Response by President Jacob Zuma to the debate on the Presidency Budget Vote, National Assembly, Cape Town

27 May 2015

Honourable Speaker,

Deputy President of the Republic,

Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,

Honourable Members,

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the 2015 Presidency Budget Vote 1 debate. I wish to thank all Honourable Members for the contributions to the debate.

Deputy President Ramaphosa said yesterday that the country is not on a slippery slope, and that we are on an upward slope, making steady progress. Indeed we stand by our statement that the country is making progress.

Some of the Honourable Members on the Opposition benches need to accept the fact that reversing the legacy of apartheid will take decades. The damage was extensive. The structure of the apartheid economy will also take longer to transform. We will continue to work steadily towards this goal, so that we build an inclusive economy that will create jobs and help us build a better life for our people.

In February we announced an economic growth target of five per cent by 2019. We reaffirm this target, knowing fully well that, it is not going to be easy to achieve it. We recommit to it because all of us in the country have to make the effort and play our part, to achieve inclusive growth.

The quarterly Stats SA reports help us to keep track of progress and to enhance our efforts.

Honourable Godi warned that we should guard against a sense of normality about the poverty and suffering of the poor.

You also reminded us that the greatest challenge of our time remains the fight against unemployment, inequality and poverty which remains a disproportionate burden of the African people in general and the working class in particular. Indeed, we will never rest for as long as there are still people with no food to put on the table in our country.

You will recall Honourable Members, that we have interventions in place already which are igniting growth. The economic cluster is implementing the nine point growth plan that I announced in the State of the Nation Address in February. The plan is a response to four big challenges that slow down our growth. These include the current electricity shortage, the availability and cost of broadband, a regulatory environment that is cumbersome and labour market stability.

All of these are being addressed.

Deputy Minister Mzwandile Masina provided an update on what we are doing to promote economic growth including enhancing trade with the continent and globally.

The matter was also covered by Honourable Smith who called for strengthened partnerships with SADC and BRICS, given the economic challenges faced by our equally valued trade partners in Europe and the United States.

Honourable Members also raised the issue of load shedding. This is also being addressed. Government has completed a medium term outlook model for the supply and demand of electricity. The model indicates that demand will exceed supply for the next 24 to 36 months. To increase supply, Eskom is implementing a structured planned maintenance programme to ensure that the availability of all power stations is improved.

Eskom has also commissioned the supply of 100 Megawatts from the Sere Wind Farm here in the Western Cape, while 827 Megawatts of cogeneration contracts have been signed, adding much needed capacity. It must be noted that Eskom added 160 thousand households to the electricity grid in the past financial year, which added to the demand of electricity. 

Looking ahead, the Minister of Public Enterprises, Ms Lynne Brown, has tasked Eskom to accelerate the completion of the build programme. The Minister has also directed the utility to improve its project management and contracting in order to increase the generation capacity of the existing fleet.

The Minister of Energy, Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson and her department are currently focused on implementing the other four key components of the government Five-Point Plan to address the electricity challenge. The role of this department is to ensure that there is sufficient, reliable and consistent supply to meet the growing demand.

The Department of Energy has a programme to procure additional supply using Independent Power Producers. The additional supply will come from coal, renewables, cogeneration and also gas to power. The gas to power initiative offers a new investment in the economy as significant infrastructure will have to be installed.

Honourable Members,

To reduce the time required before regulatory authorisations are provided, Government has synchronised environmental impact assessments for water and mining rights applications and has set a maximum of three hundred days for all these authorisations to be issued.

We announced earlier this year the establishment of a fast-tracked inter-Departmental Clearing House for investors for problem-solving, comprised of the Departments of Trade and Industry, Home Affairs, SA Revenue Service and Economic Development.

To stabilise labour relations, Government will implement the agreements reached with Business and Labour including the consideration of a national minimum wage.

The revitalisation of mining towns, which is another project we committed to, is continuing as reported by Minister Jeff Radebe who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee responsible for this intervention.

Agriculture has a huge potential for job creation and is one of our key targets for igniting growth. Interventions include providing market access for smallholder farmers and providing technical support as well as bringing one million hectares of land into full production over the next three years.

Government and the private sector have also developed the Agricultural Policy Action Plan. Support for the manufacturing sector is also continuing as part of promoting growth.

We have committed more than 2.8 billion rand to companies in the manufacturing sector, through the Manufacturing Competitiveness Enhancement Programme, as I Indicated earlier this year.

Let me reiterate what I said yesterday that we value the positive contribution of the National Infrastructure Plan to the country’s competitiveness.

We are on the right track and we will continue with this programme.

