Speech by Athol Trollip, MP, Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader, on the occasion of the debate on President Jacob Zuma's state of the nation address, Parliament, Cape Town, February 15 2010

Honorable Speaker,

Mr President,

Honorable Members,

Ladies and Gentlemen

11 February 2010 marked the day that our President, father of the New South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela walked from prison en route to becoming the President of the country that he sacrificed so much for. Thank you Mr President for recognising the colossal role that utata uMadiba played in reconciling our people.

Thank you for recognising all the other people that you did for the role they played in bringing about reconciliation, peace and democracy. Thank you also to those that you did not mention and I know you could not mention all of them but thank you to Archbishop Emeritus Tutu and the other religious leaders who eventually joined ranks to bring about change. Thank you Mr President for your effort at using a nation building tone, such a tone has been missing from the State of the Nation Address since the retirement of President Mandela.

We are all proud and indeed blessed to have had a President who is revered the world over and compared to leaders like Gandhi, Washington, Lincoln, Luther King and Churchill. The South African movie "INVICTUS" and the book by John Carland, "Playing the Enemy" are indeed a celebration of a leader who has received widespread veneration and been "canonized" in his own lifetime for his visionary leadership and human dignity. President Mandela displayed exemplary leadership. He had the courage of his convictions. He was a man of iron will who was prepared to take on both friend and foe. He was not averse to or afraid of taking on his own colleagues within the ANC because he never felt beholden to anyone or any faction for his position. Apart from being personally compromised, Mr President, you appear to owe your allegiance to a certain block within your party's alliance that makes you all the more compromised and vulnerable.

Your State of the Nation Address left me wondering whether you had indeed read it beforehand, whether you had been "set up" or whether the people who advise you just did not realise how important it was for you to deliver an extraordinary address for both personal and reasons of national importance. Well, with respect, you achieved neither.

Our country needs to be rallied to roll up its sleeves. It needs to hear the presentation of a national vision that they can respond to as a clarion call to nationhood and future prosperity. The nation desperately wants leadership.

The tenuous respect given to you by a deeply suspicious electorate in April 2009 has been systematically eroded. Your trademark song, for example, will never again be sung without invoking a sense of ambiguity.

Laura Miti recently wrote in the Daily Dispatch: "What Zuma and probably the ANC failed to realise is that the new slate that the President was apparently given by the public after his inauguration had conditions similar to those given to an offender serving a suspended sentence. The Nation had wanted to put the muck behind it and so gave him a second chance.  But after that President Zuma was expected to be on his best behavior for the rest of his public life. But no, he seemed to think the ‘probation' he was put on by the nation after escaping corruption charges on a technicality and after committing a serious sexual indiscretion coupled with making an unbelievably naïve statement on HIV/AIDS was, Carte Blanche. The crowds after all, still roared his name at rallies across the country - his popularity seemed untouchable."

Well, Mr President, popularity in politics dissipates like the morning mist.

Mr President, on the evening that you paid due respect to former President FW de Klerk and others in the National Party leadership and service related echelons for crossing the proverbial Rubicon and for having the foresight and courage to take bold decisions, your chief cheerleader harangued President de Klerk and treated him with contemptible disrespect. The fact that neither you nor anyone in the ANC leadership have not publicly rebuked him for this or any other of his oafish behavior is a matter of lamentable concern. As surely as President Mandela was quoted as saying "Posterity will prove I was innocent", will posterity prove that you and the other ANC leaders are in dereliction of your duty in this regard.

Your first year in office has hardly been stellar and your call for 2010 to be a year of action really rings hollow in our ears. Why? Because we have heard all these exhortations before, remember these: ‘the age of hope', ‘business unusual', ‘all hands on deck', ‘working together we can do more' and ‘faster, harder, smarter'?

Why should 2010 be any more a year of action than 2008 or 2009? The ANC is wasting precious time with all these empty slogans. Who really believes that the ANC government will provide anything ‘faster, harder, smarter'?

Speaking of wasted time, Author and political activist Paul Trewhela in his book Inside Quatro speaks candidly about the balance sheet of 15 wasted years under the guidance of the ANC as the unchallenged party of government. Regarding this he says: "No party ever came to government with such an overwhelming mandate from the people and with such immense goodwill internationally. Few dissipated that trust so convincingly."

He recognises that the ANC faced a daunting task to redress the stratospheric polarisation and disparities that are due to the centuries old divisions in our society, along the lines of race. No easy walk to freedom and human betterment indeed!

Trewhela singles out education as the greatest failure. He believes, and I concur, that the ANC should have seized on this from the outset and said to the whole nation: "We have limited resources, there are great compelling needs, but this above all - with dedication, good sense and common effort - can rise up and prepare for the future a new generation that will be better fitted to solve the country's problems than ourselves".

We all know about the state of education in our country and none know better than the parents who aspire for their children to have a better education than they had. Trewhela says: "Instead...The materialistic scramble for personal wealth, at any price, the rancor, the power play, the strutting about of great men (and a few women), the arrogance of office, the delusions, the false Gods, style, instead of substance, fifteen wasted years".

