Parliament - Monday, 8 March 1999
Madam Speaker
Honourable members
Colleagues
Friends
INTRODUCTION
When we first gathered here in these Parliamentary Chambers almost five years ago, the thought most on my mind was, "who thought I'd ever be here?"
Now, as I prepare to delivery my last Budget speech of this administration, the thought most on my mind is, "who thought we could do so much, with so little in so short a time?"
Our work and our efforts over the past five years has all been aimed at making people's lives better. And if I let my mind wander forward in time to 10 or 20 years from now, I can imagine how our people will reap the rewards of our collective efforts today.
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
So imagine, if you will, the year 2010. There is a young girl called Noluthando who lives in the village of Ga Seleka in the Northern Province. She is eight years old, and her mother is a nurse in the local clinic. Her father is a farmer growing cash crops for the nearby towns. Noluthando is happy and sings beautiful song as she walks to her nearby school. The previous evening, she had been talking to friends in Ghana and Fuji. She met these friends on an Internet chat forum for young people. The Internet helped her understand the cultures, customs, languages, struggles and triumphs of people throughout the world.
Her mother, Miriam, remembers the time when the clinics she works at was cut off from the world, when people died because they couldn't get an ambulance to come or to ask the Doctors what to do. Then the clinic was connected to the telephone network. Not one, but even a few lines! Now she is able to phone the nearest hospital for an ambulance when necessary, to send copies of X-rays to specialist doctors in Johannesburg using the Internet, or even to use email to send the vital signs of a patient to a doctor hundreds of miles away asking him to help her diagnose the problem. Information on the latest epidemic is posted on the website of the Department of Health.
In the evenings, Miriam studies, having signed up for advanced nursing courses so that she could eventually become a matron in the clinic. She is taught by leading academics from the University of the North through a distance- education programme that she accesses through the Internet in her home.
Noluthando's father is Mlungisi. He is a farmer. He used to spend a lot of time listening to one of the many radio stations he could receive on his satellite radio receiver, or watching one of the many television channels they could receive on their TV set. He used to be afraid of the computers and the Internet Noluthando spoke about. He was "BC - before computers" he used to tell his daughter.
Things changed when his postman delivered a complimentary copy of African Business magazine to him. He read about how farmers in Zimbabwe and Mozambique were using the Internet to learn about new maize crops that were resistant to disease and about how they used the Internet to market their products. He got Noluthando to teach him how to search the Internet and now he regularly uses it to check the market prices for his crops and the weather forecast.
My message to you all today is that the communications portfolio - which includes telecommunications, postal services and broadcasting - has laid the foundation that will, in time, make this imaginary story about imaginary people become a true story about real people.
Information and knowledge are the guarantees of our freedom, the guarantee of transparency, accessibility, accountability, connectivity, the networking of ideas and people, the vehicle for social transformation. Access to information is basic right of every citizen.
1999/2000 BUDGET
In line with government's overall belt-tightening, my portfolio's overall budget is down 12,23%, to R778 689 million. The single most significant reduction has been in the Post Office subsidy which down by 30% this year.
POSTAL SERVICES
Access to a reliable and affordable postal service is not longer a privilege to be enjoyed by a few. Basic postal services are the right of all citizens. Access to a postal service contributes to the dignity and respect of all South Africans.
Our post offices should become multi-purpose centres, and our vision is for every citizen to have a postal address, a physical address, a telephone address and an Internet address.
This is in line with the White Paper tabled last year. In the White Paper, I also committed the SA Post Office to becoming self-sufficient within the next three years. I am pleased to report that the subsidy has decreased from R450,8 million last year to R283 million this year.
In the past four and a half years, 1,4 million new addresses and 400 new postal points have been commissioned. And this weekend I was in the Nelson Mandela township in Port Alfred inaugurating the street delivery of post for the majority of villages and townships in the Eastern Cape - a total of some 250 000 new households.
Today the Post Office is seen as a trusted partner of our people. Two years ago, together with the board, management and trade unions, I launched an anti- crime campaign aimed at rooting out mail violators and the campaign has been successful with more than 326 staff dismissed and 143 members of the public arrested. Our slogan then as it is still now remains, "if you violate the mail you will go to jail".
I am also pleased to announce today that the Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Strategic Management Partner (SMP) for the SA Post Office was issued on Friday (March 5, 1999) to four short-listed parties.
They are: Canada Post, Deutsche Post, La Poste and New Zealand Post/Royal Mail.
