ADDRESS BY ANC PRESIDENT COMRADE JACOB ZUMA TO THE ANC LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS SIYANQOBA RALLY, FNB STADIUM, JOHANNESBURG, May 15 2011
National Chairperson,
Deputy President Comrade Kgalema Motlanthe,
ANC Officials and Members of the National Executive Committee,
Our Alliance partners and other representatives of the mass democratic movement,
Traditional and religious leaders,
Members of the diplomatic corps and other observers;
Comrades,
Fellow South Africans,
On Wednesday, the 18th of May, millions of our people will vote in the third local government elections. They will be exercising their hard won right, gained through a relentless struggle for freedom, justice and a better life, led by the African National Congress.
South Africans voted for the first time for democratic and non-racial councils covering the whole country on 5 December 2000.
Local government elections were again held on 1 March 2006, leading to the third elections next Wednesday. Local government is a very important sphere as it is the closest to our people. We therefore urge every registered voter to go and vote on Wednesday, exercising their fundamental democratic right.
When we cast our votes, in each election we celebrate our freedom. Only a few years ago, we lived in a country whose racist form of governance was declared a crime against humanity. Elections, like Freedom Day, provide an opportunity to look back and appreciate how far we have come. Each vote that we cast for the African National Congress in each election is a declaration that we do not want to go back to the era of racism, divisions, inequalities and the promotion of the privileges of one racial group over others.
Lolukhetho lwangoLwesithathu lubaluleke kakhulu. Lusinikeza ithuba lokuqinisa uKhongolose, senzele ukuthi nalabo abasafuna ukudla ngoludala, abafuna ukubuyisa ubandlululo ngezindlela ezifihlekile nezihloniphekile, bangalitholi ithuba lokudlala ngabantu.
In particular, our election campaign for 2011 is a celebration of the progress we have made since 1994. Leaders of the ANC at all levels, those of the Alliance, as well as our volunteers have criss-cross the whole country. We have shared with our people the achievements of the past 17 years. We have acknowledged that a lot more still needs to be done, and that working together, we can do more to build better communities.
In 1912, the ANC made a commitment never to rest until freedom was attained in our lifetime. Indeed freedom, democracy and political stability were delivered in 1994. This is the greatest achievement of our country, and it demonstrates the ANC's tenacity, consistency and reliability.
On 27 April 1994, we buried the era of fear, violence, death squads, summary detentions and arrests, executions of freedom fighters and the institutionalisation of racism. We developed and adopted a progressive Constitution with a Bill of Rights, enshrining political as well as socio-economic rights for our people. In our constitutional democracy, we have an independent judiciary and an activist parliament that promote democracy and protect the rights of our people.
We have three spheres of government that undertake ongoing work to improve service delivery at national, provincial and local government. The three spheres have enabled us to deliver on many commitments we have made to our people since 1994. Six million households have gained access to clean water since 1994. General access to clean drinking water increased from only sixty two percent in 1994 to ninety three percent of households to date.
Access to electricity has increased from thirty six percent in 1994 to eighty four percent to date. Education was used as an instrument to ensure perpetual subjugation of the African majority, as stated by apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd.
Lest we forget, he said: "There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour ... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?" That is quite absurd. Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live."
Many years later, in 1976, the regime imposed Afrikaans as a medium of instruction for subjects such as mathematics and arithmetic.
The then Deputy Minister of Bantu Education, Punt Janson in 1974, explained the reasons for the imposition of Afrikaans as follows:
"I have not consulted the African people on the language issue and I'm not going to. An African might find that 'the big boss' only spoke Afrikaans or only spoke English. It would be to his advantage to know both languages".
Indlela ebesiphethwe ngayo le iminyaka nje emibalwa edlulile. Sixolile kodwa akufanele sikhohlwe.
We are making progress in reversing this apartheid legacy on education. The percentage of people with Grade 12 as the highest level of education has increased from twenty one percent in 2002 to twenty six percent in 2010.
