CONTRIBUTION BY PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP, PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY TO THE JOINT SITTING ON THE DEBATE ON THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN National Assembly, August 15 2012
Honourable Speaker; on behalf of the Inkatha Freedom Party I commend the outstanding work of the National Planning Commission in preparing this National Development Plan. As a wish list of Government, it is admirable, and the IFP supports its implementation.
We recognize the enormity of the task given to the Commission to define a plan and a policy framework for the whole of the country, for all Government Departments, for the next 18 years. In an effort to support this task, the IFP submitted more than 20 000 words of advice to the Commission on the National Development Plan.
We believe in singing from the same hymn sheet for the benefit of South Africa, particularly on matters of life and death. Surely our country's economic policy is such a matter.
Let me therefore register the IFP's concern for the implementation of this commendable Plan.
I was in Cabinet when President Thabo Mbeki announced the policy of GEAR; Growth, Employment and Redistribution. I remember describing it in this Parliament as a Damascene experience on the part of the ruling Party, which had long been committed to socialism.
But immediately the tripartite partners of the ANC; COSATU and the South African Communist Party, rejected GEAR. We saw them on television jumping up and down, shouting, "We do not want GEAR! We do not want GEAR! Asifuni GEAR!"
So GEAR gave way to ASGISA; the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative. But COSATU then developed its own economic policy, as did the ANC Youth League, so that soon we had a Tower of Babel situation on a matter of critical importance.
Our country's economic policy remains unclear. The policy of nationalization of our mines, for instance, has been endorsed by the ANC Youth League, COSATU and parts of the ANC. But President Zuma has declared that nationalization is not Government policy. Why then does the ANC give it space for debate? They are, after all, the ruling Party.
It boggles my mind that the ANC still debates socialist policies, which destroyed Russia and all the Eastern bloc countries and also Eastern Germany. Even Mr Nelson Mandela, who believed in nationalization up until 1994, abandoned the idea and embraced the free enterprise system. The mere statement that there is space for debating nationalization is damaging to any prospects of foreign investment in our country.
Therefore, while we now have the National Development Plan, the IFP questions whether competing ideologies might not still influence policy and arrest the implementation of the best laid Plan.
And we have a greater reason for concern.
When the ANC met in June this year for its policy conference and took far-reaching decisions on the way forward for the Party, President Zuma made no mention of the National Development Plan. It is as though the program of the ruling Party will not be confined, or even aligned, to the program of Government.
Perhaps the most pivotal question is where does the National Democratic Revolution fit into the National Development Plan? Clearly this is not something the ruling Party is going to abandon, regardless of how it might clash with the good intentions and commendable policy ideals contained in the Plan.
The National Development Plan seeks to stir a sense of ownership within our society, so that every citizen might feel part of creating the more prosperous, more peaceful, more united South Africa that we all desire.
The IFP's concern is that a ruling party which sees itself as a national liberation movement, responsible for implementing a national democratic revolution, will inevitably believe it is uniquely entitled to rule, without opposition.
That is antithetic to democracy.
The IFP supports the National Development Plan and we commend the Commission on a job well done. But we struggle to embrace the credibility of intention to implement this Plan as the genuine priority of the ruling Party.
In this case, we pray that we are wrong.
Issued by the IFP, August 15 2012
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