Thank you, hon House Chair. The contradictions in the structure of the South African economy have led to calls for radical economic transformation for inclusive growth.
Indeed, South Africa has achieved much in the past 21 years, yet much more remains to be done. It is of no use pointing to great targets that no other country has reached, such as providing 400 000 solar heaters and thousands of houses in so short a time and the phenomenal number of social grants of R3 million to R16 million.
We all know that the previous dispensation didn't address one third of the population, but only addressed 10%. These are the facts.
The 53rd Conference of the ANC resolved in the words of Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, to "review the past and reject therein all those things that have retarded our progress," over the past 21 years. We are committed to building a developmental state and a united democratic, nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous South Africa.
We will not rest until our developmental state restores our peoples' dignity. The supporters of the neoliberal agenda cannot do this, not because they don't want to, but simply because they put materialist values before people.
The ANC is determined to put measures in place that will decisively implement policy and that will fundamentally alter the structure of the South African economy. Indeed, "Sekunjalo Ke Nako", now is the time. It is time to change. We are going to harness the frustrations of our people into constructive development. We are determined to pursue this at all costs because we know that so far, economic growth has been slow and not inclusive. It is being characterised by consumption-driven growth, which has contributed to the debt-driven households. We also know that there has been a strong gross domestic product, GDP, but the reality is that it has masked the structural distortions in our economy that led to a sharp drop in the productive sectors such as agroprocessing and manufacturing.
Furthermore, the impact of South Africa's dependence on commodity exports and capital inflows increased the volatility of our exchange rates and made our economy much more vulnerable to external shocks.
The ANC government is determined to transform our country, radically, through the pursuit of the developmental state driven by nine targeted interventions, namely the manufacturing and agroprocessing sector in the increase of labour absorption; expedite beneficiation and value addition; strengthening the implementation of a high-value Industrial Policy Action Plan, Ipap; and unlocking the potential job creation and developmental capacity of SMMEs, co-operatives, townships and rural enterprises.
We have resolved to stabilise the energy challenge and the challenges in the labour market. We will pursue public-private partnerships, PPPs, with fresh zeal to crowd in private sector investment. There is a lot of money lying fallow in your vaults.