In addition, the percentage of persons with a tertiary qualification increased from nine percent in 2002 to eleven percent in 2010. The percentage of learners from poor households who benefit from the no-fee schools policy has increased dramatically from zero point seven percent in 2002 to fifty four percent in 2010. We are really opening the doors of learning to children of the poor and the working class. We are working to reverse the legacy of the Bantustan system, Group Areas Act, the Influx Control Act and a host of other apartheid settlements legislation which dehumanised our people.
The percentage of households living in formal housing which they own increased from fifty three percent in 2002 to fifty eight percent in 2010.
More than eighteen percent of households live in ‘RDP' or state-subsidised dwellings. We plan to assist four hundred thousand households in informal settlements by 2014, to secure land tenure and gain access to services such as water, electricity and sanitation.
We have set the target of delivering at least eighty thousand units of rental accommodation by 2014. Access to information and communications technologies has improved remarkably. Eighty four percent of South Africans now have access to telecommunications through a landline or cellphone. Gauteng metropolitan municipalities have the highest proportion of households with telephone availability, standing at ninety percent.
More than twenty six percent of South African households have at least one member who uses the Internet either at home, work, the place of study, or commercial internet centres, thus improving the country's communications and connectivity.
Through rural development we seek to modernise the countryside and bring dignity to rural dwellers. This month we launched the National Rural Youth Service Corps which to date has recruited eight thousand young people.
The programme recruits participants, aged between 18 and 35 years old with Grade 10 or higher qualification, in rural communities for a two-year development programme. The youth are trained in different aspects of skills development such as construction and disaster management among others.
Our social protection programme has expanded to reach more people who are in need. Close to fifteen million people receive social grants, one of our most effective poverty alleviation mechanisms. This is a significant expansion given that the figure of grant recipients was only two million people in 1996.
Beneficiaries are vulnerable groups including children, older persons, persons with disability and veterans, who need the income support. With regards to the fight against crime, our communities are safer than before. There is a marked decrease in crimes such as armed robberies, housebreaking and contact crimes. The murder rate dropped by eight point six percent in 2010. We congratulate our hard working and committed police officials for these achievements. They continue to protect our people, sometimes at great cost to themselves, including loss of life.
We acknowledge all police officials who have lost their lives in the course of duty, and once again extend our heartfelt condolences to their families and loved ones.
We also acknowledge the call of our people for some of our police officials to exercise restraint, especially with regards to peaceful community protests and activities taking place within the confines of the Constitution.
Comrades,
The ANC led our economy through the longest period of sustained growth in South African history in the last 10 years. It was also ANC policies that enabled the country to avoid the worst effects of the global economic crisis, and ensured that our country quickly recovered from recession. ANC economic transformation policies have contributed to the growth of South Africa's black middle class to about two point six million people by 2007.
However, unemployment, poverty and inequality still persist despite these achievements. This has necessitated the need to have a renewed focus on economic transformation and to promote job creation.
You will recall that the 52nd national conference of the ANC emphasised the need to accelerate economic transformation, and that we have declared 2011 in particular as the year of job creation.
The creation of decent work is the most effective weapon against poverty. We have put in place a New Growth Path which has job creation as a primary focus. We are working with business, labour and the community sector within NEDLAC to ensure that we create the environment that will create the five million jobs we want to create by 2020, in terms of the New Growth Path.
More jobs will be created in the massive infrastructure development programme, in which government is investing eight hundred and forty six billion rand over the next few years. Many municipalities will benefit from the projects that will arise from this commitment.
This year up to 2014, we expect to create an estimated sixty six thousand jobs through water augmentation, rehabilitation and refurbishment initiatives.
We will also improve support to small and medium enterprises, to local cooperatives, smallholder farmers and to community and village markets.
The Community Works Programme, a component of the Expanded Public Works programme benefitted over fifty five thousand participants in forty one poor communities.
In addition to providing income, the initiative also contributed to community development through food gardens, clean-ups, grass-cutting, fencing and maintenance of pavements; home and community-based care as well as caring for orphans and vulnerable children. We will continue implementing the project in various localities.
