SPEECH BY ANC CHIEF WHIP STONE SIZANI ON THE OCCASION OF THE STATE OF THE NATION DEBATE, PARLIAMENT, June 19 2014

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The ANC is very clear about the kind of society it wants to build. The ANC believes that its capacity as a vanguard movement for transformation, and its capability of leading an array of forces in transformative struggles, will ensure that we overcome the legacy of apartheid colonialism AND overcome the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Of that, we are very clear!

We have been consistent with the articulation of our policies, our priority areas of service delivery, our continuous call for social cohesion and nation building and our unwaveringly belief in creating a national democratic society. We want to move South Africa forward by building a better life for ALL our people. Not create an "open opportunity society" for SOME people like the DA speaks of doing!

This open opportunity society is based on a conservative political philosophy, which provides an ideological defence of the capitalist system and is based on inherent talent, as well as academic credentials, rather than on isues such as race and gender. What this open opportunity society thinking infers is that children from historically advantaged backgrounds do then tend to have an advantage or the edge in realizing their inherent talent. Such a society believes an individual's lack of success or lack of opportunities is due to their own weakness and not those of the circumstances into which they are found or the system into which they are born.

In a country such as ours where the decades of entrenched inequalities have doomed the lives of black children even before they are born, this open opportunity society thus seeks to ensure that the privileged merely reproduce their successes even if their children lack talent!

The ideology of "choice" which the DA subscribes to ignores the acknowledgement of where we are as a young country emerging out of a horrific system which was termed "A Crime Against Humanity". Their talk of expanding choice and I quote: "where the state if it provides services, must seek to expand choice, not determine choices; it must not simply "deliver" to a passive citizenry, which takes what it is lucky enough to get, but must allow the citizenry to determine which opportunities it requires; it must encourage independence, not dependence" appeals to a quick fix type of solution for our society.

A critique of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's housing policy, one Peter Malpass argued, "choice is a weasel word, a seductive device concealing that what is really afoot in the opportunity society is promotion of the interests of the better off and toleration of wider social inequality, to the further disadvantage of the poor." The DA's neo-liberalism, its narrow focus on individualism, its articulation of economic interests on behalf of the privileged class and the reduction of taxes for this group, speedier privatisation and a flexible labour market clearly shows its incapability to resolve the many challenges facing our country and its people.

Let me go back to the concept of ideology. Some define ideology as "determining the natural attitude of a party towards every public question." In this vein, the ANC's response to every public question will be to address the challenges facing our people,"seeking to redress the wrongs of the past" .But what is the ideology of the DA?

The DA's entire approach to the recent national elections has been rooted in its opposition to everything ANC! It fashioned its election posters and election messages on attacking the integrity and person of the President of this country. It appropriated our struggle icons, selectively focussing on certain aspects of our struggle that were palatable to them.

It still has no understanding of race and the deep fissures racism created in our society and it showed this by playing the quotas game in the manner it chose its leadership. There is within this organisation called the DA. It insults our people by believing that placing token Black faces amongst its leaders would sway the voters to believe it had their interests at heart. It denigrates our people who voted for the ANC by calling them unspeakable names.

And while the DA's manifesto (and consequently their entire campaign) was rich in anti- ANC rhetoric, it lacked a sound explanation of the DA's position on land reform and Black Economic Empowerment.

The fact is that despite focussing their entire campaign on smearing our President and vilifying the ANC, the DA could only manage marginal 5% increase in their support?! All this shows is that the DA cannot loosen the ANC's ideological grip on black South African society. Their policies clearly are not appealling to the majority of the electorate Who will they target in 2019????

The ANC believes in consultation and collectivism. Our leaders are democratically elected. We do not impose our leaders on the rest of our membership. We do not parachute individuals into our leadership for window-dressing and photo opportunities. Such political naivete', manipulation of its own members, opportunism in exploiting very real concerns and challenges facing our people, and high handedness in dealing with criticism points to subjective and weak leadership.

And lest we forget- the anointed leader of the DA in Parliament, who miraculously holds court now, having been imposed on the rest of them by simply migrating! One of their own former stooges who now claims to be a respected journalist, Mr Van Onselen, had this to say about the chosen one:

"It is hard to determine what is authentic about the man: his lines are crafted by wordsmiths, his turns of phrase marked by safe clichés and truisms. His arguments are shaped by opinion polls, his events are orchestrated by strategists and his personal ideological world view is protected from critical interrogation."

