15 FEBRUARY 2005 â DR MOTSOKO PHEKO
Madam Speaker, Mr President, Deputy President, Honourable Members,
It is a mark of statesmanship on the part of the President in his state of the nation address to candidly acknowledge that the many promises he made to the nation have not been met. When he made some of these promises last year, the PAC cautioned that these promises could not be fulfilled unless there was a radical shift in government policies. A United Nations Human Development Report shared this PAC position.
The PAC appreciates many aspects of the Presidentâs State of the Nation Address, such as, assisting our new farmers whom the PAC has long said must be subsidised. Indeed, our business people in the rural areas and townships must be helped. They are losing out to the minority and big business.
Madam Speaker,
The state of this great nation imposes an imperative on us to embrace a mission that rapidly moves the damned, the disinherited and the despised, from HIV/AIDS, landlessness, persistent poverty, lack of access to education, environmental destruction, acute under-development in rural areas of our country and privatisation of strategic state assets.
The HIV/AIDS crisis is a wake-up call that forces us to take extra-ordinary action to stop the reversal of human development, and to prevent 8 year old children from becoming heads of households.
PAC ADVOCATES FREE EDUCATION
The future standard of living in this country will depend on access to quality of education. Education is the gateway to a strong economy because when it is tailored to the needs of a nation, it enables each individual not only to sell its labour, but to create a job for himself or herself. Our country is educating fewer children and they are mainly African â the majority population.
The PAC affirms that the education system should leave no child behind. No child should be denied entrance to school because of inability to pay school fees. No child should drop out of school. No child should be denied the opportunity for tertiary education because they cannot pay. Free education is a sound national investment. No nation can advance and avoid foreign domination, if it neglects the education of its people. At present over 50% of our students drop-out before reaching Matric because of poverty. Only 14% are able to acquire tertiary education.
If Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania with far weaker economies could provide free education, and Botswana to this minute does this, why is South Africa dragging its feet over free education? Education is related to advancing our nation with technical skills and provides job creation.
PRIVATISATION DOES NOT SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE POOR
The PAC repeats that privatisation of strategic assets and public services does not serve the interests of the poor. Privatisation has contributed to massive unemployment. It has also changed the role of municipalities from being service deliverer of services to that of being regulator of services. Many households cannot afford the surcharge on water, electricity and taxes.
It is high time for government to stop imposing water privatisation in our communities. Donor governments and institutions like the World Bank need to acknowledge the failure of privatisation and instead concentrate on boosting the performance and coverage of public utilities. Public water delivery can be improved through increased citizens involvement in decision-making and Peopleâs Participatory Budgeting..
The underlying assumption of the plan to privatise Eskom is that the private sector and competitive market mechanisms are more effective and efficient than regulated monopoly regimes. The experience of the last few years, however, proves that privatisation tends to simply replace regulated public monopoly with unregulated private oligarchy.
The introduction of the user-pay system creates unaffordable basic services such as health care. The collapse of the health care system where millions of citizens have no health insurance should serve as a reality check. South Africa needs to face up to the need for a national health insurance programme. Millions of families remain powerless in a country where a minor illness or injury means economic disaster, where a physical check-up or blood test, is an unaffordable luxury.
SOUTH AFRICA â MOST UNEQUAL SOCIETY IN THE WORLD
Income inequality continues to disfigure our society. It has transformed South Africa into the most unequal society in the world. This is illustrated by the fact that the poorest African people in our country live on R281.00 a month while a white person lives on R5050 a month. This means that the income of the poorest African is 11 times smaller than that of the poorest white person. Add this to the fact that a Telkom Chief Executive Officer was paid R11.1 million bonus while Telkom has the most expensive telephone service, and pays its workers an average of R3000 a month. The same Telkom has retrenched thousands of its workers and is threatening thousands more.
THE LAND QUESTION IS NOT BEING RESOLVED IN SOUTH AFRICA
Land was the primary contradiction of the liberation struggle. This nation is not doing well on the resolution of this fundamental question and the present government policy will never resolve the land question. The principle of willing seller willing buyer is not working and will never work. Land must be expropriated and compensation paid on improvements made on the land. Research shows that the proposal make by President Mbeki to distribute land in this country, will take 96 years to distribute a mere 30% of agricultural land to Africans. Our people can not wait!
The reality is that even if all land claims were to be settled, the land question in South Africa would remain unresolved. 87% of our land was seized from the African people during colonial wars of aggression. That was long before 1913. Moreover the Restitution of Land Rights Act closed land claims on 31 December 1998 denying the right of millions in our country to claim their land back. The lesson we can learn from Zimbabwe is that equitable land redistribution and property cannot be postponed indefinitely without disastrous consequences.
