PREMIER'S ADDRESS
Master of Ceremonies
MEC JB Masilela
MEC JJ Mabena
Honoured Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The door into another millennium is about to open. As it does, we are called upon to celebrate life as we are guided along the road to the future.
Millions of years ago, our contents, which formed one whole then, broke up into separate pieces. These pieces gradually moved over the face of the earth, opening and closing oceans and seas, building mountains as pieces crashed into each other and were forced upward until the earth appeared much as it does today.
It was here where, millions of year ago Africa was freed from other continents setting it on a path of immense species richness.
Where, we are told, an ancient river has, over centuries, cut its way more than 1000m through the quartzite and dolomite rocks of the Drankensburg – depositing its rich sediments in an ancient ocean long before the dawn of life on earth.
It was during this time that animal life began to appear. From simple, single-celled organisms, animals evolved into more complex creatures as they adapted to the changes in climate and habitat. This was the time dinosaurs roamed the land.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in many ways as a people symbolize that violent break: that emergence of early life form. As people we have begun to emerge as if in tandem with the new millennium, into a nation confident of itself, aware of its immense possibilities and prepared to do extra-ordinary things to attain the goal that comes from creating a better quality of life for all.
We are moving into a century in which our priorities must be an end to the poverty of our people, a century in which the divisions of the past must truly cease to exist.
As we reconstruct South Africa and reclaim the whole country for all, break down all the divisions and attitudes of the past, freeing everyone from the last vestiges of oppression. Freeing everyone from hunger, disease and want.
It is our task to make most of our freedom, to entrench it in our new epoch as a fundamental and a permanent feature of our very existence.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the challenges facing all of us re to contribute to a complete and rounded picture of the millennium celebrations. Certainly that complete and rounded perspective cannot be contained only in political speeches, song, dance, and poetry and in the construction of monuments.
An integral element of the celebration is that we should feel the greater need, now more than before, to educate ourselves and the world about what amalgam of historical events has given birth to our collective human experience.
It is only by understanding this that we can be forewarned and forearmed about the challenges that lie ahead in our effort to construct a better world. Only this experience can prepare us to be a nation of sages, statesman and stateswomen who can inspire others and help solve problems besetting our world.
The challenge to all of us is to ensure that we celebrate in all our languages and develop way in which our languages can, through the process, further grow and flourish so that our experience can be recorded in many different ways, many different voices, contributing to a national convention without anyone of us feeling we are not of the collective experience.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are heartened by the partnership between the business sector and the organizers of the celebrations. We are also pleased that this initiative will help, among other things, to raise resources in order to attend to the plight of, and to empower the children and the disabled as well as to preserve our heritage promote our environment and consciously water tree of peace in our land.
This indigenous millennium project will add value to our task of forging our nationhood and to display to other nations of the world, as well as to ourselves, our capacity to give humanity what is proudly the product of the composite effort of all our people.
All the data of human experience is within our reach, let us use it to build the high road to destiny. As we enter the new millennium, South Africa must become a beehive of activity; a nation at work to build a better life.
It is thus fitting that the Mpumalanga Tourism Authority is spearheading millennial activities and celebrations at this pivotal in our history to showcase the resilience, talents and cultures of the people of our province, our country and our continent.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is really a great pleasure for me to be in these surroundings – so natural and so refreshing. In an age when humanity and our culture are threatened by countless hazards, it gives one hope to know that we still have such places in our country.
In conclusion, let me express my heartfelt gratitude to the organizers of these celebrations for the invitation extended to us to share this fresh breeze with you.
But before I sit down let me say that in the same way that the Blyde River Canyon is the pride of our province- indeed of our nation, this place will add value to our tourism industry.
We hope that this place will soon be recognized as a main tourist attraction and a Heritage site. Those who came before us laid the foundation for this. For that we will be forever grateful.
We need to remember that we did not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrowed it from our children.
This, however, is not an occasion for us simply to congratulate ourselves. There are also challenges we must face.
Our resolve to preserve our culture and keep our heritage sites of our children and their children remains unshakeable.
The people of this area must be involved in whatever we do here tonight. They should see this place as their heritage to preserve for future generations. Local and provincial government must also be involved. Tourism forms part of our strategy for sustained economic growth and development. Already more than a million tourists visit our province annually.
But for that to happen we will have to understand that competition within the tourism industry is stiff. There are many beautiful and interesting places on our continent and elsewhere.
We must therefore adopt a professional approach, upgrade skills of employees and market ourselves aggressively.
If approached within the framework of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, these efforts will make a significant contribution to bringing a better life for all. Not only will it play its part in generating national economic growth. More directly, it will help improve the living standards of rural communities.
We need, as a nation to take stock of what we have accomplished and what still needs to be done in preserving our heritage and rewriting our history.
Our success as nation depends, in no small measures on the conservation of our heritage sites and the preservation of our culture similar to what we are doing today.
It demands conditions in which every sector of society can join hands to make a unique treasure accessible to our nation and its visitors, and to ensure that future generations will have the same privilege.
Let us all become part of a living monument in celebration of life.
I thank you.