Date: 31/12/2006
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mbeki: New Year Message
New Year Message of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki
Fellow South Africans,
Today, the last day of the year 2006, all of us are preparing to celebrate the advent of the New Year, 2007. On behalf of our government and in my own name, I would like to wish you all a Happy and Successful New Year.
Unfortunately, there are many of our fellow citizens who will not be with us as we celebrate the New Year, having passed away during the festive season. I refer in particular to those who died as a result of the many accidents on our roads, as well as others who died as a result of various incidents of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Once again, I would like to appeal to everybody to do everything possible radically to reduce the incidence of death from unnatural causes. This means that all of us must pay serious attention to the important messages with which all of us are familiar - Don't drink and drive! Pedestrians take extra care! Arrive alive!
It also means that we must not allow that the parties we attend should turn into battlefields during which we kill the very people with whom we have come together to celebrate and enjoy ourselves.
All of us must make a serious effort to remind one another that not only is it illegal to kill another human being, it is also morally wrong. None of us is entitled unlawfully to deprive any human being of his or her life.
We must also remind one another that the penalty for anybody who kills another person unlawfully is many years in prison, and that our society as a whole will always do everything possible to ensure that those guilty of murder or culpable homicide are caught and prosecuted.
We go into the New Year faced with many tasks that require the minds and the hands of all our people. Accordingly, we cannot afford to lose any life needlessly, and thus reduce our capacity as a nation successfully to overcome the problems with which all of us are familiar.
During the year that begins tomorrow, the year 2007, we must further intensify our collective effort to deal with these problems, determined to accelerate our advance towards the achievement of the vitally important objective of a better life for all our people.
All of us know that we continue to face serious problems of poverty and unemployment that still afflict many of our people. We know that many of our people continue to live in shacks, with no access to proper housing. Some of our people still have no access to clean water, electricity and adequate health facilities.
We also know that we still have much to do to guarantee proper education for our children, as well as provide the necessary training for those who need the skills that our society end economy demand. Similarly, we must continue to confront the problem of high levels of crime, including violent crimes committed against the most vulnerable in our society, such as women, children and the elderly.
Again we know that many of our people live in neighbourhoods that remain underdeveloped, lacking even such basic infrastructure as roads, making it difficult for them to engage in activities that would provide them with a decent livelihood.
Early this year, when we presented the 2006 State of the Nation Address, we said that we had entered our Age of Hope. We said this because as we approached our third local government elections and the end of our 12th year of freedom, it seemed clear that both the public and the private sectors had accumulated fairly substantial human and material resources, as well as experience, to make it possible for us to accelerate our advance towards the achievement of the central objective of a better life for all our people.
We must use these, and all other additional resources, to make the year 2007 a better one than the one we see out tonight, in terms of the improvement of the quality of life of our people. This time next year, we must be able to say that we have liberated ever more people from the grip of poverty, joblessness, homelessness, ignorance, disease and the other social ills we have mentioned.
We must be able to show practically that we have succeeded to realise the hopes of even more of our citizens than we managed to do in 2006. I am certain that as a nation we have both the means and the will to achieve this objective, making certain that 2007 will indeed be a successful New Year for all of us.
Tomorrow, our Ambassador at the United Nations (UN) in New York, Dumisani Khumalo, will take his seat in the chamber of the Security Council, the first time that our country serves in this important body of the United Nations since its foundation, 62 years ago.
As we close the year 2006, and speaking in the name of all our people, I am pleased to wish our Ambassador and his colleagues in our UN Mission success in their important work focused on the critical challenge of contributing to the achievement of peace and security in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.
Once again, on behalf of our government and in my own name I wish you, dear fellow South Africans, a Happy and Successful 2007 and a safe passage through the remaining period of the festive season.
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
31 December 2006
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mbeki: New Year Message
New Year Message of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki
Fellow South Africans,
Today, the last day of the year 2006, all of us are preparing to celebrate the advent of the New Year, 2007. On behalf of our government and in my own name, I would like to wish you all a Happy and Successful New Year.
Unfortunately, there are many of our fellow citizens who will not be with us as we celebrate the New Year, having passed away during the festive season. I refer in particular to those who died as a result of the many accidents on our roads, as well as others who died as a result of various incidents of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Once again, I would like to appeal to everybody to do everything possible radically to reduce the incidence of death from unnatural causes. This means that all of us must pay serious attention to the important messages with which all of us are familiar - Don't drink and drive! Pedestrians take extra care! Arrive alive!
It also means that we must not allow that the parties we attend should turn into battlefields during which we kill the very people with whom we have come together to celebrate and enjoy ourselves.
All of us must make a serious effort to remind one another that not only is it illegal to kill another human being, it is also morally wrong. None of us is entitled unlawfully to deprive any human being of his or her life.
We must also remind one another that the penalty for anybody who kills another person unlawfully is many years in prison, and that our society as a whole will always do everything possible to ensure that those guilty of murder or culpable homicide are caught and prosecuted.
We go into the New Year faced with many tasks that require the minds and the hands of all our people. Accordingly, we cannot afford to lose any life needlessly, and thus reduce our capacity as a nation successfully to overcome the problems with which all of us are familiar.
During the year that begins tomorrow, the year 2007, we must further intensify our collective effort to deal with these problems, determined to accelerate our advance towards the achievement of the vitally important objective of a better life for all our people.
All of us know that we continue to face serious problems of poverty and unemployment that still afflict many of our people. We know that many of our people continue to live in shacks, with no access to proper housing. Some of our people still have no access to clean water, electricity and adequate health facilities.
We also know that we still have much to do to guarantee proper education for our children, as well as provide the necessary training for those who need the skills that our society end economy demand. Similarly, we must continue to confront the problem of high levels of crime, including violent crimes committed against the most vulnerable in our society, such as women, children and the elderly.
Again we know that many of our people live in neighbourhoods that remain underdeveloped, lacking even such basic infrastructure as roads, making it difficult for them to engage in activities that would provide them with a decent livelihood.
Early this year, when we presented the 2006 State of the Nation Address, we said that we had entered our Age of Hope. We said this because as we approached our third local government elections and the end of our 12th year of freedom, it seemed clear that both the public and the private sectors had accumulated fairly substantial human and material resources, as well as experience, to make it possible for us to accelerate our advance towards the achievement of the central objective of a better life for all our people.
We must use these, and all other additional resources, to make the year 2007 a better one than the one we see out tonight, in terms of the improvement of the quality of life of our people. This time next year, we must be able to say that we have liberated ever more people from the grip of poverty, joblessness, homelessness, ignorance, disease and the other social ills we have mentioned.
We must be able to show practically that we have succeeded to realise the hopes of even more of our citizens than we managed to do in 2006. I am certain that as a nation we have both the means and the will to achieve this objective, making certain that 2007 will indeed be a successful New Year for all of us.
Tomorrow, our Ambassador at the United Nations (UN) in New York, Dumisani Khumalo, will take his seat in the chamber of the Security Council, the first time that our country serves in this important body of the United Nations since its foundation, 62 years ago.
As we close the year 2006, and speaking in the name of all our people, I am pleased to wish our Ambassador and his colleagues in our UN Mission success in their important work focused on the critical challenge of contributing to the achievement of peace and security in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.
Once again, on behalf of our government and in my own name I wish you, dear fellow South Africans, a Happy and Successful 2007 and a safe passage through the remaining period of the festive season.
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
31 December 2006
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