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Date : 29/09/2003
Source: Department of Labour
Title: Mdladlana: African Regional Labour Administrative Council


WELCOME REMARKS BY HON MINISTER MMS MDLADLANA, FIRST VICE-CHAIRPERSON OF ARLAC, AT THE AFRICAN REGIONAL LABOUR ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL (ARLAC) HIGH LEVEL FORUM MEETING, Marine Parade Hotel, Durban, 29 September 2003

Honourable Minister Moyo, ARLAC's Chairperson
Distinguished participants and guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is an honour and privilege for me to welcome you to South Africa and to the splendid city of Durban renowned for its pleasurable and friendly climatologically conditions and its breathtaking beaches and state of the art conference facilities. As you will soon realise, this city will provide you with an excellent working atmosphere for fruitful and productive interaction as well as opportunities for recreation and reflection.

South Africa is an integral and immutable part of Africa. Its fate and future, its successes and failures are inextricably interwoven with that of the continent. The leadership of our country and the citizenry in its entirety are fully aware of the challenges we all face as Africans. We are fully aware of the painful and traumatic history of colonialism and land disposition.

We remain concerned about how our natural resources continue to be looted and expatriated to create wealth for others while our people continue to bear the crushing burden of poverty and under-development. We remain concerned about ethnic conflicts and wars that continue to ravage parts of our continent. It troubles us when some of the economically powerful nations from foreign continents use their wealth and influence to corrupt some of our leaders and supply them with weapons of war so that they should fight against one another.

At its 89th anniversary celebrated in this city, my organisation, the African National Congress, chose the theme: "Africa - ke nako - Africa, the time has come". This theme was inspired by the desire for us as Africans to take charge of our own destiny. This desire has now been articulated in the programme called: the "New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)". As many of you would know, NEPAD rests on six pillars or objectives namely: Peace and Security, Democracy and Political Governance, Economic and Corporate Governance, Capital Flows, Market Access and Human Resource Development. A successful implementation of this programme, which has since been adopted by the African Union (AU) will result in the renaissance of the African continent and the restoration of the dignity, hope and aspirations of its sons and daughters.

In his address to the South African Parliament in October 2001, his Excellency Thabo Mbeki, the President of the Republic of South Africa, asked the question "when at the end of the century historians cast their eyes back over the 21st century, what will they see?" His answer to the question he himself posed revealed his hope and vision for the continent when he said, "they (that is historians) should see that Africa has at last emerged from a long period of darkness and fear into one of light and dream fulfilled". He continued to say, "they should see that through our persistent efforts we have redefined ourselves into something other than a place of suffering, a place of wars, a place of hunger, a place of disease and a place of backwardness". At the said occasion, President Mbeki passionately and eloquently articulated a dream of a new Africa where we will collectively refuse to be conditioned by circumstances such as slavery, colonialism and racism historically imposed on us. An Africa where we will refuse to be told by anybody how we should conduct our own affairs.

I have reasons to believe that this dream is shared by all of you gathered here and that by adopting NEPAD as a programme of the AU, your leaders were also demonstrating an unambiguous commitment to building a new Africa where children and their mothers no longer succumb to preventable diseases. An Africa whose people no longer suffer the indignity of standing in long queues stretching-out empty bowls begging for food often from those who have caused our misery in the first place. An Africa where the sounds of guns shall turn into a deafening silence, which will only be punctuated by the ululation and lyrics of songs of joy and drums of conquest as the sons and daughters of our continent shall be dancing to a deepening feeling of peace and security in territories governed by the will of the people and where prosperity reigns supremacy. This may sound like an African version of a utopia but I am sure we would not have been gathered here today were it not for the fact that we can turn the dream of the African renaissance into reality. We are gathered in this fashion because we believe that ARLAC can add tremendous value to the NEPAD programme.

Minister Moyo, I am aware of, and greatly value, your commitment to ARLAC and other regional initiatives. In this regard, I would like to thank ARLAC for providing this opportunity to discuss such an exciting and promising initiative from the continent of Africa; such an interaction is long overdue. The South African government is ready to work with you and other countries in the region, on ways in which we can cooperate in achieving the NEPAD objectives.

Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that we will leave this forum with a common sense of purpose to further guide our preparations. And, perhaps more importantly, we will leave with a sense of responsibility and urgency to play our respective roles in shaping the agreed strategies to make our collective vision of a better life for all a realisable goal and imminent reality.

In conclusion, the conditions are set for the NEPAD objectives to be achieved. This unique opportunity must be firmly grasped, the present goodwill and momentum must be maintained and implementation of NEPAD must proceed without delay. For the sake of future generations of Africans, we cannot afford to fail.

So as you deliberate on these matters over the next few days, please be conscious of the fact that the outcome of your meeting will affect millions of those who cannot be part of this distinguished gathering. I know that I can count on all of you to steer your deliberations towards producing an excellent outcome.

I wish you well and thank you all for the opportunity to formally open this meeting - and I so declare.

Thank you.

Source Department of Labour (http://www.labour.gov.za)

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