Our land is being sold to foreigners at an alarming rate while we remain land dispossessed. The PAC reminds that there is no country anywhere in the world, which belongs to all who live in it. The freedom charter, which preaches this erroneous gospel, is therefore a freedom cheater. It is cheating the land-dispossessed people of this country on a scale unprecedented in the history of national liberation.
Millions live in squatter camps, which often burn killing them. They are evicted from land every day. Is this how South Africa belongs to all who live in it?
The Role of the Public Sector
The public Sector needs to be revamped. The PAC argues that the flaws we observe in the social democratic state, namely unresponsiveness to people's changing demands, and waste and corruption (though probably less than in the private sector) are not best remedied via the market but by democratic innovations in management within state institutions - for instance putting to more socially effective use the capacities of front line workers and skilled managers, and even using practical knowledge held by the users of these services.
The 'third dimension' questions of how institutions, public and private, are organised influence relations between the market and state. If public institutions are managed in a way which gives people a sense of genuine democratic control over them, then popular support for extending social control over private corporations is more likely. The more people give up on state institutions, defaulting to a belief in private business as more 'natural', the more any socially radical transformation of market institutions will also fail to inspire the public support.
The so-called Black Elite Not Contributing to Transformation
The new so-called black elite in the private sector and beneficiaries of BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) are not playing a significant role is social transformation. They have merely taken over the methods and practices of the white elite in divorcing themselves from the problems facing the African people. The PAC argues that the social irresponsibility of the private corporation cannot be overcome simply by state regulation. What is necessary is a fundamental transformation of the forces, which drive investment - away from profit maximisation towards recognition of environmental, labour, and social concerns. This means deploying every possible lever for democratic accountability and social responsibility. One possibility is new institutions of democratic control over the pension funds. Another is democratic deployment of state purchasing powers for social ends.
PAC WELCOMES ANTI-CORRUPTION SUMMIT
The PAC welcomes the Anti-Corruption Summit. It must be inclusive of all sectors of society. Its agenda must include nepotism and employment, promotion, housing, and grants based on political affiliation. A common patriotism cannot be built on sectarianism and discrimination of any kind among its citizens.
The PAC does not support violence, but it is not right to tell the people of Phomolong in the Free State protesting against corruption, that their demonstrations will be met with the full force of the law. Resistance is a corrective measure of a non-responsive government. Resistance is a mechanism for government to pay attention to the wretched of the earth. This government should not criminalize struggle. If the President wants to use the âfull force of the law,â he should not criminalize resistance. He should instead criminalize landlessness, poverty, joblessness and social degradation.
WHEN WILL âRECONCILIATIONâ BENEFIT OUR FORMER FREEDOM FIGHTERS?
Where does âreconciliationâ put the former freedom fighters? There is continued incarceration of former freedom fighters such as PACâs Azanian Peoples Liberation Army. When will âtruth and reconciliationâ benefit them? It is a mutilation of justice to pardon the Rev Allan Boesak for a criminal offence he has denied committing, while APLA fighters who fought apartheid declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations are ignored. All APLA freedom fighters should be released. It is criminal after ten years to punish those who fought for freedom.
PAN AFRICANISM IS NECESSARY FOR CONTINENTAL UNITY AND DEFENCE
The PAC appreciates efforts by the President in mediating peace in African countries such as Ivory Coast, Burundi and DRC. The PAC welcomes some aspects of the governmentâs foreign policy, which are gravitating towards the long-held Pan Africanist Congress position that no African state can formulate a prudent foreign policy in isolation from what is happening on the Continent of Africa.
The PAC made this historic declaration at a time when its ideology of Pan Africanism was called âracismâ and Pan Africanists denounced as âracists.â Yet the Pan African Parliament, the African Union are some of the fruits of the tenacity of the Convention Peoples Party of Nkrumah, the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Sekou Toureâs Guinea and Modibo Keitaâs Mali, in particular.
Regarding NEPAD the PAC has cautioned that it may end up being a partnership of horses and riders in which Africaâs people are horses. NEPADâs success will not happen, if it is to depend on former enslavers and colonizers of Africa. To this day these forces depend on the exploitation of Africaâs raw materials and labour. The Bush administration is to spend R480 billion in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. This clearly shows that to some of these countries NEPAD is just an empty talk.
