Date: 10/10/2005
Sourcee: North West Provincial Government
Title: Molewa: Construction Conference Gala Dinner


  Speech by North West Premier, Ms Edna Molewa, at the Construction Conference Gala Dinner held in Sun City

Programme Director;
Minister of Public Works, Ms Stella Sigcau;
MEC for Public Works, Mr Howard Yawa;
Chief Executive Officer of South African Association of Consulting Engineers, Mr Pirie Preng;
Executive Director of the South African
Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, Mr Henk Langenhoven;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to be part of this historic conference, which may well go down in history as the defining moment for the construction industry in our country.

For us in government, the Construction Charter is our blue-print for the fundamental transformation of the sector. We therefore wish to applaud the South African Association of Consulting Engineers and the South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors for the road you have travelled in the process of drafting the construction charter.

In particular, I wish to congratulate you for ensuring that the charter deals with critical issues such as the Expanded Public Works Programme, empowerment and skills development. These matters are at the core of our interventions in the Second Economy.

Unlike an ostrich, you did not choose to bury your head in the sand and hope you would be insulated from the irreversible transformation process that is touching every aspect of our economic life. Instead, you have taken this courageous and constructive step of engaging with the issues raised in the Construction Charter, so that your voices and contribution can help enrich the process.

The construction industry constitutes one of the central pillars of our Growth and Development Strategy. The construction of appropriate infrastructure such as roads and bridges is at the centre of our programme to attract investment. Government's capacity to meet its infrastructure delivery targets such as clinics, schools and houses depends almost entirely on the responsiveness and performance of this sector. We therefore view the construction industry as a critical partner in the reconstruction and development of our country.

The Expanded Public Works Programme is at the heart of our attempts to create jobs, deliver services, eradicate poverty and skill our people. For the programme to succeed, the role of the construction sector remains critical. I am heartened to note that the sector has embraced this challenge and is determined to place this programme on top of its agenda.

Programme Director, our municipalities are faced with important challenges, which undermine their capacity to deliver optimally. For this reason we have introduced intervention measures in the form of Project Consolidate. One of these challenges relates to lack of skills, in particular engineering and other technical skills. I call upon the construction sector to reflect seriously on these challenges and find ways in which it, acting in partnership with government, can help to address this challenge. It may be important for the industry to prioritise the development of skills in the engineering field, so that more and more of our people can acquire these important skills.

The other challenge, Programme Director, is infrastructure backlog. It may be important for the industry to assist us by doing an audit of infrastructure backlog in our municipalities and the capacity that may be required to deal with it. Arising from this audit, we hope we will be in a position to intervene decisively so that all our municipalities are placed in a position that would enable them to discharge their mandates more effectively. We call upon the construction sector to continue being our partners in the implementation of Project Consolidate.

Our observation is that the construction sector, like many others, continues to reflect inequalities and imbalances in ownership and management. The participation of black people and women is only marginal. I am confident that these are some of the key issues that the sector itself is seized with.

We share the view that the transformation charter will help address inequalities in the sector, unlock its potential and enhance its growth. We are confident that key players will move with speed to ensure that this sector of our economy becomes an example of what a nation can achieve if it actively creates opportunities for all its people.

Programme Director, over the last 10 years, a lot of work has gone towards putting in place a progressive legislative and policy framework aimed at promoting access to economic opportunities for the historically marginalised people of our country. This we did in order to give practical meaning to the pledge we made during our struggle for liberation that we will not consider our historic mission complete and our liberation achieved, if the people of our country are still trapped under conditions of economic oppression and exclusion.

We are convinced that the continued exclusion of the majority of our citizens from the fruits of our economy can only undermine the objectives of our hard-won liberation. Broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) is a necessary tool for building a more vibrant, all-inclusive and growing economy.

I am confident that none of us here tonight will dare contest the assertion that we owe it to our common vision of an equal and prosperous society to vigorously pursue broad-based economic empowerment so that all our people, including the historically marginalised, can have the possibility of creating a better life for themselves and their fellow compatriots. This, we must do because South Africa belongs to them too.

Part of the challenges we face is to ensure that we pursue black economic empowerment in its broadest sense. We have a responsibility to spread the benefits of economic empowerment to all our people including those in the rural areas and in particular rural women. Let us stop our preoccupation with headline-grabbing empowerment deals, which are devoid of sustainability and a broad-based element. We must continue to move away from the kind of empowerment that leads to the creation of a new elite to the exclusion of the majority of our people.

This sector, in particular, must address itself to the important issue of skills transfer. It is a sad reality that while there seems to be general consensus that black economic empowerment is an imperative in our country, not much is being done to facilitate the transfer of skills.

This has led to the unfortunate situation where far too many boardrooms and positions of influence in corporate South Africa are still dominated by certain sections of our society. As we build roads, clinics and schools, we must ensure that we develop the human capital and skills to design, construct and build such infrastructure. We must move with greater speed to help undo the legacy of a policy that deliberately denied black people and women access to studies such as engineering.

Our Provincial Growth and Development Strategy identifies the development of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) as one of the key strategies of contributing towards fighting poverty and reducing unemployment. The role of business in this regard is critical. Business can help grow and sustain small and emerging enterprises and co-operatives through deliberate interventions such as their corporate social investment programmes and preferential procurement.

While we are making all these demands on the private sector, our government for its part, is hard at work to ensure that broad-based black economic empowerment becomes a reality. We are making progress in giving concrete expression to our commitment to empower those who have been historically excluded from the economic mainstream. We have significantly increased the number and value of government contracts awarded to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged people. Our progressive procurement policies have given a number of businesses owned by Africans, women, the youth and the disabled access to major government contracts.

At the same time, all of us must do everything in our power to uproot the scourge of fronting which is rampant in the construction sector. As government and players in this sector, we must demonstrate our impatience with this despicable practice which undermines our efforts at transforming our economy and empowering those who have been historically marginalised from economic activity.

Collectively, we must make a solemn pledge that as we enter the second decade of freedom, we will accelerate the offensive on economic exclusion and work towards an economy that benefits all. As President Mbeki stated in his State of the Nation Address in February this year:

"Success in the growth of our economy should be measured not merely in terms of the returns that accrue to investors or the job opportunities to those with skills. Rather, it should also manifest in the extent to which the marginalised in the wilderness of the Second Economy are included and are at leas afforded sustainable livelihoods. South Africa belongs to them too."

We must also deliver a vocal and unequivocal reminder to our people that they must also take personal responsibility to seize the economic opportunities brought by our freedom and democracy, instead of remaining passive and waiting to be "empowered". In the spirit of vuku'zenzele, our citizens must become their own liberators in the ongoing process of socio-economic transformation.

I wish to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Provincial government, to salute many of you in this sector who have elected to embrace government's clarion call to promote black economic empowerment as well as your enthusiastic participation in the charter process.

Acting together, we can approach the future with confidence and ensure that this declaration of the Freedom Charter becomes a reality: "The people shall share in the country's wealth!"

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of Premier, North West Provincial Government
10 October 2005