ADDRESS BY ANC PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE ANC MANIFESTO POLICY CONFERENCE, ESSELEN PARK, JOHANNESBURG, NOVEMBER 29 2008

The Deputy President of the ANC and all Officials
NEC members,
General Secretary and leadership of the SACP,
General Secretary of Cosatu and leadership,
President of the ANC Women's League and NEC,
President of the ANC Youth League and NEC,
Representatives of Mass Democratic Movement formations,

We are gathering at this important occasion to draw out a plan to address many social and economic challenges facing our country.

The Manifesto is a summary of our vision over the next five years. It is not an easy document to draft, as we have to give a concise overview of what we will do to build a better life and a caring society, for and together with our people.

Through this plan, we aim to mobilise all our people and all our resources to push forward efforts against unemployment, poverty, inequality and marginalization of the rural poor - the major challenges facing our country. In keeping with true ANC- led Alliance tradition - a unique tradition that dates back to the Freedom Charter of 1955, this plan has been drawn up in consultation with key mass organizations, and a number of research organizations.

We held Alliance and MDM Summits, and invited the public to make suggestions on what should be contained in the 2009 Manifesto. This Conference is a culmination of this process.

While the process is primarily about ANC structures, we have, as we have always done, opened the door to the Alliance, mass democratic organizations and policy organizations, for further discussion and finalization of our Manifesto. One of the key defining features of the ANC, as a national liberation movement, has been our ability to bring together a wide range of mass movements and a number of sectors and formations.

It is this broad-based support that is also adequately represented in this Conference that would allow the next ANC government to successfully implement the Manifesto Plan.

Our Manifesto is aimed at offering an achievable plan. It is not designed to be a list of empty promises. It will be a carefully considered plan, building on the achievements of the last 15 years, identifying real problems we face and what we need to do to overcome them.

The Manifesto will be guided by ANC Polokwane resolutions, various forums in which we interacted with the Alliance, our people on the ground and many people's organizations.

Our Manifesto is a moment in which we have an important opportunity to highlight and celebrate the achievements of the ANC and all our people in our journey to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and more equal South Africa.

It is a moment where every South African would ask, if their lives have really improved. How far we have gone in building national unity across race and gender? Have we done enough to meeting the basic needs of our people - jobs, social protection, housing, water, education, health and other needs?

Have we reduced the rural divide - between the well-developed white commercial farming areas and the impoverished rural areas, which are predominantly former Bantustans? Have we done much to declare war on crime and corruption?

We can point to many social and economic achievements of the last 15 years. We can point to the contribution of the ANC, working together with the Alliance and all of our people, to inculcate in our society the progressive and democratic traditions and values that have been the defining features of our struggle for 96 years.

These are the traditions for which many fought and died. From the 1955 Freedom Charter to the country's 1996 Constitution, the ANC has been championing these traditions and values that many have taken for granted.

The ANC will continue to lead the nation in promoting basic human and democratic rights, including the socio-economic rights enshrined in our country's Constitution. This will include support and on-going transformation of our democratic institutions to ensure that they are effective, representative and responsive to the needs and aspirations of the majority of South Africans.

It will include continuing to build the role and capacity of our developmental state.
This is to ensure the progressive realization of many of the Constitutional socio-economic rights such as the right of access to education, health, food, water and other basic needs.

Our sustained economic growth has enabled us to reduce severe poverty and improve the quality of lives of millions of South Africans. For the first time, after many years, we have seen more jobs created than being eliminated, in a context of sustained economic growth in the history of our country.

We have also expanded the unemployment insurance benefits to nearly a million domestic and farm workers. Millions more South Africans have access to social grants, RDP housing, water and sanitation services.

Our schooling system has reached near universal enrollment, and we are well within targets to ensure that a majority of South Africans can read and write by 2014. Our free primary health care has been expanded, with more clinics being built in a short-space of time.

But it is equally true that much still needs to be done and there is no room for complacency. That means we must work harder to bring about faster change. That is our message, to our cadres and to the nation. There must be faster change! Ake kusheshe ngoba thina sijahile!, the popular song of our people proclaims.  Everything we do must be done faster to ensure faster change! This Manifesto must reflect that mood!