ZIMBABWE NOT GOOD DIPLOMACY FOR OUR COUNTRY
Zimbabwe is our important trading partner. Under the apartheid colonialist regime mercenaries from this country roamed all over Africa overthrowing African governments, which the colonialists did not like. It is bad news for Pan Africanists that mercenaries from this country have been arrested in Zimbabwe on their way to overthrow the Equatorial Guinea Government. Mark Thatcher who financed the attempted coup dâ etat from Cape Town has been allowed to leave this country instead of facing a stiff prison sentence for treason. A spy from South Africa is reported under arrest in Harare. Such activities can only ruin the Pan African vision. They are not good diplomacy for our country.
PAC DEMANDS CANCELLATION OF FOREIGN DEBT
We have an international democratic deficit, a social deficit, a justice deficit, but not, and economic or financial one. Africa needs debt cancellation. In Africa 340 million people, or half the population, live on less that R6.15 per day. Africa carries the debt burden of over US300 billion yet has 5% of the developing worldâs income and spends over US$15 billion on debt repayments annually to wealthy nations and institutions. According to the World Bank, Africa contributes with other developing nations US$1 billion per day in interest on debt. For every US$1 African countries receive in grants, they pay US$13 in interest on debt. Gordon Brown and others have finally caught on to this.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
The PAC welcomes the reforming of the United Nations, especially with reference to the Security Council. It is long overdue. Africa must have a right of veto if the present permanent members of the Security Council continue to monopolise this right. The African Union, however, must choose its representative. There should be no stampede competition among African states for this seat.
UN supporters have good reason to engage in vigorous hand wringing. George W. Bushâs aggressive and unilateral policies have made precarious the future of the world, and the worldâs only integral body of governance and dialogue. The question facing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has changed from how to circumvent and dilute U.S. power and will over the organization to how much U.S. butt to kiss in order to keep both his job and a shred of integrity for the UN itself. Africa must fight for a multi-polar world. US hegemony is inimical to world peace.
Globalization is the driving force behind the new and warlike period that began with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. One of neo-liberalism's greatest crimes is to downgrade the history of ideas.
A wealth of new intellectual tradition is emerging with factual evidence showing that globalisation has driven apart peoples, classes and nations. It is shaping and reshaping key regions of the world.
Shifting the balance of power in favour of citizens takes a practical understanding of globalization and knowledge of the adversaries who prevent change, intelligent organisation, and exciting proposals to that advance the Pan African vision.
The PAC will continue to challenge the idea that globalization is inevitable. We will consistently argue that its economic contradictions have thrown the world order that sustained it into crisis.
MANUFACTURED DEMOCRACY INIMICAL TO PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
In Iraq we have seen a classical case of the manufacturing of democracy. The Iraqis who came out for the elections were voting their hopes for an end to violence and occupation, and a new beginning; their hopes are not likely to be met. George Bush is the major victor in this election, using it to claim legitimacy for his occupation of Iraq.
This election does not mean that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is legitimate -- democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a gun. The election, held under military occupation and not meeting international criteria, including those of the Carter Centre, remains illegitimate; the number of people voting does not determine legitimacy.
South Africa should consider withdrawing itâs diplomatic mission in Israel and move to encourage other African States to follow suit.
Israel has consistently violated international laws governing the sovereignty of independent states and currently illegally occupies territory, which belongs to the State of Palestine.
Historical memory reminds us that Israel was created as an independent state through the expulsion of thousands of Arab people through the former British mandate of Palestine. Zionist groups forcibly drove out 85% of the Palestinian population through a bloody military campaign. Today just over 2.5 million Palestinians are living in âsecurity zonesâ under martial law policed by Israel. Another 4 million are scattered in various part of the world unable to return to their land.
Israel has successfully institutionalised the suppression of Palestinian people and violates their democratic rights on a daily basis. It rules with impunity in the occupied territories with no regard for human and legal rights. Israel has historically denied access to the United Nations to carry out investigation into human right abuses in these areas.
The question we should pose then, is whether it is tenable to have a state like Israel in the United Nations deliberating over the human rights of other countries when it is one of the biggest offenders? Can we entrust it with such far-reaching decisions?
The rhetoric of many nations has been eloquently subdued and to a great extent deafening when you consider that Israel has been conducting one of the longest and largest programmes of ethnic cleansing in the world. The brutalisation of an entire population is the reason why Israel seeks to keep its rule in the Occupied territories of Palestine away from any scrutiny.
Madam Speaker,
Economically, the PAC stands committed to a policy guaranteeing the most equitable distribution of wealth. Socially, we aim at the full development of the African personality. To sum it up, we stand for an Africanist Socialist Democracy.
When it comes to the fundamental interests of our country and our continent of Africa the PAC shall not retreat. We shall not relent. We shall not equivocate. And we shall win!
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