Mr Ngcube
Dr Mamela, Chairperson of the Trust
Mr Hovelmeier, PUTCO Foundation Chairperson
Mr Oldham, Managing Director of PUTCO
Mr Kutumela, Chairperson of SANCO-Mamelodi
Rev Magagula
Last but not least, members of the Community
Let me first of all thank you both for the words of welcome extended to me and for the very warm reception you have given to me today. I would especially like to thank the choir and the dancers for their beautiful performances. You light up our day and remind us once again of our special gifts as South Africans. We are capable of everything.20
We can work together, plan together, build together, rejoice together. And even as we do these things we are always able, at the same time, to express our deepest feelings through singing and dancing. So together we lift each other up from small beginnings to achieving higher and better things.
Today you come together, as a community, to celebrate your achievements through the PUTCO Mamelodi Community Trust. You are now at the end of your second year of existence, and it is clear that your projects are growing from strength to strength.
It gives me great satisfaction to know that you call your day of celebratio n your RDP Day. Our President has made it very clear that the aims of the RDP are alive and well. He has given us as Ministers the key responsibility , in this second term of government, of focussing all our efforts on delivery to those whose needs are most urgent.20
In speaking of "a nation at work for a better life", he is expressing his own deep feelings about the difficult tasks we all face in moving from our new democracy to a situation where we can all live this democracy, taste it and feel it, in the way we live as human beings. He makes a special point about the need to work - and to work hard every day - as government, as business and as communities - to pull ourselves up, to improve our lives: to create jobs, to build services, to widen educational opportunitie s, so that our children will grow up strong, confident, well-educated and ready to tackle the world!20
As I can see you know already, this is what the RDP means. Reconstruction and development is about making government work for the people; it is about growing our economy through our own sweat and the use of our skills and brains; it is about developing ourselves as human beings, after many years of division, oppression and suffering.
I am therefore also particularly glad that your RDP Day also happens to fall on International Human Rights Day. In fact, I am sure that this timing was not an accident. You know as I know that development and upliftment are one side of the coin, and that care for human rights is the other side of that coin. We cannot grow together, prosper together, unless we can do so in the confidence that we are free from crime, free from violence, safe in our homes, on our streets and on our roads.20
Above all, we cannot build our dreams as individuals and communities while women are still being raped, while children are being beaten and abused, while we fail to use condoms in our sexual relations with each other, and in so doing contribute to the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus in our country. These are questions of responsibility and respect. In respecting others - especially those who are the most vulnerable and at risk in our communities - we respect ourselves, and we can continue to grow as human beings.20
Human rights are not pretty lines of writing on some piece of paper in a government office in Pretoria or in the United Nations Building in New York. They are how we behave to each other, how we take care of each other, how we solve conflicts without pulling out a gun or using a knife or a stick. And we as Africans have known this for generations. This is why we say: "Motho ke motho ka batho ba bangwe."20 Or, in the Nguni languages: "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye abantu." Or finally, in English and Afrikaans: "A person only becomes a person through other people" or "A1n Mens word A1n mens slegs deur ander mense."
As we know from our history and experience in this beautiful and troubled country of ours, human rights do not come free. They have to be fought for - and we fought for them over many generations. We took up arms to do so - and we also used the courts wherever and whenever we could. But always, as we fought these battles, we were fighting to open up a space where we could form legal organisations, where we could protest in peace without being shot down, where workers and communities could organise themselves and talk to government and business about their needs - and be listened to. This process does not stop. There is always more work to do. This is how we build our self-confidence in what we can do ourselves as we interact with both government and business.20
I come back to my main theme. Cooperation and respect. As you have proved in the work you are doing through the Mamelodi Community Trust, there is no economic growth, there is no job creation, there is no skills developmen t without mutual respect, without cooperation and support. I congratulate PUTCO for its commitment to this Trust, and I urge you to continue and extend the support you are already giving. I congratulate all those members of the community who have become involved in the projects run by the Trust. We need more and more people to become involved in these ways, and we need to be creative in thinking about new projects and schemes through which this partnership between the Company and the community can grow and be deepened. 20
I want to conclude by wishing you all a peaceful festive season and a new year full of hope and opportunity. In particular, wearing my hat as Minister of Transport, let me express my sincere wish that all of you who will be using public transport during the coming holiday period will get to wherever you are going safely and that you will always ARRIVE ALIVE. 20
This is also a matter of human rights. I take this opportunity to appeal to all bus and minibus taxi drivers - please, for your own sake, and for the sake of your valuable passengers:
B7 DON'T speed. Observe the new 100 k/h speed limit. Your journey time will be very little longer than before and you will be under much less risk of an accident that kills and injures our people.20 B7 DON'T overload. What is the value of a few extra passengers with a few extra belongings if everyone taking that trip ends up dead?
How as a driver - or as a bus operator - will you be able to live with yourself if you know that because of your carelessness you have the deaths of men, women and children, young people and old people, on your conscience for the rest of your life? What will be the point then of saying: "I was only trying to get there 5 minutes earlier," or "I just thought we could squeeze in a few more people." 20
These people who have died could have been - or could still be, in someone else's vehicle - your daughter or son, your wife or your grandmother. How many of us here today will not make it through the holiday season - through carelessness, through speeding, through drinking and driving? Let
Care, consideration and respect start at home - then they show themselves out in the world - then they come home again. We don't want to damage ourselves. Let's not damage or injure or maim or kill people we see as strangers. They are someone else's loved ones. In the end, they will turn out to be our own loved ones. They are our flesh and blood. They are ourselves.20
As I thank you for inviting me to this wonderful event today, let me end by repeating to you the Six Commandments of Arrive Alive. As a driver or a pedestrian, please follow them. As a passenger, please have the courage to make sure that your driver follows them:
I thank you once again and wish you joy over the festive season with your families and loved ones.
ARRIVE ALIVE