NEWS & MEDIA LETTERS FROM THE PRESIDENT

"We have to ensure we do more, better"

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As this edition of ANC TODAY goes to print, we are well on the way to finalise the constitution of the national and provincial governments. We therefore take this opportunity to wish all these governments success in their work over the next 5 years.

As they settle down to work, these governments will have to keep in sharp and clear focus a number of factors. These derive from the commitments we made in our 2004 Election Manifesto "A People's Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty", and the overwhelming mandate we received from the people to govern South Africa.

In our Manifesto we said: "Yes, we have made massive progress (during our First Decade of Democracy). However much, much more still needs to be done. At the heart of our challenges are two linked concerns - we must create work and roll back poverty. These two core objectives are the major focus of our programmes for the Second Decade of Freedom. To achieve this, we need stronger partnership among all South Africans, A People's Contract for a Better South Africa."

Further to explain these commitments, we spoke about our "Vision 2014" and said:

"Guided by the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), our vision is to build a society that is truly united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic. Central to this is a single and integrated economy that benefits all.

"The combination of some of the most important targets and objectives making up Vision 2014 are as follows:

• Reduce unemployment by half through new jobs, skills development, assistance to small businesses, opportunities for self-employment and sustainable community livelihoods.
• Reduce poverty by half through economic development, comprehensive social security, land reform and improved household and community assets.
• Provide the skills required by the economy, build capacity and provide resources across society to encourage self-employment with an education system that is geared for productive work, good citizenship and a caring society.
• Ensure that all South Africans, including especially the poor and those at risk - children, youth, women, the aged, and people with disabilities - are fully able to exercise their constitutional rights and enjoy the full dignity of freedom.
• Compassionate government service to the people; national, provincial and local public representatives who are accessible; and citizens who know their rights and insist on fair treatment and efficient service.
• Massively reduce cases of TB, diabetes, malnutrition and maternal deaths, and turn the tide against HIV and AIDS, and, working with the rest of Southern Africa, strive to eliminate malaria, and improve services to achieve a better national health profile and reduction of preventable causes of death, including violent crime and road accidents.
• Significantly reduce the number of serious and priority crimes as well as cases awaiting trial, with a society that actively challenges crime and corruption, and with programmes that also address the social roots of criminality.
• Position South Africa strategically as an effective force in global relations, with vibrant and balanced trade and other relations with countries of the South and the North, and in an Africa that is growing, prospering and benefiting all Africans, especially the poor."

We went on to spell out some of the details of our Programme of Action over the next 5 years. We also explained how we would work to implement this Programme and take our country forward towards the achievement of Vision 2014. We said:

"Vision 2014, and the practical steps over the next five years to see to its realisation, are the measures that can and will set our country on the road to faster realisation of the ideals of our Constitution - a free South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it, a South Africa whose wealth is used to improve the quality of life of all citizens and a South Africa that works with humanity to build a better Africa and a better world.

"But how will this be done? How do we ensure that these objectives are met?

"We will strengthen co-operation among economic partners - government, business, trade unions and community organisations - to implement agreements of the Growth and Development Summit which are aimed at creating work and fighting poverty.

"We will forge stronger partnerships across all sectors to deal with the challenges of distributing social grants, fighting crime and corruption, improving our common efforts against TB, malaria, HIV and AIDS as well as other diseases.

"We will improve the system of monitoring and evaluation to improve implementation of all these programmes, through stronger monitoring and evaluation units at national, provincial and local levels, and we will ensure that municipal councils - which are closer to communities - meet their mandates.

"We will speed up economic development in rural and urban areas with economic potential, improve skills and access to services especially among women and youth in all parts of the country and intensify the rural development and urban renewal programmes.

"We will recruit more police and provide them with skills to more than match the criminals and their syndicates, and we will make life more and more difficult for those who amass wealth through corrupt means.