There are also big investment opportunities for the private sector in the massive public infrastructure build programme. Already we have achieved notable successes in locomotive and bus production. We will also actively support domestic manufacturing enterprises including in shipbuilding and marine engineering as part of Operation Phakisa in the ocean economy.

Economic growth will not be achieved by government alone. It takes all sectors – business, labour and politicians. We need to reach a stage where Honourable Members make constructive suggestions on how to improve economic growth.

South Africa belongs to all of us.

Minister Radebe raised this issue of people who forever see horror stories and make a habit of talking South Africa down. It does not help our country at all. Our country is doing well under difficult global economic conditions. This is a period of unity in action and not point scoring.

Honourable Khubisa you said accountability by government is a constitutional obligation and the Presidency should enforce it. We agree totally and we are enforcing it, which is why government reports regularly to Parliament and to the public through izimbizo and other mass communication mediums.

We have also taken note of your request that we should report regularly on the establishment of the New Development Bank or BRICS Bank. The work towards operationalizing the Bank is according to schedule. All countries expect to complete the ratification of the agreement establishing the Bank next month, June 2015.

The Inaugural meeting of the Governors of the Bank is set to take place in July 2015 at the Seventh BRICS Summit in Russia. It is expected that the President and four Vice Presidents of the Bank would have been appointed by the time of the Summit.

The New Development Bank is expected to commence business in the second half of 2015. A Technical Secretariat, to be based in Shanghai, will carry out the day to day work of operationalizing the Bank.

The African Regional Centre, upon commencement of business, will immediately be open to consider projects on the continent.

Honourable Cardo, I would caution against problematizing all professionals who are appointed to senior positions. Your stereotyping of all appointees as being cronies and pliable is really unfortunate and uncalled for.

These are South Africans who take up very difficult appointments in a developing country with serious challenges of reversing the apartheid legacy. Most of the senior appointments in government and public institutions are doing a hard and thankless task in which people are attacked every day for doing their jobs.

We need to show some appreciation to many of them who do their jobs diligently and professionally, serving the nation. We should also be cautious about stereotyping and stigmatisation of black professionals, as it works against the non-racial society we are working so hard to build. We should support all those who work selflessly to help us achieve the country’s developmental goals.

Deputy Minister Manamela responded to questions about the National Youth Development Agency. The Agency has been repositioned and is functioning effectively to support youth development and empowerment.

Honourable Holomisa, we have noted your comment that we are not mobilising the country behind the economic transformation programme, including the National Infrastructure Plan.

The Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission management committee led by Minister Nkwinti and the secretariat led by Minister Patel will look into this matter and undertake remedial action especially with regards to communicating the programme to the public and stakeholders.

We also share your concern about the culture of lawlessness. Indeed it cannot be tolerated.

Campaigns such as Operation Fiela are designed to deal with this challenge. We urge Members of Parliament to assist us as well in addressing this culture in their constituencies as it needs to be a collective effort by all leaders in society, to promote respect for authority and the laws of the country.

Honourable Madiba, Nkosi Zwelivelile you touched on an important matter, the need to celebrate our arts and culture and our artists. The Presidency takes this matter seriously. We have over the past five years run a consistent programme of supporting artists.

The Deputy Minister in the Presidency leads a team of Deputy Ministers who support performing artists and musicians on matters including piracy, copyright protection and infringement, airplay in the broadcast media, social welfare and social security as well as income tax awareness. A key achievement of the past term was to get the artists to be united and to have one umbrella body to liaise with government.

The Creative Industries Federation of South Africa was thus launched in March this year. The Presidency will continue to support artists working with the Department of Arts and Culture so that we do not have a recurrence of the situation where our artists die destitute, while they have brought joy to millions of our people during their careers.

Minister Shabangu, thank you for reminding the House about gender parity. The mission of our government is to create a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society. You correctly pointed out that the cornerstone for Africa’s development is the advancement of women and youth as agents of change.

Honourable Speaker,

I will be failing in my duty if I do not comment on how our democratic parliament is conducting its business during this term. As elected leaders of our people in parliament, we have a joint responsibility to build our country. Parliamentarians should appreciate this responsibility.

Let me reiterate that parliament is an important pillar of our democracy. Members of Parliament must demonstrate that they take Parliament seriously, so that our people can continue to look up to this institution. The conduct of some of the Members of Parliament raises doubt about their commitment to the work of Parliament.

I trust that the matters of decorum will be taken seriously so that we do not disappoint our people.

As leaders of this House we are South Africans, and we have a duty to build our country together. Let us work together to build a truly non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency, May 7 2015