Date: 18/03/2004
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: P Molefe: Public address in Rustenburg
PUBLIC ADDRESS BY NORTH WEST PREMIER DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE TO THE PEOPLE OF RUSTENBURG, 18 March 2004
Programme Director
The Executive Mayor of Rustenburg
The Executive Mayor of the Bojanala District
Municipality
Councillors
Fellow South Africans
Let me begin by thanking the people of Rustenburg for opening their hearts to me personally and to those who have joined me on this important day.
We were truly humbled by the warm reception we received. It is our hope that the people of Rustenburg will accept our sincere thanks in this regard.
We are gathered here today, almost a month before the historic celebrations of the end of the first decade of freedom in our country.
These celebrations will mark ten years of a nation at work to build prosperity and a better life for all. They will mark ten years of triumph of good over evil, progress over stagnation and hope over despair.
These celebrations will serve as an eloquent reminder of the road we have travelled, obstacles we have overcome and gains we have made since our liberation.
They will, once more provide proof that our forward march towards a better society is now irreversible. They will confirm that our goal is within reach.
As we prepare to celebrate ten years of freedom, we need to do an honest assessment of our achievements, our challenges and failures. This is the time to celebrate our achievements, own up to our failures and recollect our energy to confront the challenges we face.
This we must do in order for us to remain focused on the path we have set for ourselves. This is a path of ensuring that we lift from the shoulders of our people the intolerable burden of poverty and underdevelopment.
Fellow South Africans, we are justified to look back with pride on the road we have travelled since our liberation almost ten years ago. We are justified to claim our victories.
We are justified to say that the race we began in 1994 has been a race well run.
We can say without fear of contradiction that acting together, we have made significant strides in redeeming the pledge we made to our people.
This was a pledge to build a better life for all.
As a result of our collective work over the past ten years, we are confident that we have laid a solid foundation for us to tackle, with even more vigour and determination, challenges of the second decade of freedom.
As a nation we have a lot to be proud of and to celebrate!
In North West Province in particular, we celebrate ten years of hard work to bring stability and racial harmony even in areas that were bastions of rightwing extremism.
We celebrate the fact that we have succeeded in bringing dignity to many of our people humiliated by unjust practises of the past.
We celebrate the stability we have achieved in our farming communities where, previously, being black invited for many of our people untold suffering, discrimination and oppression.
We are proud of the progress we have made in returning land to our people. More and more people in our province now have access to productive agricultural land, which they are using to improve the quality of their lives.
We draw great courage from our collective success in building and entrenching a culture of political tolerance in our province. We celebrate the sweet fruits of our hard work in ensuring that ours becomes one of the best provinces in terms of good governance.
We count among our successes the fact that we have transformed our local government structures from mere administrations to independent institution, strategically located at the coalface of the delivery of services to our people.
To us in the North West Province, ten years of freedom signify, ten years of a sound and growing economy, an economy capable of responding to the needs of all its people.
We are proud that as a result of sound macro-economic management at national level and a number of provincial interventions aimed at supporting economic growth, our provincial economy recorded positive growth over the past ten years.
We are encouraged by progress we are making in providing decent shelter to our people. Since 1994, we have build 117 000 housing units, providing decent shelter to over 600 000 people who had no meaningful shelter.
We are proud that over the past ten years we have increased social expenditure as a percentage of the total budget from 62% to 80%, indicating our commitment to the objective of building a prosperous and caring nation.
In 1994, we spent close to R2 000 per year for the education of one child.
This has since increased to close to R6 000 in 2004.
Our expenditure on health has grown from just over R1 billion in 1994 to over R2 billion in 2003. Expenditure on welfare grants grew from R879 million in 1994 to R4,046 billion - a massive increase of 359%.
Old age grant beneficiaries grew from over 54 000 to over 186 000, whilst the child support grant beneficiaries grew from a negligible 2 000 in the 1998/99 financial year to over 543 000 in the 2003/04 financial year.
We are proud that acting together we have succeeded in drastically reducing incidences of crime in our province. We however are aware that more still needs to be done to deal with the challenge of stock theft.
We claim as our victory the fact that a growing number of women in our province occupy positions of influence in the public service.
We have indeed come a long way. We are justified to celebrate our collective victories since our liberation in 1994.
Programme Director, the progress we have made at a national and provincial level is mirrored by the strides the City of Rustenburg has made in bettering lives of its people.
The City of Rustenburg has indeed come of age. Acting together, they have achieved many a milestones. Like many of their counterparts in the rest of the country, they too have reason to join the celebrations of ten years of Freedom.
Working together, the people of Rustenburg have ensured that this city takes its rightful place among the growing cities of our country.
