrate, alongside our already
failing education system. This is not the time, to quote my friend
Baroness Margaret Thatcher, to "go wobbly". The hour demands courage
and determination.

Mr President; if we are serious about protecting jobs in our shrinking
industrial basis and attracting Foreign Direct Investment, we must
devalue the Rand immediately. We cannot wait for months, weeks or even
days. The US Federal Reserve gave the example by cutting the prime
rate to zero within hours of the US market hitting the bottom.

Having a strong Rand is nothing but ill-conceived national pride. Our
economy is not reliant on imports and we produce enough to ensure that
the devaluation of the Rand will not necessarily affect the goods and
services consumed by the low and middle classes.

We must devalue the Rand, and then stablise the devalued Rand. No
business can cope in an environment of two-digit currency fluctuation.
Government must aggressively use whatever means available to keep the
devalued Rand stable.

Undoubtedly, devaluing the Rand will increase the inflation rate over
time. But economists and policymakers have informed me that, for a
country like South Africa, it is better to deal with a little more
inflation than with wide-spread joblessness and long-lasting depression.

We must act now. We must save our real estate market before it
collapses and force the South African Reserve Bank to cut its interest
rate to single digits and as close as possible to zero. This by itself
will cause the devaluation of the Rand, as the currency will no longer
be attractive to currency investors and speculators.

This compels us to re-evaluate our relationship with the South African
Reserve Bank, which still remains a private entity owned by private
shareholders, and controlled primarily by such shareholders which the
law requires to be kept secret. One can only assume that this money
trust of bankers acts in the public interests because they are so tied
to our economy that, if the economy suffers, they suffer too.

But we live in extraordinary times. The American people have begun to
question the old maxim that what ?is good for General Motors is good
for America'. It might equally be the case that what is good for the
South African bankers may not be good for the South African people and
economy. The South African Reserve Bank should become what the
Constitution envisages it to be; an organ of State, part of the
Government of our country.

This process will take time, even if conducted through
nationalisation. But the urgent need to cut interest rates to a
minimum cannot wait if we want to avoid the compounded domino effect
of wide-spread repossessions and the domestic devaluation of the South
Africa real estate asset base.

I know that it is difficult to focus politicians on delicate economic
issues, which are often subcontracted to academics, think tanks and
bankers. As politicians, we often rely on our gut instinct to know
what is right or wrong and what needs to be done; and we are often
right.

But when it comes to economic issues, we have long been trained not to
do so. I plead with the President to be responsive to the mandate he
received from the people and make sure that we maintain employment
levels, jobs and industrial capacity.

I respect the role in which history has cast the President. I hope
that he will respect the role history has finally cast me. I receive
my mandate from the poorest of the poor, who stand to suffer the most.
The economic crisis could jeopardise everything we have fought for. I
plead with the President to focus on it, not only with his mind, but
with his heart, and I pledge to him my full and truthful support.

Finally, let us be honest about the widespread electoral
irregularities in the recent elections. We saw acts unbefitting our
democracy, such as the IFP Secretary-General Reverend Musa Zondi being
searched and humiliated by the National Intervention Unit in Nongoma.
Election irregularities are not new to us, but they must become
unacceptable.

When the former Secretary-General of the OAU, His Excellency Dr Salim
Ahmed Salim, who is now one of the "wise men of Africa", visited South
Africa ahead of our elections, I met with him in Durban. He was to
lead the African Union Monitoring Team during the election.

I gave him a copy of the Aide Memoire which I provided to the
Chairperson of the IEC, Dr Brigalia Bam, and the members of the
Commission when they met with me and members of the National Council
of my Party on 31 March 2008. In it I had listed all the
irregularities that have taken place during our elections from 1994 to
2004. Dr Bam and the IEC had promised to come back to us. But a year
had already passed and they had not done so.

I asked Dr Salim whether, for us in Africa, different standards are
used in declaring an election "free and fair". I recalled that in a
previous election in Zimbabwe most political parties in South Africa
sent monitors. All of them, except the IFP monitoring team, the
Chairperson of the IEC, and the European Monitoring Team, declared
that Zimbabwean election "free and fair".

Dr Salim chuckled and said he preferred the word "credible" rather
than "free and fair". This reminded me of the wisdom of one of our
African sayings: "Motsoalle oa moloi ke moloi, motsoalle oa lesholu ke
leshulu".

The mandate our President has received places great responsibility on
his shoulders. We wish him well.