"We will strengthen South Africa's Early Warning Mechanism on Africa and dedicate more resources to ensure that we contribute more effectively to the efforts on our continent to prevent and urgently resolve conflict."

In addition to all this, we also made a firm commitment to all our people, which our national and provincial governments have an obligation to honour. We said:

"The ANC commits itself, working within communities and within government, to play its part in forging this People's Contract for a Better South Africa, inspired by its commitment to democratic consultation, mass participation and volunteerism, Moral Regeneration as well as people-centred and people-driven development."

Almost 70% of the electorate voted for the ANC. As we said when we celebrated this outstanding victory:

"The people of South Africa have made a clear statement that they are confident that the ANC will lead them to the achievement of the goal of a better life for all. In their millions, South Africans of all races have pledged that they are ready to enter into a people's contract to create jobs and fight poverty.

"The people have voted overwhelmingly to renew the mandate of the ANC to govern South Africa. They have done so because:

"They know that working together with all our people, the ANC government will succeed to push back the frontiers of poverty, (and) because they know that the ANC is a movement of the poor of our country, regardless of race, age or gender."

We went on to say that "as a movement we must celebrate our victory with all due humility. We must not allow the decisive mandate we have received from the people to encourage an attitude of arrogance among ourselves."

We said that "on behalf of the ANC and all the democratic forces of our country, (we) would like to tell all our people that we will not disappoint (their) expectations. As we said at the conclusion of the 1999 elections, we must now get down to work!"

And so all our governments must now get down to work! None of us should allow ourselves to be distracted by mischief-makers and those with personal agendas, who have been speculating and will continue to speculate about who might or might not have been in any of the national and provincial governments.

The masses that elected us are not interested in any of these manoeuvres. They have mandated us to implement what we said in the 2004 Manifesto and not to engage in fruitless factional fights.

The overwhelming majority of those who voted to renew our mandate are poor people. They are black and white, men and women, the young and the elderly. Many of them depend entirely on the government to empower them to do what they can to help improve their lives, responding to our call to them to join the people's contract.

They know that they cannot depend on "the market" to achieve a better life. However, they are certain that they can depend on the ANC and the governments it has formed to realise this objective. Accordingly, we have an absolute obligation to honour the commitment we made to them, that we will not disappoint their expectations.

In this regard, I would like to highlight two issues raised in our 2004 Manifesto. We said: "we will ensure that municipal councils - which are closer to communities - meet their mandates." We also said: "We will improve the system of monitoring and evaluation to improve implementation of all programmes, through stronger monitoring and evaluation units at national, provincial and local levels."

Accordingly, all relevant structures of our movement must ensure that the municipal councils do indeed meet their mandates. Necessarily, government must also carry out a thorough review of our system of governance so that we empower local government to discharge its responsibilities to the people.

Our 2002 Stellenbosch National Conference resolved that we must carry out the "monitoring and evaluation" work mentioned in the 2004 Manifesto. Both the ANC and our governments will therefore have to take the necessary steps to ensure that this is done.

We must do this "to improve implementation of all (our) programmes", as we said in the Manifesto. There is therefore no intention to abuse the monitoring and evaluation processes to carry out a witch-hunt and indiscriminate purging of cadres deployed in government.

However, those of us working in government, whether we are members of the ANC or not, must know that our obligation to meet the commitments we made to the people, as well as the imperative to respect the overwhelming mandate given to us by the people, necessitate that those who are not ready and prepared to serve the people of South Africa should be ready and prepared to leave government.

In our Manifesto we said: "Our goal is to create a South Africa in which all can experience an improving quality of life, enjoying equal human rights, with access to opportunities that freedom has brought us, and bound together as a nation by our humanity.

"Working with (everybody) in a People's Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty, we are confident of success.

"Together we can and will do more, better! A better life for all!"

Our national and provincial governments will have to ensure that practically we do more and better, successfully addressing the challenge of a better life for all, for whose realisation the masses of our people gave us an overwhelming mandate.