Each of these candidates is capable of making a significant contribution to the development of the SA Post Office into a world class company able to deliver efficient and effective services to its customers and the people of South Africa. This SMP is crucial to helping reposition our Post Office for the 21st Century and to enable it to deliver a range of social and economic services to the community.
Final proposals are due by April 26th and we hope to have selected our new postal partner by the end of May this year.
BROADCASTING SERVICES
There have been significant achievements in our goal to free the airwaves, and give our people access to information devoid of state propaganda.
For the first time in the history of broadcasting in South Africa, we have a broadcasting policy based on universal access, diversity and democratisation of the airwaves, nation building, education and strengthening the moral fibre of society.
Today, up to 95% of the people of this country can receive a radio signal from any one of the almost 100 new radio stations on air today and 85% of the population can receive a television signal from the SABC or the new free-to- air channel etv.
This year we will establish the Digital Advisory body and the Broadcast Production Advisory Body, both of which were identified in the Broadcasting White Paper which was released last year. The Broadcast Production Advisory Body will make a significant contribution to increasing local content in broadcasting.
Today is International Womens Day and I want to honour all the women who are in this House. I am pleased to announce that we are dedicating almost R12 million from our budget to supporting programming for the special needs of women, children, the disabled and the youth of our country.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Studies have shown a direct, positive correlation between communications infrastructure and per capita growth, and the old view that communications is the consequence of development has given way to the knowledge that communications is a pre-condition for its success.
In South Africa, we have laid the foundation that will prepare communities around the country to become part of the knowledge economy and now the focus is moving to building applications that will catapult our country into the 21st Century.
An independent survey released recently ranked South Africa 23rd in terms of telecommunications and information technology investment, 4th largest in the world in terms of networked PCs and 18th in the world in terms of internet hosts.
More than 1,3 million new connections have been made by Telkom since 1994, increasing the number of households with telephones from 25% in 1994 to 35% last year. And in three years, that figure will be 75% of households.
We have already announced our intention to issue one new cellular licence and the Invitation to Apply (ITA) was released on Friday (March 5, 1999) and is available for free from the Department of Communications in Pretoria or on the Department's website (www.doc.org.za). Interest from foreign investors in the new licence is significant and we expect that a new mobile cellular operator will be licenced by July this year.
Next month I will officiate at the opening of a new information and communications technology learning hub at Houwteq where we are focusing on satellite communications training to maximise skills developpment spin-offs in the areas of information technology and telecommunications engineering. And later this week I will be briefing the private-sector and the media on decisions made by Cabinet regarding the development of a satellite programme for South Africa.
AFRICAN RENAISSANCE
We are part of the African continent. Our futures are inextricably tied to the success of the African renaissance in bringing growth and development to Africa. The challenge is building an information backbone that will allow people to talk to each other, to understand each others culture, language and history.
I was in Lusaka two weeks ago to address a SADC Consultative conference and a beautiful poem was rendered by a local poet. It reminded me of the dream of one of Africa's earlier colonisers. His dream was to construct a road from Cape to Cairo to bring our continent under the heel of colonialism, divide our people and enslave them to the meniality of service to the more affluent and developed parts of the world.
But this Zambian poet, Mwanisa, spoke of a different dream. One encapsulating the dreams of millions in our continent who yearn for a continent freed from the bondage, poverty and underdevelopment of our history. A continent liberated, a people empowered, and a society where the right to information and democracy is guaranteed.
It is my submission that technology as a tool is a great leveler of society. We need a vision and a dream to bridge the gap between the information rich and the information, between the urban and the rural and between men and women. We need a dream to build a highway in the sky from the tip of Africa in the north at Bizerte in Tunisia to the tip of Africa in the South, at Cape Agulhas in the South Africa, connecting every city and town, every village, school, and clinic.
As we stand at the dawn of the next 1 000 years, let us commit to actions that catapult our country and continent into the 21st Century. Let us set aside our parochial interests, our aggression, our Afro pessimism that even lurks in these Parliamentary corridors, and let us give a message of hope, of optimism, of peace and development to our future generations.
CONCLUSION
Honourable members, I have spoken a lot today about the foundation that has been laid, about the dreams we have and about the work we are doing. The budget that I present to you today is the vital ingredient that will make all that we have talked about a reality.
I want to thank the department and ministry staff for their effort over the past years and without the hard work and support of our portfolio organisations - the SABC, the SA Post Office, Sentech, the Universal Service Agency and Telkom - and our regulators - SATRA, the IBA - we would not have come this far.
And I ask you to help us further along our road by voting to approve this budget.
Thank you