It is a matter of pride that Rustenburg is now among the fastest growing cities in our province. This places Rustenburg firmly on a path to being a world-class city, a city that is an envy of all.
The people of Rustenburg claim as their collective victory the fact that they have succeeded in creating necessary climate for other partners in the provincial economy to join the effort to build a stronger economy and create jobs.
Figures at our disposal indicate that by 2002, mining companies in the North West Province, particularly in the Rustenburg area, had invested over R8 billion in new projects. It is expected that additional investment of over R20 billion will be made during the 2003/2004 financial year.
As part of the historic celebrations of ten years of freedom, the people of Rustenburg will celebrate, among others, the positive spin-offs resulting from the construction of the N4 Platinum Highway in the form of skills transfers, jobs and opportunities for broad based empowerment.
They are also celebrating the completion of the bulk water supply scheme and the rehabilitation of gravel roads in Phatsima, electrification of 400 stands and the upgrading of sewer reticulation in Boitekong.
They are applauding the surfacing and chemical treatment of roads and the installation of a storm water drainage system in Monnakato.
Only this morning, we handed over a clinic as well as 900 housing units to the community of Lethabong.
The people of Rustenburg are encouraged by the ongoing upgrading of all access roads to the City.
They are delighted that the completion of the housing development project in Boitekong Extension 2,4 and 5 is nearing completion.
Clearly Programme Director, like in the rest of the province, work is continuing in earnest to build a better life for the people of Rustenburg.
It is for this reason that they too are saying that; the work done over the past ten years has been a great story of success. They too have reason to celebrate.
They are confident that the future holds for them even more progress in the ongoing effort to improve their lives.
As we celebrate our achievements, we must not loose sight of the reality that a lot more still needs to be done by all of us, to further move our country away from the legacy of its unhappy past.
We must be mindful that the legacy we seek to eradicate is of a deep-seated nature and will require all of us to act as a collective. We have a responsibility to ensure that we strengthen the people's contract to build a better country and a better province.
Collectively, we must act swiftly to implement our programmes aimed at freeing our people from the yoke of poverty and unemployment.
It is only when we act together that we can overcome the challenges we face.
I wish the City of Rustenburg well in all its endeavours. May it grow in leaps and bounds.
I thank you!
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
18 March 2004
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: P Molefe: Public address in Rustenburg
PUBLIC ADDRESS BY NORTH WEST PREMIER DR POPO SIMON MOLEFE TO THE PEOPLE OF RUSTENBURG, 18 March 2004
Programme Director
The Executive Mayor of Rustenburg
The Executive Mayor of the Bojanala District
Municipality
Councillors
Fellow South Africans
Let me begin by thanking the people of Rustenburg for opening their hearts to me personally and to those who have joined me on this important day.
We were truly humbled by the warm reception we received. It is our hope that the people of Rustenburg will accept our sincere thanks in this regard.
We are gathered here today, almost a month before the historic celebrations of the end of the first decade of freedom in our country.
These celebrations will mark ten years of a nation at work to build prosperity and a better life for all. They will mark ten years of triumph of good over evil, progress over stagnation and hope over despair.
These celebrations will serve as an eloquent reminder of the road we have travelled, obstacles we have overcome and gains we have made since our liberation.
They will, once more provide proof that our forward march towards a better society is now irreversible. They will confirm that our goal is within reach.
As we prepare to celebrate ten years of freedom, we need to do an honest assessment of our achievements, our challenges and failures. This is the time to celebrate our achievements, own up to our failures and recollect our energy to confront the challenges we face.
This we must do in order for us to remain focused on the path we have set for ourselves. This is a path of ensuring that we lift from the shoulders of our people the intolerable burden of poverty and underdevelopment.
Fellow South Africans, we are justified to look back with pride on the road we have travelled since our liberation almost ten years ago. We are justified to claim our victories.
We are justified to say that the race we began in 1994 has been a race well run.
We can say without fear of contradiction that acting together, we have made significant strides in redeeming the pledge we made to our people.
This was a pledge to build a better life for all.
As a result of our collective work over the past ten years, we are confident that we have laid a solid foundation for us to tackle, with even more vigour and determination, challenges of the second decade of freedom.
As a nation we have a lot to be proud of and to celebrate!
In North West Province in particular, we celebrate ten years of hard work to bring stability and racial harmony even in areas that were bastions of rightwing extremism.
We celebrate the fact that we have succeeded in bringing dignity to many of our people humiliated by unjust practises of the past.
We celebrate the stability we have achieved in our farming communities where, previously, being black invited for many of our people untold suffering, discrimination and oppression.
