PREMIER'S ADDRESS
Master of Ceremonies Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen.
The 20th century will be remembered as the century of the technological
revolution.
There is no denying that the digital revolution, developments in
telecommunications and the Internet are having a profound effect on
society,
The globalisation of and the ability by societies and communities to network has led to increasing levels of interdependence among the people of the world. The emerging networked society and economy are opening many opportunities for millions of people around the world.
Increased trade, new technologies foreign investments, expanding media and Internet connections are fuelling economic growth and human advance. These developments offer great potential to accelerate development and to eradicate the scourge of poverty that continues to afflict huge numbers of the world's population, especially in the developing countries.
These same developments however have the potential to become the greatest force for widening the gap between the rich and the poor, the developed and the developing countries. It can become a force for social and economic marginalisation and, even exclusion.
One of the issues President Thabo Mbeki called upon us to do is to ensure that we strengthen our links with the masses of our people on a sustained and not a sporadic basis. This will enable us to increase our understanding of the feelings, desires and aspirations of these masses.
It will also help us to carry out our leadership role better and in manner that is responsive to the needs of our people. Doing so will enable us to ensure that the masses of our people are mobilised to engage in active struggle and do not become passive recipients of the positive results of the process of progressive change.
This must be done in such a way that we realise one of the fundamental goal of our strategy and tactics of ensuring that our process of transformation is people-driven. The masses of our people must continue to be the principal motive force of revolutionary change.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe the Mpumalanga Provincial Government website will go some way in keeping us in touch with the people. We believe that it is the responsibility of the Government to communicate to the South African population, and indeed to the rest of the world, on a continual and on an accurate basis.
It is important because we do indeed sincerely believe that when we talk about a democratic system in South Africa, which is responsive to the feelings, the ideas, the moods, the needs and so on of the people, it is important that the people should know what the Government is doing.
We believe that the launching of this Website is very much part of a process of ensuring the accessibility of Government to the people.
The Constitution itself gives the people the right to information. Many people around the world are continuously interested to know what is happening in our province.
Sometimes the spotlight focuses on areas that are somewhat painful and embarrassing for us as a province, and maybe you wish that people would not know what was happening. But in the end it is important that the rest of the country and the world should get accurate information of what is happening
That is more the reason why we should approach the web site critically amongst those people who want to use it. To see whether indeed it is user friendly, to see whether it indeed contains this breadth and extent of information, which is necessary for people to be able to forinat judgement, to be able to make an impact on the system of governance in the country.
It is also important that the people who use the site give us feedback on it. Is our website user- friendly? They must suggest on ways of improving our site. By being able to surf our site people in Mpumalanga will be able to find out the truth about our government and our departments.
The person in Mpumalanga must be able to know what is happening in Gauteng, the Northwest or any other province. Indeed in the rest of Africa and the world.
As we know the driving force behind the networked society and economy is the astonishing development of the last decade or so is the information and communications technologies.
The information and communications revolution offers ever more powerful and enhanced capabilities, affecting and transforming patterns of work, education and health delivery, entertainment, public opinion and so on. But this revolution is different from the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Although both the agricultural and industrial revolutions involved new knowledge, in both instances different inputs were critical.
Land was for the agrarian revolution more important than the new knowledge on the use of seeds. For the industrial revolution capital in the form of machines encompassing the use of energy through the steam engine. and the internal combustion engine,became the most important input of production.
Similarly the current revolution is driven by the discovery of electronic means of processing, organising, sorting and communicating information which is leading to a knowledge revolution. But knowledge unlike land or capital resides mostly in human brains rather than physical entities.
Information and communication technologies provide the medium through which humanity both generates and communicates knowledge. By know you must be wondering when I am going to use that word you like most: IN CONCLUSION.
Well, in conclusion, thank you very much indeed for coming this afternoon.
Madala, Toni, Shirley, James and your colleagues both inside and outside of government, thank you for your sterling efforts in bringing government closer to the people. I hope you will work harder in establishing community centres and telecentres around the province so that even in rural areas people have access to this modem technology.
Ladies and gentlemen, I know that you did not come merely for the food and the drinks.
You are because you are part of the process of launching what must become an important tool in the process of entrenching the system of democratic governance in this country, of entrenching this popular participation in the system of government.
Thank you.