Twenty two billion rand has been allocated in the current financial year for the road repair and maintenance programme, Sihamba Sonke.
We expect that at least seventy thousand jobs will be created in 2011 through this programme, to maintain secondary road infrastructure including patching potholes on our roads.
Comrades and compatriots,
Steady progress is being made in the empowerment of women in decision making positions, thanks to ANC policies and commitment. The representation of women in parliament increased from 25% after the first democratic elections in 1994 to 44% after April 2009 elections.
Overall women currently constitute forty two percent in provincial legislatures and forty percent of all elected councillors at the Local Government Level.
Comrades,
The ANC government ended the isolation of South Africa in 1994. The country is now a respected member of the international community and participates actively peace, reconstruction, development and integration, especially in Southern Africa and the African continent.
Strategic partnerships have been strengthened with major countries of the South such as China, India and Brazil plus Russia, as have those with the developed north, for example in the G20. Indeed a lot has been achieved. But there is still much more to be done. We know that many of our people still do not have houses, water and electricity. They want to see faster provision of municipal access roads, water infrastructure, sanitation and electricity.
They want to see free basic services extended to include refuse removal for all poor households. They want to see clean local government, with no corruption or tender fraud. Kuningi esesikwenzile, kodwa kuningi futhi okusafanele sikwenze. Miningi imiphakathi esalinde amanzi, ugesi, imigwaqo nokunye. Sizimisele ukusebenza ngokuzikhandla nabantu bakithi ukufeza lezizidingo. Uma sisebenza sonke, uzoba khona umehluko. Sizokwazi ukwakha imiphakathi engcono kakhulu.
The challenge is that apartheid policies created severe inequalities. While municipalities in formerly white areas have relatively well-developed services and infrastructure, apartheid created under-developed townships and rural areas, particularly in the former Bantustan areas, which were deliberately deprived of resources.
We have to work harder to improve the living conditions in provinces which historically had Bantustans - the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Free State and Mpumalanga. These provinces face serious service delivery backlogs.
There are also opportunities to make a real difference. Nine cities dominate the national economy, and the ANC intends to win all of them on Wednesday. The five largest metros Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Cape Town and eThekwini account for fifty two percent of the national economy.
The three Gauteng metropolitan municipalities put together account for thirty two percent of the national output. The ruling party must govern every metro and every major municipality to bring about meaningful change. We have placed before our people a national Manifesto in 2009 and the local government manifesto this year.
Both clarify what must be done to deal with the said challenges and help us build better communities. We also have a local government turnaround strategy which operationalises what we say in the manifestos. Our local government turnaround strategy will reinforce the good and best practices in municipalities, whilst at the same time ensuring that the root causes of problems impacting on municipal performance are confronted effectively.
The five strategic objectives are the following;
i. Firstly, we will ensure that municipalities meet the basic needs of communities. This implies that an environment must be created, support provided and systems built to accelerate quality service delivery, based on each municipality's conditions and needs.
ii. Secondly, we must build clean, responsive and accountable local government. Systems, structures and procedures will be developed and enforced to deal with corruption and maladministration and to ensure that municipalities communicate and account more to communities.
iii Thirdly, we will improve the functionality, performance and professionalism in municipalities through employing qualified and experienced personnel.
iii. Fourthly, we will improve national and provincial policy, support and oversight to local government.; and
iv. Finally we will strengthen partnerships between local government, communities and civil society.
Without eroding the powers of local government, national and provincial government will be far more active in supporting local government. We will work to ensure that municipalities have the resources, skills and capacity to meet the needs of our people. In 2009 we introduced the performance monitoring and evaluation mechanism in government. We will ensure improved and strengthened monitoring and evaluation of municipalities so that we can detect problems much quicker.
Sizosebenzisana nemiphakathi kakhulu kunakuqala ukuze sisheshe sizibone izinto ezonakalayo kusenesikhathi. Sizocela imiphakathi isibikele uma konakala. Asifuni lisiphinde lelihlazo lezindlu zangasese ezivulekile ezakhelwe abantu ngisho komasipala abaphethwe uKhongolose. Sithinteni nisibikele uma kunemihlola efana nalena lapho nihlala khona. UKhongolose umele ukuthuthukisa izimpilo zabantu hayi ukudlala ngabo.