Mr President, your exhortation to teachers to be in the classroom seven hours a day was actually already made last year. This rhetorical appeal had no impact on the matric results. You will have to tackle the role of education unions regarding underperformance in this crucial field. Again, political will and exemplary leadership from yourself and all leaders involved will be definitive.

Mr President, you spend vast sums of money to go to Davos, to court financial friends and to attract foreign investment, but you continue to ignore pressing priorities within your government. You ignore the Auditor-General's assertion of almost total breakdown of financial management. The Eastern Cape Health Department overspends its budget by R1.8 billion, with no measurable improvement in health care provision, resulting in the non-payment of creditors, the resultant closure of small to medium size enterprises and the subsequent sequestration, the end result being the catastrophic consequence of job losses.

When will you invest in putting competent people into key posts and when will you begin ensuring that scarce resources are efficiently, effectively and economically spent? It appears not in the near or foreseeable future as you and Mr Mantashe have stated that your failed and "unlawful" policy of cadre deployment will continue; in fact, you say that cadre deployment will be more objective and transparent. This is the ultimate oxymoron.

I expected to hear you speak more coherently about what your definition of the developmental state is. The current reality is that state-owned enterprises, that are, in essence, the backbone of such an economic mode, are totally dysfunctional, ineptly managed and technically solely reliant on perennial state/taxpayer financial bailouts. In this regard, let me say that if Mr Maroga is given one cent in settlement for his very welcome resignation, you will pay a heavy political price because, in my opinion, he didn't deserve any performance bonuses whilst in office, let alone whilst out of office.

Recent court rulings in this regard, in fact, have found mostly in favor of applicants who have been prejudiced by cadre deployment. The case of Dr Vuyo Mlokoti against the Amathole district municipality's appointment of Advocate Zenzile, is a case in point. Speaking of East London or Buffalo City you must know that as the next city to be upgraded to a Metro, this municipality is now referred to as "Buffalo Circus". The ANC provincial government is now set to intervene in this embarrassing political crisis; heaven help the residents of Buffalo City because similar interventions in Mnquma, King Sabata Dalindyebo, Great Kei, Koukamma and Sunday's River municipalities have been disastrous because the instability is due to intractable political infighting.

The recent firing of mayors in Mpumalanga and other provinces across the country is not a genuine endeavor to turn the crisis in service delivery around, it is merely a changing of the political guard.

Mr President, your declaration, that you will conclude performance contracts with your ministers with measurable outcomes being the criteria for monitoring their individual performance is refreshing. This, of course, is not as innovative as you make out and should, in fact, have been in place in cabinet since 1994. It will also require political will and you will have to personally support and back Minister Chabane to the hilt. If you can't or won't, the contracts will be worth as much as the Public Finance Management Act is in our public service corps. The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.

Equally, your corruption commission, comprised of the very ministers under whose watch corruption flourishes, will be still borne if there is no real political will and exemplary leadership.  In Kenya, after Mwai Kisaki replaced the notoriously corrupt Daniel Arap Moi, he promised an end to corruption. He appointed John Githongo as the anti-corruption minister. Michaela Wrong, in her book It's Our Time to Eat, exposes the consequences of Githongo's efforts "mucking out the Aegean stables" that were tantamount to leading him to being hounded out of the country of his birth because he uncovered more and more self-service, self-enrichment and sleaze among his own colleagues. This ultimately placed his very life at risk.

Githongo said at the time: "Africans are the most subservient people on earth when faced with force, intimidation and power. Africa, all said and done, is a place where we grovel before leaders". South Africa needs exemplary leadership - not fear or entitlement from its leaders.

IT IS NOT YOUR TIME TO EAT!

Blind allegiance to ANC leaders and slavish behavior of deployed cadres, putting the party first, is a recipe for the disaster we are experiencing at local government levels. It compromises discipline and commitment of civil servants because cadre deployment beneficiaries are actually held to ransom. Similar to the thinly veiled threat made by Michael Corleone in the Godfather: "You're my older brother and I love you, but don't ever take sides against the family again."

You, Mr President, and no-one in the ANC can ever defend the partnership of Chancellor House with Hitachi in the construction contract of the Medupi power station. In fact, the flourishing fortunes of Chancellor House are a blight on the integrity of the governing party and a clear abuse of power.

On Presidential Pardons, allow me to advise that you resist the temptation to abuse your position of power to pardon your "friends". Beware also of taking the nation's intellect for granted. You cannot use the pardon of one person as a smokescreen for the pardon of another. Pardons should be considered only in cases where there has been a travesty of justice. This is not evident on first principles in the cases of Schabir Shaik and Eugene de Kock.

Pardons undermine the rule of law and the principle of equality before the law - which you, sir, incidentally are responsible for upholding.

When you compromise yourself and the rule of law, you accelerate the slide to a failed State.  Zimbabwe is a shameful example of this regression.

