Where are the Jobs Mr President?

18 June 2014

Note to Editors: This was the speech delivered by the DA Parliamentary Leader, Mmusi Maimane MP, during the State of the Nation Address debate in Parliament today.

Madam Speaker, Chairperson of the NCOP,

It is my most sincere honour to address this House today.

I greet the Honourable President, it is good to have you back in good health. I extend greetings to the Honourable Deputy President, Premiers, Ministers and their deputies, Leaders of other opposition parties, Honourable Members of this House, and those who honour us with their presence in the gallery.

Honourable Members and Fellow South Africans,

I am a son of Soweto. I have grown up to see both the good and the bad of South Africa. I am a child of migrant labourers who moved to Gauteng, to find work in dark days. I am the beneficiary of the freedoms that Nelson Mandela fought for, and the product of a decent education. I am a father to two little South Africans. And it is for them and all children like them, now and in the future, that we do what we do

I am a proud South African, who loves this country deeply. I believe that what we do here over the course of the next five years, more so than during any previous parliament, will define whether we can build a prosperous, inclusive future for South Africa, or not. That is the responsibility of this Fifth Parliament.

 Madam Speaker,

South Africa is a nation anchored in a history of violent and fervent racial oppression. Our people bear scars of a history of 342 years in which one person's freedom came at the cost of another.

In dark days, our land cried out for a different future. Our nation cried out for hope. We have a unique opportunity to craft a future of hope together. But to do it we need leaders with the courage to deliver bold, new ideas.

I am sad to say that the President's address yesterday evening was an opportunity missed. It was the speech of a leader out of touch with the plight of the people he has the privilege to serve.

Madam Speaker, South Africans are suffering.

 One third of our people  can't find work. The youth of South Africa are worst-affected by unemployment with nearly four in ten without a job.

And yet the extent of the unemployment crisis received no mention in the President's Address. How can  he say we are a nation at work, when millions of people are, in fact, out of work?

South Africa has again been downgraded by reputable ratings agencies. Our economy is shrinking, and more people are losing their jobs  because our government is held captive by the competing interests and factional wars at the heart of his party. We have heard speeches like this from President Zuma before. But his words have seldom matched his administration's actions. The truth is that he cannot implement the very blueprint for South Africa's development that is the National Development Plan.

We have the potential. Our economy should be creating jobs and creating wealth for all South Africans. But it is faltering because of policy uncertainty. And I am afraid that the President did nothing last night to provide any clarity.

While this government pays lip-service to the National Development Plan, it brings laws to this Parliament that kill jobs. The government speaks of job creation and investor confidence. But at the same time it enacts legislation that expropriates private business, allows corruption to thrive, and kills small business.

If the NDP is to succeed, President Zuma must match last nightws corruption to thrive, and othing last night to provide any cn. I challenge him to withdraw the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill, the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill (which does nothing of the sort), the Property Valuation Bill, the Expropriation Bill and the Infrastructure Development Bill. All of these bills contradict the National Development Plan, undermine the economy and job-creation.

Madam Speaker, the people of South Africa call out for leadership at a time of economic difficulty.

It is an undisputable fact that where the DA governs, more jobs are created than anywhere else in South Africa. Since the end of 2012, South Africa's unemployed population has grown by 121 000. In the Western Cape, the unemployed population has shrunk by 48 000.

This is because we are creating an environment where business can thrive and create jobs.

We cut red tape so that people can participate quicker and less expensively.

We create jobs for young people through apprenticeship and internship programmes.

We invest in infrastructure, and spend the budgets we set for ourselves.

We get clean audits.

We give loan funding to black owned businesses.

We do this whilst spending 76% of capital budgets in poor communities.

And we cut corruption.

The President announced last night that he would stop government officials from doing business with government. This is good news. But we passed this law five years ago in the Western Cape. What has taken so long?

Madam Speaker, there is so much we can do to fire up this economy and create jobs.

Let's make Black Economic Empowerment work to create jobs, so that it empowers the man and woman on the street.

Let's make BEE incentivize small businesses, and help entrepreneurs get their first opportunity in the economy.

Let's make it truly transform the economy by including many millions of new people, not only a select well-connected few.

Let's lease out government buildings that we don't use to small businesses at preferential rates.

Let's give discounts on training. And let's start a national venture capital fund that will fund bold, new business ideas.

We agree with the President that South Africa requires a radical transformation. And by this we mean bold policy ideas that grow the economy and create jobs.

You see, "radical" plans are not in and of themselves good simply because they are described as "radical" - just like wearing a beret does not make you a revolutionary.

In fact, with absolutely no details of these proposed radical transformative plans being given yesterday, we must call them more empty promises.

You see Madam Speaker, the DA is the party with the radical transformative economic plan.  Our plans will see a revolution of small businesses where entrepreneurs thrive and themselves become employers.