We are proud of the progress we have made in returning land to our people. More and more people in our province now have access to productive agricultural land, which they are using to improve the quality of their lives.
We draw great courage from our collective success in building and entrenching a culture of political tolerance in our province. We celebrate the sweet fruits of our hard work in ensuring that ours becomes one of the best provinces in terms of good governance.
We count among our successes the fact that we have transformed our local government structures from mere administrations to independent institution, strategically located at the coalface of the delivery of services to our people.
To us in the North West Province, ten years of freedom signify, ten years of a sound and growing economy, an economy capable of responding to the needs of all its people.
We are proud that as a result of sound macro-economic management at national level and a number of provincial interventions aimed at supporting economic growth, our provincial economy recorded positive growth over the past ten years.
We are encouraged by progress we are making in providing decent shelter to our people. Since 1994, we have build 117 000 housing units, providing decent shelter to over 600 000 people who had no meaningful shelter.
We are proud that over the past ten years we have increased social expenditure as a percentage of the total budget from 62% to 80%, indicating our commitment to the objective of building a prosperous and caring nation.
In 1994, we spent close to R2 000 per year for the education of one child.
This has since increased to close to R6 000 in 2004.
Our expenditure on health has grown from just over R1 billion in 1994 to over R2 billion in 2003. Expenditure on welfare grants grew from R879 million in 1994 to R4,046 billion - a massive increase of 359%.
Old age grant beneficiaries grew from over 54 000 to over 186 000, whilst the child support grant beneficiaries grew from a negligible 2 000 in the 1998/99 financial year to over 543 000 in the 2003/04 financial year.
We are proud that acting together we have succeeded in drastically reducing incidences of crime in our province. We however are aware that more still needs to be done to deal with the challenge of stock theft.
We claim as our victory the fact that a growing number of women in our province occupy positions of influence in the public service.
We have indeed come a long way. We are justified to celebrate our collective victories since our liberation in 1994.
Programme Director, the progress we have made at a national and provincial level is mirrored by the strides the City of Rustenburg has made in bettering lives of its people.
The City of Rustenburg has indeed come of age. Acting together, they have achieved many a milestones. Like many of their counterparts in the rest of the country, they too have reason to join the celebrations of ten years of Freedom.
Working together, the people of Rustenburg have ensured that this city takes its rightful place among the growing cities of our country.
It is a matter of pride that Rustenburg is now among the fastest growing cities in our province. This places Rustenburg firmly on a path to being a world-class city, a city that is an envy of all.
The people of Rustenburg claim as their collective victory the fact that they have succeeded in creating necessary climate for other partners in the provincial economy to join the effort to build a stronger economy and create jobs.
Figures at our disposal indicate that by 2002, mining companies in the North West Province, particularly in the Rustenburg area, had invested over R8 billion in new projects. It is expected that additional investment of over R20 billion will be made during the 2003/2004 financial year.
As part of the historic celebrations of ten years of freedom, the people of Rustenburg will celebrate, among others, the positive spin-offs resulting from the construction of the N4 Platinum Highway in the form of skills transfers, jobs and opportunities for broad based empowerment.
They are also celebrating the completion of the bulk water supply scheme and the rehabilitation of gravel roads in Phatsima, electrification of 400 stands and the upgrading of sewer reticulation in Boitekong.
They are applauding the surfacing and chemical treatment of roads and the installation of a storm water drainage system in Monnakato.
Only this morning, we handed over a clinic as well as 900 housing units to the community of Lethabong.
The people of Rustenburg are encouraged by the ongoing upgrading of all access roads to the City.
They are delighted that the completion of the housing development project in Boitekong Extension 2,4 and 5 is nearing completion.
Clearly Programme Director, like in the rest of the province, work is continuing in earnest to build a better life for the people of Rustenburg.
It is for this reason that they too are saying that; the work done over the past ten years has been a great story of success. They too have reason to celebrate.
They are confident that the future holds for them even more progress in the ongoing effort to improve their lives.
As we celebrate our achievements, we must not loose sight of the reality that a lot more still needs to be done by all of us, to further move our country away from the legacy of its unhappy past.
We must be mindful that the legacy we seek to eradicate is of a deep-seated nature and will require all of us to act as a collective. We have a responsibility to ensure that we strengthen the people's contract to build a better country and a better province.
Collectively, we must act swiftly to implement our programmes aimed at freeing our people from the yoke of poverty and unemployment.
It is only when we act together that we can overcome the challenges we face.
I wish the City of Rustenburg well in all its endeavours. May it grow in leaps and bounds.
I thank you!
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
18 March 2004
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