It has become evident that, despite your outspokenness about Zimbabwe before your election, you have succumbed to your party's policy of silent diplomacy because you cannot bring yourselves to act against Mugabe and bring his tenure of terror to an end. I recommend that you read the DA's roadmap for peace and democracy and implement its recommendations.

Zanu PF, under the now almost surrogate leadership of Mugabe, refuses to acknowledge their failure in government and culpability for unimaginable human rights abuses that are catalogued in the DVD that has been given to your government. The ever-deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe is entrenching the social and economic difficulties in many communities in South Africa that have shown that they have the potential to ignite ethnic and xenophobic confrontation. This situation requires the political will to grasp the nettle that is Mugabe.

Mr President, speaking of political will, let me inform you that in the one area where you have shown some will - the meddling with the judiciary, the JSC and judicial appointments, your actions and those of your emissaries have not gone unnoticed and are a source for grave concern.

There are apparently some "bullet proof" jurists and legal practitioners that have the unconditional support of your government despite how compromised they may be.  The fact that Mr Mpshe seems to have been rewarded for juristic compliance and so to Mr Simelane! And that Mr Ngobeni provides legal services for the ANC and the department of defence, despite his apparently very compromised position as a legal practitioner. The latest revelations about Mr Seth Nthai's alleged solicitation of a financial reward to make a legal challenge go away or to go one way or another, are all examples that compromise the independence of the judiciary and contaminate the profession as well as the government due to these people's unhealthily close relationship with the governing party's leadership.

Mr President, you must give unambiguous leadership about how we are going to create jobs and stimulate our economy as we pull out of the recession.  Some ideas from someone who has always shown capital growth post recession, Richard Branson, are instructive. He clearly states that optimism and instinct are no substitute for HARD WORK. He recommends that leaders should surround themselves with trusted and talented people, keep them happy and motivated, be innovative, provide and maintain a certain quality of service and ensure value for money. You, sir, have failed in all of these to one extent or another. Your government must now look for solutions - not excuses.

Much aspersion has been cast on the productivity of South African workers. This is fallacious because who do these gainsayers think built the magnificent 2010 football stadia on time? In fact, long before time, better than some of the so-called ‘most productive nations' in similar situations. It's not the South African workforce that holds us back, it is the government's restrictive and convoluted labour laws that keep South Africans out of work.

In a recent visit to Tongaat in KwaZulu-Natal, I met with retrenched textile workers. None asked for government handouts. Mrs Dolly Yeriah held her hands up to me and said she has "perfect" hands and wanted to put them to use in order to provide for her own family. This reinforces the fact that self provision and independence is the source of self-respect and human dignity.

Mr President, the Presidential hotline has been a supreme public relations fiasco as its very existence is an indictment on all three spheres of government and all its implementing echelons; furthermore the few examples of success are the exception to the rule. My office has evaluated this hotline closely and the catalogue of frustration reads like a comical version of animal farm.

This sideshow of smoke and mirrors unfortunately mirrors the performance of your new, bloated and underperforming cabinet. Improved performance is the only thing that can keep you and the ANC in power.  You skirt around the issue of responsibility and accountability at your personal cost and that of your government.

South Africa will host a unique and successful World Cup. We all welcome the world to visit our amazing country and have fun in the sun. These visitors must be treated like royalty, not robbed, not fleeced by unscrupulous hospitality providers because their experiences will determine whether or not they return and become tourism multipliers. The eyes of the world will see us through lenses never ever seen before on international TV and this image will decide the prudence of our enormous investment in this event. We cannot allow ourselves to be embarrassed by any unintended disappointments. Phambili Bafana-Bafana phambili. Phambili Mzantsi Africa Phambili.

President Mandela almost always spoke passionately the words of reason, reconciliation, nation building, healing, new patriotism and of building the country of our dreams together. This language has died but the DA is a solutions-orientated party that is presenting South Africans with alternatives as well as being a fiercely critical opposition that holds the government to account. We don't want to inherit a bankrupt estate or, indeed, a scorched earth situation; therefore we will contribute in every way we can to ensure a prosperous South Africa. Certainly not to entrench the ANC though.

Posterity will judge the DA and the other opposition parties whether we had the courage to speak truth to power and to be a realistic political counterweight. The DA has done this most effectively to date. Imagine being in opposition to Nelson Mandela and even Thabo Mbeki - not easy! We have grown nonetheless and if you do the maths you will all know that the Western Cape was not won by the 18% of white voters. The DA is a real alternative and the electorate has recognized this. In 1994 - 7 Members; in 2009 - 77 Members. We are solutions-orientated because we do not want to inherit a bankrupt or scorched earth estate. Therefore, we will contribute in every way we can to ensure a prosperous South Africa - certainly not to entrench the ANC though.

Our political growth has been assisted by the quality or lack of leadership in the ANC at all levels of government because leadership is as leadership does.

The reality is that the current crop of ANC leaders is not comparable to the previous generation; certainly not to the person we are paying tribute to in this debate! Food for thought indeed!

Issued by the Democratic Alliance, February 15 2010

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