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Date: 30/04/2004
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: E Molewa: Inauguration as North West Premier


ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE EDNA MOLEWA ON THE OCCASION OF HER INAUGURATION AS A PREMIER OF THE NORTH WEST PROVINCE, GARONA BUILDING, MAFIKENG, 30 April 2004

Judge President Mogoeng
The honourable outgoing Premier, Dr Popo Simon Molefe
Hon. Minister Jeff Radebe
Colleagues in government
Executive Mayors, Mayors and Councillors
Our beloved traditional leaders
Provincial Commissioner of SAPS
Chairperson of Public Service Commission, Prof. Sangweni
Distinguished guests
Fellow South Africans

I am truly honoured to welcome all of you to the seat of the provincial government, Mafikeng, on this solemn occasion of the inauguration of the Second Premier of the North West Province. We are deeply humbled that you could join us today.

Your presence not only lends dignity and importance to this occasion, but also makes a profound statement that our democracy is now firmly entrenched and embraced by all. There is no going back.

The recent elections delivered a resounding mandate by our people. The campaign issues and the election results painted a stark and narrow path that we must all travel to meet the needs of our people. We assure the citizens of this province that to us the purpose of our glory is not gloating. We embrace their mandate with humility and dedicate ourselves to the challenges.

There comes a time in the history of nations when critical choices have to be made. That time came in 1994 for the South African nation, and we chose reconciliation over civil war, nation building over national suicide, and peace over strife. Because of that choice, all South Africans, black and white, are free today, the one free from bondage and misery, the other free from guilt and hatred, and that is why we are gathered here today.

In 1994 there was a gathering of today's character and purpose. In 1999 there was yet another one. This, the third since the advent of democracy, reconfirms that we are indeed a free nation, a nation at peace with itself and a nation on an irreversible path to prosperity. It resoundingly re-echoes our national war-cry that never again will one race oppress another in our country, never again will one religion be privileged over others, never again will traditional institutions and leaders be ignored, never again will women be downtrodden, never again will children die of malnutrition, never again will workers be exploited and, as the President has pronounced, we will all be given our place in the sun.

By gathering here today we are continuing, as the North West Province, to stake our provincial claim in the national sun of South Africa. In so doing, we join our compatriots in other provinces as they too bask in the national glory of our country as it begins the third lap of democracy and its tenth year in the sun. This occasion thus forms an integral part of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of our freedom, a celebration of the triumph of good over evil, a celebration of the victory of that which is humane over that which is inhumane, and indeed the celebration of many milestones we have reached since our liberation in 1994.

On this historic day we must pay tribute to that generation of leaders who have made massive contribution in the struggle to pull our country and our province from the abyss and place it on the path of genuine reconciliation and prosperity. I speak here of the generation represented by our outgoing Premier, Dr Popo Simon Molefe, Moses Kotane, Onkgopotse Tiro, Sol Plaatjie, Ruth Mompati and many other who shaped the history of our province and, indeed our country.

We walk in the footsteps of these heroes, and we must today make a solemn pledge to carry their proud legacy forward, and never to betray their faith in us to build on the foundation they have laid.

We must today enter into a covenant with our people that, collectively, we shall achieve new advances in the effort to create new jobs, reduce poverty and limit unemployment by exploiting natural wealth, flora, fauna and beauty of our province. We must leverage to levels untried before our latent potential to be another economic powerhouse by maximising our agricultural production, developing our tourist appeal, exploring our mineral-rich landscape, and diversifying and increasing our manufacturing capacity. At a time when Africa is fast becoming economically integrated our geographic location presents us with an opportunity to benefit from the Pan- African synergies envisaged by NEPAD and represented by the Platinum Highway.

I stand here convinced that, with the National Skills Development Strategy founded upon our network of Further Education and Training institutions, our reconfigured Higher Education Institutions and the Sector Education and Training Authorities, we can ride on the back of the macroeconomic sectors I have referred to and turn our province into the economically well-oiled machine it has to be. If we factor in government's own extended and accelerated public works programme we have the makings of an economy, which offers our people an escape route from, clutches of unemployment and poverty.

It is against the background of economic development and opportunity that we shall finally win our battle against the despondence of the youth, crime, HIV/AIDS, physical and psychological violence against women, development of women, youth, people with disabilities and the elderly.

We must reaffirm our commitment to taking our country and province further in the struggle against racism, sexism and general intolerance.

We must pledge to continue building strong local government as a vehicle for effective service delivery, and indeed as government tier closest to the people.

Democracy and its worth must be deepened through material improvements in those conditions under which our people live.

The hallmark of a caring government is the extent to which it places its citizens first. The noble concept of Batho Pele is our government's underlining of our obligation, as the people's representatives and public servants, that our mandate is to meet our people's expectations, and to affirm their humanity in the manner we treat them. The levels and quality of our service, then, should be benchmarked against the extent to which they respect our people's dignity. We do have to counter modern condition of numbering people by seeing not the numbers but the hearts, minds and souls pulsating with running blood and copious amounts of oxygen.

