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Date : 11/11/2003
Source: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
Title: Mufamadi: Traditional leadership Bill, NA


REMARKS BY MINISTER FS MUFAMADI IN LIEU OF INTRODUCTION OF THE TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK BILL, National Assembly, 11 November 2003

INTRODUCTION

The Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Bill has been a long time in gestation. The many statutory bodies and organisations that took part in the arduous process of consultation made an invaluable contribution towards bringing us to where we are today. I wish to convey my deep appreciation to all of them.

The Bill before the House addresses a variety of issues including:

* Provision of a national framework as well as norms and standards that will inform and guide more detailed legislation to be developed by provinces dealing with the institution of traditional leadership and its role in the governance processes
* The establishment and structuring of houses of traditional leaders within all the three spheres of government
* Providing for transitional arrangements dealing, amongst other things, with the disestablishment of certain bodies.

The Bill also provides for the establishment of a Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims.

CONTENTS OF THE BILL

Whilst the issues that are raised in the Bill may not be new, the manner in which they were raised and dealt with, confirm that ours is a society, which is in a state of flux and change. The subject matter of this Bill therefore, is lodged within the calculus of state-society relations. The fact that it has taken us so long to come to this stage, and that our debates were sometimes acrimonious, speaks to the complex dynamics of a society in transition. It is in this context that we have to pursue the two interrelated objectives of transforming the institution of traditional leadership and to prompt it to place the existential needs of the people at the centre of its concern.

Some who participated in the debates used the opportunity to remind us of the bad old days when our erstwhile rulers sought to bolster their exclusionary policies by asking South Africans to look at themselves as competing ethnic units. They used the opportunity to remind us that some in the institution connived with the apartheid regime to deny our people access to such basic rights as the right to organise, to freedom of expression and to liberty. Of course, they used the opportunity to make the point that the rights, which our people were denied, then, had a bearing on the degree to which citizens could or could not access critical resources. They thus accuse elements in the institution of having been complicit in spawning conditions of indigence and underdevelopment whose legacy we are still battling to overcome.

Our government has steadfastly refused to allow the rancour over what happened in the past to pose an undue obstacle to a movement into the future. After all it was our own struggle for democracy, which reshaped the boundaries of tribal identity and brought new expressions of solidarity amongst our people. We transformed this country into a crucible of progressive relationships and changing identities.

THE INSTITUTION OF TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP

Honourable members, as we all know, our country's constitution reckons with the reality of the institution of traditional leadership. It enjoins us to construct relationship of complimentarily and co-operation between the institution of traditional leadership and democratically-instituted organs of state. We have resisted attempts by some who sought to pose the two in a competitive and antagonistic relationship. In this regard we are guided by the abiding perspectives of the African National Congress, which in 1919, adopted a constitution creating a framework, which allowed traditional leaders to look at local problem from the point of view of the national agenda of advancing the interests of the African majority. At the time, the leadership sought to prevent the institution of traditional leadership from being integrated into colonialism and Apartheid schemes of "African Administration". The leadership also sought to assign traditional leaders a progressive role of designing practical and normative solutions to inter-tribal feuds and factions on the battlefields.

All progressive-minded South Africans will welcome the step, which this House is about to take. For they understand that the many developmental challenges that lie ahead can only be met by a functionally capable state which supported by in its endeavours, by all social formations including the institution of traditional leadership. The goal of uniting our people behind the goal of sustainable development is too important to be sacrificed on the altar of narrow party-political interests.

National government departments have already started a process of looking at functional areas of government in which co-operative relations will be forged between the institution of traditional leadership and government. Local Houses of traditional leaders will have to be established so that they may join hands with district municipalities to advance the cause of enhancing levels of service delivery and creating conditions for sustainable development. We should not allow our focus to be diverted from these goals by politicians who may have estimated that their political fortunes turn on ethnic entrepreneurship.

CONCLUSION

In these few words Madame Speaker, allow me once more, to thank all those who played a role in bringing this Bill to fruition. I lack the words to express the full measure of our Ministry and department's appreciation for the role played by Advocate Seth Nthai and other members of the White Paper Task Team. I also wish to extend a word of gratitude to Honourable Yunus Carrim and other members of the Portfolio Committee for the diligent manner in which they conducted the public hearings. I also wish to thank Inkosi Simon Gumede, Nkosi Mwelo Nonkonyana, Mr S Phiri, Mayor Amos Masondo, MEC Gugile Nkwinti and MEC Darkey Africa for devoting themselves so conscientiously and successfully to steering the National Coalition of Traditional Leaders and the Executive, towards a working consensus.

Madame Speaker and Honourable members, I commend this Bill to the House.

Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
11 November 2003

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