It is puzzling that the Honourable President has just created a new Minister of Small Business, yet gave absolutely no details of how small business can look forward to government support.

The fact is that the Honourable President has given up on implementing new ideas for growing this economy.

Madam Speaker, we have to break down the barriers [MD1] to entry for small businesses today. Not in five years' time, after the new Department of Small Businesses has spent billions of Rands on consultants, sub-committees, action plans and lunches.

It is not the role of the state to create jobs. It is the role of the state to help business creates jobs.

Most crucially, business must have a constant supply of electricity.

It is a national scandal that this is not guaranteed to any one in South Africa. And it is clearly on record that the government was definitely informed of this crisis before it became critical.

What South Africa desperately sought was leadership on how we will deal with load shedding tomorrow morning and the morning after that. Today, in Soweto people are protesting because they have spent the past three days without electricity.

Yet in yesterday's address, we saw no plan whatsoever to immediately tackle the crisis of electricity supply. While businesses fail and jobs are lost because of unstable electricity supply, the Honourable President ignores what Martin Luther King referred to as "the fierce urgency of now".

While we see very long term projects being proposed, there is no immediate plan.

This economy will only further decline without immediate electricity supply consistency. This failure is among the most serious of this administration.

The President talked of reintroducing the Independent System and Market Operator Bill - a complete flip-flop on his government's previous position.

This Bill will make electricity supply transparent and accountable. We have pushed for this Bill for many years - the Democratic Alliance has supported it - and we now welcome the Honourable President following suit.

As people turn to starting their own small business, they need to be emerging from a system of quality education.

Indeed in yesterday's address, the people of South Africa waited patiently for the Honourable President to address the significant government failures in education.

How does the department with the biggest budget from our national fiscus, and the biggest budget in Africa, deliver the worst Maths and Science education on the entire planet?

Only 3% of Grade 9 learners passed a numeracy test in the 2013 Annual National Assessment. Of the 1,2 million learners who registered for Grade 1 in 2002, more than half of these learners dropped out of the school system before they passed Grade 12. Only 34% of leaners who started school, passed matric in 2013.

These statistics shame us all. Yet they were completely ignored in yesterday's address.

It is a consequence of this government's refusal to impose mandatory standards on teachers, and its refusal to take action when results started to dip. The President said very little, two lines in fact, about violent crime that keeps our communities living in fear.  He made only passing reference to corruption, which costs the people of this country 30-billion rands [MD2] a year. This is money that could and should be spent on schools, clinics, housing, policing and health provision.

But Madam Speaker, the President said nothing about corruption in this government, because corruption begins at the very top.

South Africa is very well versed in scandal after scandal that is attributed to our most prominent citizen, the Honourable President.

The Public Protector has spoken. The President has not.

The people of this nation have absolutely no explanation from their President on damning allegations against him.

Until the Honourable President fully explains himself on the undue benefit from state funds, to his personal private property, amounting to millions of rands - South Africa cannot trust in his word.

For these reasons, we must see the re-establishment of the Nkandla ad hoc committee in this Fifth Parliament.

The President did talk a lot about local government. What he did not mention was that four out of the eleven municipalities he listed last night are DA governed, and that the consistently best performing municipalities in the country were not even on his list.

Last night the President spoke about cleaning up. His speech was  an ideal opportunity for the President to come clean with South Africa - come clean on the economic crisis, come clean on job creation, come clean on the electricity crisis, come clean on failing education, come clean on the Public Protector report, come clean on the National Director of Public Prosecutions -  But he did not.

Instead he offered us future plans, and the promise to hold his cabinet ministers to Performance Contracts.

Well, Madam Speaker, the notion is welcomed - but where are the terms of these agreements? Who will judge their performance? How will the people ensure that they are properly upheld? And what about the performance agreements they signed five years ago?

Mr President, as I stand before this House and before South Africa today, I am ever mindful of the reality of millions of South Africans, who struggle every day.

I am mindful of and moved by the fear and distress that unemployment casts upon millions of my fellow South Africans.

Mr President, I am compelled to speak out on behalf of these people, forgotten in your State of the Nation.

I am compelled to speak out on behalf of the unemployed, who deserve a better lot in life than this government has delivered.

I am compelled to speak out for those who will lose their jobs as this economy further contracts.

Mr President, for the sake of South Africa, for the sake of our people, for the sake of the future of this beautiful land, Mr President, live up to the title of Honourable President,

Mr President, we cannot afford 5 more years of more of the same.

Madam Speaker, my call to the President is made with the hopes of all South Africans in mind.

Let us write the future chapter in the story of South Africa with fresh ideas and a fresh approach.

Let us together contest for those ideas.

Let us contest for change.

Let us contest for jobs

Morena Boloka Setchaba Sa Heso

Nkosi Sikilel iAfrika

God bless Africa

I thank you.

Issued by the DA, June 18 2014

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