PREMIER'S ADDRESS
Master of Ceremonies
MEC Fish Mahlalela
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I wish to extend both my greetings and gratitude at this momentous occasion. Momentous because it represents a crucial step in dealing with the manifestations of the social ill-called poverty.
A few months ago in the run-up to the elections we visited this and other places to canvass your vote. Through your unstinting support and hard work the people's voice in your area was able to be heard very loud and clear.
Through your efforts as farm labourers and as Comrades in the African National Congress, Cosatu, the SACP, Sanco and other democratic structures, you were able to ensure that the ANC gets a mandate to govern and ensure that the lives of our people improve.
For this the people of South Africa will be forever grateful.
Your area is by and large rural and under-developed. Because of apartheid most of you people were relegated to the most arid parts of the country dumped there after being used and abused by the captains of capital in the big cities and towns.
In my opening speech at the Legislature in July I pledged that it was my government's commitment to deliver shelter, schools, clinics, hospitals and provide amenities like water to the doorstep of every household in this province.
I wish to say to you that we will do all in our power to ensure that there is shelter for our people. We will ensure that there is clean water in all parts of this province. We will improve the roads. But all these things can only happen through a consultative process. Community participation in government is key to sustainable development. It is against this background that we are gathered here today.
Allow me to digress a little. Most of you have at one stage or the other done some beadwork. Whether to decorate a broom handle. To make a necklace or even to weave a mat. For that you used beads. Beads. Hundreds of them. Each one very distinctive and unique. But when you have a handful of beads that's all you have a handful of beads.
In order to bring out their beauty, you will need to string them together. Without the beads a piece of string is just that a piece of string. Only when you string the beads together do the beads come to their right. Then they speak to you, draw your attention to the importance of each bead.This is how you create something truly magnificent, through a relationship that is beneficial to both parities.
It is now our opportunity to create such togetherness, such a strong bond that holds everything together.. beautifully. It is through that strong bond between you and government that we have been able to build these houses. You as communities participated and the results are here for all to see. We often refer to houses as just part of the items we buy just because we wish to upgrade our standard of living.
Let us go back to the basics of things. Shelter, let me not call it housing, lest you think I am referring to housing as a leisure indulgence, shelter is one of the most basic necessities living beings have always sought in their struggle for survival.
This occasion is crucial because in a way we are responding to that grave need of society. A need to have dignity of a decent home. Of course in most debates by those to whom shelter is not a problem there has been great debate about how decent is decent in housing.
Well I do not want to enter that debate save to say that the opening of these houses marks a very important component of the long struggle of the South African people.
It might somewhat sound odd that there are houses called RDP houses. Well, nothing could have been more accurate. For
Reconstruction and development is the centerpiece of our pressing challenges of liberating our people.
These houses are built as a commitment to meeting the needs of the poorest of the poor as we promised. We must be the first ones to admit that a great deal of work remains to be done.
The issue of integration and infrastructure development continue to stare us in the face and as we deliver bit by bit.
Our critics of course rubbish every delivery we make, pointing out that we do not have integrated planning, we put people where there are no amenities and so on. Well, some of these criticisms are true.
But we in government have pledged ourselves to integrated delivery. No longer will we allow houses to be built were there are no roads, no water, no water reticulation and no electricity.
As we march to more integrated delivery, we must continue to perfect our planning to a point where such housing delivery is accompanied by the availability of other societal needs like schools, recreational facilities, shops and so on.
We know this and as we deliver such houses we are saying, as Government we have the political will and commitment to deliver to our people who eke a living in the dumping spots of our cities and towns.
I want to say right here that this delivery is a continuation of our programmes of delivering a better life to all, particularly the poorest of the poor.
Yes in this area we remain with grave developmental challenges and I can say with pride that we have the political will to meet them head-on.
In conclusion let me share this with you. As we approach the 2000 election, there will be a tendency amongst certain political parties to use pressing community issues as a tool to generate support.
It is relatively simple to mobilise by associating with the hardships of people, and challenging authority in question by posing as a mouth-piece of the community, through exploiting their fears and aspirations.
We need no further proof that the opposition will try to keep momentum and support in order to further their own agendas, by discrediting councillors before the next elections.
Let us acknowledge that we have not been able to deliver on all our election promises in 1994 as well as 1999.
Local government cannot deliver effectively without the support of the people. Our support for transformation can in part be measured through our willingness to pay for services we make use of.
Transformation has a cost, but the rewards are substantial.
I thank you.