To improve monitoring and performance, the ANC government, together with the people, will ensure that all ANC councillors serve those they represent and are accountable to them. As we prepared for these elections, the ANC took the bold decision to involve communities right from the start in the selection of our candidates for local government. This has never been done before in South Africa.
The ANC is the only party that has been prepared to open its internal selection processes to broader community participation. We did this because we believe that democracy needs to be strengthened. The accountability of our public representatives needs to be improved. The transparency of our processes needs to be enhanced.
As a result, the selection of ANC candidates has been greatly improved. The people have put forward candidates with integrity, who are capable and committed to building better communities. We acknowledge that despite the great success of this process, there were difficulties in some areas. We have worked hard to address these problems, and to ensure that the people who serve in our local, district and metropolitan municipalities are truly those who have been chosen with the participation of the communities.
As undertaken, in areas where the problems relating to the fraudulent choice of candidates were not addressed, an ANC task team will investigate after the elections. We will remove people who found their way onto our lists through dubious means.
Comrades and compatriots,
It is all systems go with regards to changing the way local government is run and the way it works. The ANC is ready for the renewal of its mandate, and also to take over new municipalities and bring about meaningful change.
What is left is for us all to mobilise every citizen to go and vote on the 18th of May, and to vote ANC. We must vote ANC because of the achievements we have made together since the dawn of democracy. We vote ANC because it is the only organisation capable of continuing to unite all South Africans to achieve the freedoms that we have together written into our Constitution.
Most importantly, people must vote ANC because of what we still need to achieve, as communities and as a country. The ANC is the only organisation that has the ability, the commitment and the willingness to work with the people to build a better nation. The ANC is best placed to carry out this next phase of transforming our cities, towns and villages, because of our values and principles, our policies and what we have learnt from our experience in government.
We are better placed also because of our commitment to ensuring that each community sees itself as a partner in creating Better Communities. The ANC and its structures - the ANC Women's League, ANC Youth League, ANC Veterans League, Mkhonto Wesizwe Veterans Association and allies COSATU, SACP and SANCO constitute the only formidable, powerful, progressive and revolutionary force in this country, which has the political will and the capability to make South Africa succeed.
Let us vote for the ANC in every town, village, township and suburb. We must vote ANC to celebrate our hard won freedom. When we vote ANC on the 18th of May, we will be acknowledging the scores of South Africans who lost their lives in the hands of the brutal apartheid regime.
We will be saluting comrades Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and other heroes of our struggle who came so close to see the dawn of the freedom they fought for.
We will be paying tribute to our youth, who have always played a vibrant role in our struggle for freedom. We will be paying tribute to the youth of 16 June 1976. We will be paying tribute to the symbol of youth resistance, Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, who was executed by the apartheid regime on the 6th of April 1979. We remember his words when he said: "My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight".
Indeed we are continuing the fight for a better life for all our people. We have a plan for our country. On Wednesday we will be paying tribute to the struggles of South African women, who have always been part of the political life of our country. Our vote must help improve the lives of women in rural areas, women factory workers, farm workers and women in other vulnerable sectors.
Our vote on the 18th of May should improve the living conditions of workers in our country. Workers have always been the engine of the struggle for liberation, led by SACTU and later COSATU.
When we vote on Wednesday we will be defending the ANC, defending our hard won freedom, and defending the gains we have made over the past 17 years.
Comrades,
Let me take this opportunity to thank all structures, all ANC leaders and cadres, the Alliance partners and our hard working volunteers for an exciting and effective election campaign. We have reached every corner of the country. And we are convinced that our people have heard our message.
Together let us get ready to build better communities.
Vote ANC on 18 May 2011!
Siyanqoba ngomhlaka 18 May! Amandla!
Issued by the ANC, May 15 2011
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