On the economic front, we need to ensure quality growth, which is interconnected with our development priorities. For example we cannot build the economy that does not, at the same time create decent jobs and significantly share the benefits of such growth with the greatest majority of our people, and reduce inequalities.

Our economic policies must support our developmental priorities. At the same time, the developmental priorities must reinforce the economic growth path, we have chosen as South Africans. In other words, as the RDP once emphasized, Growth and development must be inter-connected.

Accordingly we have identified five priority areas for bringing faster change. That is the creation of decent jobs; education, health; crime, rural development, agrarian and land reform as well as youth development. All these are aimed at broad social transformation.

The creation of and also retention of decent jobs will be the primary focus of all economic policies of the ANC government. This basically means that our trade and industrial policies, our macro-economic policy stance and other policies must be aligned to achieve decent work outcomes.

It also means our economic growth path must also support and be supported by our programme for health and education transformation, the fight against crime and rural development, agrarian and land reform.

Key to achieving these priorities will be the building of an effective developmental state, with strengthened capacity to plan throughout government by means of a planning entity and a new cabinet system. This will ensure a coherent state intervention in the economy to achieve our objectives of building a sustainable economy that creates decent jobs and meet our developmental needs.

The key instrument for state intervention measures will be our industrial policy programme, which will ensure that both private and public sectors are oriented to investment areas that promote growth and development.

These key challenges will build on the success of our past economic policy, but will also take into account the new challenges on the global economic front, which will affect the economy.

While South Africa is in a good position to weather the storm, the global crisis is likely to slow the rate at which the economy grows and will in turn impact on job growth and poverty reduction. We must be prepared for this reality, comrades and plan accordingly.

In the light of these conditions, we remain committed to the priorities we have set ourselves, including our commitment to the maintenance of macro-economic stability, sound management of public finances and a mass investment programme.

These measures, together with our developmental priorities will help lessen the impact of the global crisis on the South Africa's poor.

Comrades, we will be working on our Manifesto during an important weekend leading to World Aids Day. AIDS is no longer hearsay; we are all affected one way or another.
The renewed commitment from us as the ruling party and its government must breathe a new life into the fight against AIDS.

We must begin a new era this World Aids Day, an era in which we all take leadership and responsibility to fight the epidemic in unity. We cannot be helpless as leaders in our families, homes and communities. We must take control.

We must commit to stopping new infections, and to provide the necessary treatment, care and social support to those who are infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. The focus of this World Aids Day will be on the prevention of new HIV infections.
We call on all individuals, communities, business, trade unions, NGOs and FBOs to
demonstrate that HIV can be prevented and that treatment works.

We call on all people in South Africa to ensure that from now on all mothers with HIV remain healthy and all babies are born free of HIV.

We must ensure that children from households affected by HIV and AIDS are protected and enabled to complete their schooling. We also call upon all our people to fight the stigma attached to the disease.

Let us be open about HIV and AIDS, and let us support those living with the disease and who are affected by it. 

The SA National Aids Council and NEDLAC have called for a 15-minute work stoppage to focus on the epidemic and our collective responsibility. We urge the nation to heed this call so that we can reflect and take stock. We must once again be activists in the fight against AIDS. AIDS can be beaten and we can see the difference within 10 years if we pool our efforts and change our mindsets.

Comrades we must also remember the Campaign of 16 Days of Activism against women and child abuse. We all have a collective responsibility to fight domestic violence and general abuse of women and children. Our Manifesto must not be silent on women and gender. Unless we improve the status of women and deal with the unequal power relations in our society, we will not make much progress in dealing with matters such as domestic violence.

We must therefore promote women's access to basic social services including justice. Comrades there is a lot of work that we have to deal with in a short space of time to
produce our Manifesto.

The work you will be doing will produce a blueprint that will determine the future of our country.

Let us apply our minds wisely and build our caring society.  Most importantly, let us work faster to implement faster change. Ake kusheshe maqabane!

I thank you.

Issued by the African National Congress November 29 2008