We must make an undertaking to mobilise our people behind the implementation of the expanded public works program, and to improve health and education of all our people. This, and all other interventions we commit ourselves to, we must do, not only for but also with people. We have to reignite our people's passion in and for themselves. As government we should challenge our communities by handing some developmental responsibilities to them.

We must never rest until we have uprooted from our society the scourge of corruption, which robs the poor of what is legitimately theirs. Let us finally transcend the poor morality that our historical condition of so-called independence promoted in making it almost impossible for honest men and women to prosper.

We must do all these things, and many others, in honour of the sacrifices made by generation of leaders I referred to earlier. We owe it to them to ensure that their sacrifice, dedication and hard work were not in vain.

Let us pause for a moment and reflect upon why they put their own lives at risk so that we could be free. It is because for them only freedom could lead to the material amelioration of the plight of the people. What greater tribute to them then, than to plan and execute massive infrastructural upgrades in our province, particularly in rural areas which apartheid conveniently neglected?

If we realise the level of development required, then we shall never again hear people's cry as echoed by the late Angolan President and poet, Dr Agostinho Neto, when in the poem " Farewell at the hour of parting" he says:

"Today
We are the naked children of the villages in the bush
The urchins without schools
Playing at rag football on the sands at noon
We are as well the contract labourers
Burning up our lives in the coffee fields
Ignorant black men
Who must show respect to the white man
And be afraid of the rich
We are your sons
Of the black township
Outside where the electric light does not reach
Men falling down drunk
Lost in the rhythm of a death drum
Your sons
Full of hunger
Full of thirst
Ashamed to call you Mother
Afraid to cross the streets
Afraid of men
It is we"

As we accept the baton from those who came before us, we do so satisfied that work has begun in earnest to address many challenges faced by post-colonial Africa and articulated by the poem.

Inspired by massive progress made so far in improving quality of life of our people, we enter the second decade of freedom confident that acting together we can and will overcome challenges that still lie ahead. It is only those without any political vision who will see no way beyond our current situation.

This we can say without any fear of contradiction, that the future looks infinitely brighter than our past and present. We are on course and our goal is realizable. In the words of the famous Chairman of Bear Stearns, Alan C Greenberg, "this place is rocking and our job is to keep it rolling".

As we march together into the future, we must refuse to succumb to the idea that the road ahead is so long and winding, the inclines so steep, that the challenges are insurmountable. With all the twist and turns, the ups and downs, the thorns and the thistles ahead of us, we shall make it.

As fatigue sets in, we must be spurred on by the overwhelming confidence our people have placed on us as government to work with them towards lifting, from their shoulders, the intolerable burden occasioned by our unhappy past.

Millions of our people expect us to move faster in pursuit of the goal of a better life for all. They do so confident that, just as we have never done before, we will not now hold them in contempt.

They are convinced that we will continue to serve their interests faithfully, honestly and to the best of our abilities.

This places responsibility on us as public representatives not to let them down. Indeed, many of the problems we face require greatest possible unity among us as representatives of various political parties. This unity will allow us to use our collective strength and wisdom to weave our way through any turbulence to the benefit of our people.

My vision of my government's relationship with opposition parties is encapsulated in the following moving lines by the Zimbabwean poet, Solomon Mahaka:

Last night we met,
My friend and I,
Two wars old
Said I to him, "Let us build bridges
To cross rivulets of blood
Canals of hate
Canyons of prejudice
And furrows of pain."

We must draw courage from the reality that as a province we have come a long way. Together we have reached many milestones, weathered many storms and overcome countless challenges.

I therefore wish to take this opportunity to once more extend a hand of friendship to members of opposition parties to constructively engage government as it attempts to find appropriate responses to the may challenges facing our people. Let us not allow our differences to stifle and reverse the important gains we have made so far in improving quality of life of the people of the North West.

In my maiden State of the Province Address on the 28th of May 2004 I will elaborate on how we intend to tackle many socio-economic challenges that continue to confront us as a province.

Let us unite behind the objective of building a better province for all, confident as the speaker in Mongane Wally Serote's poem, who says:

I do not know where I have been,
But, Brother,
I know I'm coming
I do not know where I have been
But, Brother
I know I heard the call.

On this special day, I wish to pay a special tribute to the outgoing premier, Dr. Popo Simon Molefe. I believe that I speak for all my colleagues in your cabinet when I define your leadership as empowering, nurturing, critical, supportive, and in the words of one of Charles Dickens's characters, 'Always at hand when wanted and never near when not wanted'.

Friends, colleagues, comrades, our people have called. Let us leave this place and prove that we have heard their call and that we are responding to it.

I thank you all.

Issued by: North West Provincial Government
30 April 2004

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