That will tell you just how authentic and true the DA are!

The DA expects our people to trust them and believe in them, but then they turn around and speak in forked tongues. The flip flopping and contradiction on their support for the Employment Equity Amendment Bill and again in relation to the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Amendment Bill, clearly shows our unprincipled they are.

The ANC, a 102 year old tried and tested organisation, will not sacrifice our people at the altar of the DA's ideology which presents a clear danger to the advancement of our social justice agenda.

The ANC has always considered the clause "The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It... Restrictions on land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended..." " to be the very core of its programme. This emanated from the very real consultations with people during the Freedom Charter Campaign in 1955. Addressing land dispossession was the shared concern of all those who dreamed of better life and a better South Africa.

The ANC holds that in terms of communal land, there must be communal tenure with institutionalized use rights. The DA's proposal is that communal tenure should be replaced by freehold tenure. Here is where they again reveal their ignorance of the needs of the majority of our people.

The ANC believes that our history offers us better insight into how communal and customary tenure can help reduce poverty and deprivation. Communal land provides a form of security and protection for those who would be forced to migrate to urban areas only to end up unemployed and at the mercy of unsavoury elements. The ANC would rather strengthen customary tenure systems and make them more transparent and democratic.

The misguided notion of the DA that communal tenure is insecure tenure must be corrected. If these communal lands are properly managed, they can be accessed by those who are in great need and there may be opportunities for allocating land rights. Research has shown that across the developing world that subsistence farming takes place on In efforts to increase productivity and at the same time maintain subsistence, the small landholder will receive state support in land acquisition, planning, extension services, disaster and environmental management, technology research and development, and related services.

Management capacity to institute an incubator system for these classes of land beneficiaries are to be put in place. None of these are dependent on freehold title as the DA suggests. The notion that one can modernize rural areas by imposing freehold tenure from above is outmoded and discredited.

We all agree that South Africa's land reform and redress has been slow and challenging.

Our President has called for the speeding up of land restitution and has appealed for cooperation from those needing land and those who need to release land who will both be helped by government so that we are able to meet the targets set for redistribution and restitution.

The Land Restitution Policy is guided by the vision and broad goals of the country set out in the National Development Plan (2012) and other strategies for growth which are intended to promote national reconciliation, and social cohesion. The National Development Plan:

Vision 2030 sets out a plan to eradicate poverty and lessen inequality by 2030 in the context of an "increase in economic inequality globally" (NDP: 2012) increase inequalities, poverty and unemployment in South Africa, where a third of the populations are living on less than R10 per day.

The broad goals of the plan are to build a united country, resolve historical injustices, uplift the quality of life of all South Africans, accelerate social and economic change, eradicate poverty and unemployment and reduce inequality and expand the economy and distribute its benefits equitably. To address rural poverty, the plan states that "rural communities require greater social economic and political opportunities", and Land Reform is one of the initiatives identified to create opportunities for economic transformation.

In line with the Green Paper on land reform the restitution programme must be informed by the 3 principles of land reform: de-racialization of the rural economy; democratic and equitable allocation and use of land across race, gender and class; and strict production discipline.

The specific objectives of the policy are to:

rationalise and streamline the policy framework of the restitution programme;

expand the scope of the restitution programme by making it more inclusive:

promote the restitution programme within a broader framework of restoration and equity across the board

to align the restitution programme with the various land reform programmes to achieve the broader development objectives of Government and promote coherent and integrated programme implementation. Thus far the ANC Government has launched a multimillion-rand recapitalisation and development programme and since 1994:

77 610 land claims were settled at a cost of R17bn,

R8bn was awarded as financial compensation to 1.8 million beneficiaries,

R4.1bn awarded to beneficiaries as development assistance and

Total cost of restitution programme to date is R29.3bn

With the experience the ANC Government has had thus far in implementing the land reform programme since 1994 till date, the focus should continue to be on the realization of the constitutional injunction that "the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis." Our policy options, including institutional, legal and administrative structures must be designed and re-shaped to respond to the challenges faced over many years.

For the land reform programme to proceed rapidly and succeed, one of the main challenges to overcome is that of entrenched vested interests, in both commercial and communal land spaces and the main constraint is the poor capacity of organs of state to dWe know that seeking to undo decades of social, economic and cultural effects of centuries of discrimination and exclusion, on the basis of race, will take time and an enduring national political effort. There is no quick fix.

Issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip, June 19 2014

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