Aventura Badplaas

Program Director,
Director-General of the Department of Labour, Dr. Vanguard Mkhosana,
Honourable Members of the Executive Council
Your Majesties Amakhosi
Mayors and representatives of local government
Representatives of business, organized workers, and community organizations in our province
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to formally welcome you all to the Mpumalanga Provincial Growth and Development Summit.

Gathered here and representing millions of our people and their various formations from across the length and breadth of our province and beyond, you are all testimony to the resolve and determination of this province to turn into a concrete reality the People’s contract to create work and fight poverty.

The Theme of our Summit is “Creating economic opportunities for a better life for all” and it is a theme that embodies the nature and character of this gathering as a critical turning point in our fight against poverty and under-development.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank and honour all stakeholders and major economic role players in our province who have so eagerly responded to our call to make a difference in the lives of our people.

We are gathered here to launch a provincial strategy for addressing developmental challenges over the next four years in line with the overarching national goals of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014.

This Provincial Growth and Development Strategy outlines a framework to align provincial initiatives with national ones and will serve as a guideline for both provincial departments and municipalities.

Among us here today we have almost the entire leadership of the province. Please let me acknowledge in no particular order of importance; important partners in the province that are present here - the provincial secretary of COSATU; The President of Chamsa – the provincial motherbody of organised business in the province; the President of NAFU; the President of Agri South Africa; the Chairperson of SANCO; the leadership of SALGA, the youth, women and people with disabilities.

In response to our call for a Summit that will give hope to our people about the seriousness of our endeavours to address the urgent challenges facing the province, I am happy to inform you that in our midst today we also have senior representatives of mega economic enterprises in the province.

As indicated in the programme, they will be making announcements tomorrow about some of the initiatives they are planning to embark upon, as part of the collective drive for socio-economic transformation and a better life for our people. Please let me acknowledge the following members of the Premier’s Economic Advisory Council - Mr Dave Martin of Columbus Steel; Mr Marinus Sieberhagen of Sasol Synfuel; Me Cheryl Carolus from SANPARKS; Mr Archie Phalane from NUM. I would like to acknowledge, again in no order of importance – Mr. Pieter Cox of Sasol; Dr. Mathews Phosa of Vuka Forests; representatives of TSB, Sappi, Eskom, Thos Begbie and Forever Resorts.

Following an extensive and inclusive process of consultation, we are finally gathered here to witness the culmination of a historic contract between social partners in the province on how they will collectively respond to the urgent challenges of poverty, joblessness and under-development.

Programme Director, it is an arduous and rocky road that we have traveled since we began preparations for this Summit last year.

Many among us would recall that we began planting the seeds for a “smart partnership” with our stakeholders during the very early days of this administration.

We sought to indicate from the beginning our desire to fashion a common consensus for addressing the promotion of rising levels of growth, investment, job creation and people-centred development in the province.

Accordingly, we have met with many stakeholders in different parts of the province and such meetings were important for developing the necessary trust and confidence that has made this Summit a possibility.

As a province we have also hosted various sector summits, which have shaped the documents that we have before us, apart from further strengthening the collective resolve for developing our province.

These summits included, among others, the Public Sector Unions Service Delivery Summit, the Industrial Summit, the Agricultural Sector Consultative Workshop, the Roads Indaba, an Education and Skills Development workshop, a Tourism Indaba and the recently held Provincial Mining Summit.

The spirit of the consultation process, and the success of the ‘Multistakeholder Forum’ that laid the preparatory foundations for the Summit, are proof that all elements of our society want to work together.

They are proof that in Mpumalanga we do have stakeholders that are willing to rise above immediate self-interests for the sake of the common good.

Therefore whilst we note that it has not always been possible to reach everyone for considered inputs prior to the Summit, we wish to applaud the work of the Multistakeholder Forum, and at the same time encourage that greater efforts be made, especially during the post-Summit phase, to ensure that all stakeholders are able to interact fully and effectively with the product of the Summit.

Upon our assumption of duty as the current administration, we indicated our determination to turn our provincial government into an economic administration of excellence and efficiency. We also identified our task as being to accelerate the pace of growth and job creation and extending the scope of development and empowerment.

The Provincial Growth and Development Strategy that we will launch at this Summit is the strategic policy framework that will support us in these endeavors.

The Strategy sets the tone and pace for growth and development in the Province and addresses the key and fundamental challenges facing us whilst outlining various interventions to be initiated over time.

In our on-going community outreach programme and Izimbizo, including last year’s Presidential Imbizo, ordinary citizens and constituencies have highlighted to us the many problems that they face which hamper their ability to realise a better life in their communities.

These problems are identified concisely in the Strategy as the challenges and constraints that should be the focus of all our socio-economic developmental efforts in the province

They include:

Unemployment and the lack of ‘decent work’ opportunities for many of our people that are part of the labour force
The severe levels of poverty, particularly in the rural and former homeland areas of our province
HIV and AIDS infection rates that are among the highest in the country
The structure and recent performance of our provincial economy, which has seen the formerly dominant and labour absorbing sectors lose their share of the economy in favour of less labour intensive ones
The shortage of skills and a ‘brain drain’ within the population in favour of urban centers
The considerable infrastructure and service delivery backlogs that manifest itself in the lack of adequate water and sanitation and poor maintenance of the roads network in some parts of the province
Perceived and real governance challenges that hamper service delivery and create fertile ground for corruption.

In response to these challenges the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy sets out six priority areas of intervention. These priority areas have been identified primarily based on the socio-economic development needs of the Province, namely;

Economic Development.
Development Infrastructure
Social Development
Sustainable Environmental Development.
Good Governance, and
Human Resource Development.

In each of these broad priorities the Strategy outlines a number of key thrusts that are intended to give meaning to our attempts to achieve growth and development in the province.

Accordingly, it is the duty of all us here at this Summit to interrogate these matters carefully and to indicate what further elaboration may be necessary in order to attain our vision for “Reconstruction, development and sustainable growth; with employment and redistribution” in this province.

Undoubtedly, over the next four years, the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy will serve as a useful guide for our work in expanding the economic base of our region and in implementing the necessary developmental policies for making our province a better place for its citizens and future generations.

The Mpumalanga province has numerous advantages and enjoys various opportunities that are the envy of many. Very few can doubt that this is a province that is in a good position to achieve prosperity and socio-economic transformation.

In 2003, the province ranked second in terms of total mineral sales in the country,

The considerable presence of the Mineral Energy Complex in our province, and its contribution to overall production in the mining, electricity and manufacturing sectors, is an important competitive advantage particularly with regards to further down stream beneficiation.

Agriculture continues to play an important role in the province through its contribution to food security, employment and rural development.

Recently, we have seen the emergence of the services sector, particularly those aspects associated with our tourism potential.

In terms of infrastructure, there are indeed constraints that must be addressed such as the quality of our roads network in some parts of the province. However, no one can question that our ideal spatial location on the Maputo corridor and access to the Maputo harbour is another competitive advantage.

With these opportunities in mind it is heartening that over the next two days a Summit Agreement will be presented and signed by our social partners committing them all to working together to address economic and development challenges facing the province.

In this Agreement, the stakeholders have outlined their vision for this province and outlined programmatic interventions and a process for sustainable delivery in the short to medium term period.

The contract before the Summit covers a range of areas under the following themes:

More jobs, better jobs, decent work for all
Addressing the investment challenge
Advancing equity, developing skills, creating economic opportunities for all
Local economic development and access to services
Good governance
Social development
Sustainable environmental development
NEPAD and international co-operation

Among the key proposed agreements are:

Government and business will develop a Public-Private Partnership arrangement for addressing infrastructural backlogs that constrain economic activity in the province
The development of a provincial strategic infrastructure plan (PSIP)
Extensive collaboration between stakeholders to effectively implement Government’s Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) aimed at delivering a 100 000 employment opportunities in the province over the next four years
The establishment of sector working groups and finalization of a provincial industrial development strategy
Effective promotion of small enterprises and co-operatives
More rigorous Local Procurement and BEE implementation
Eradication of the bucket system in Gert Sibande by 2006
Improved local level planning and aggressive implementation and monitoring of LED
Zero tolerance towards corruption
Joint learnership campaigns
Undertake a provincial skills needs analysis in order to implement a provincial skills development strategy
Implementation of a comprehensive HIV and AIDS programme
Strengthening our role in regional economic development, in line with the spirit of NEPAD

This long list of agreements is indeed a sign that it will no longer be business as usual in our fight against poverty and unemployment in this province.

I wish to request that all partners, government included, pay particular attention to the commitments that they make at this Summit, as the Agreement lays out a thorough process for monitoring and review. When we meet again a year from now, it should not be the case that we have failed our people because we knowingly committed to what was unattainable.

As government, we wish to reiterate our determination to work together with our social partners so that in meaningful ways we can take this province towards a path of prosperity and social development.

For the post-Summit phase, and when all further work has been concluded, I have already requested the Director-General of the province, Advocate Soko, to make the necessary preparations for the Heads of Departments to prepare action plans and budget implications for what we have committed to.

It is our expectation that this will also apply to other stakeholders and that we will emerge united in concrete projects and initiatives that uplift all our people.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, the negative structural economic and developmental legacies that face our democratic dispensation are immense.

However, since 1994 considerable gains have been made. None of these would be possible without the clear commitment and involvement of stakeholders in the various participatory governance forums that exist today, including Parliamentary hearings and NEDLAC.

None would also be possible without the improved working relations and support between the different spheres of government, particularly local government and provinces.

During the next two days our efforts will be firmly placed on putting forward clear strategies for effective service delivery and development in our province.

As in the words of our President, the tide has truly turned. Nothing can stop us now.

I thank you.