Hon Deputy Speaker, hon President, Deputy President, hon members, Premiers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, today there is a deafening silence from the naysayers, when the views they spewed out about the inability of Africans to host a successful World Cup have come back to bite them. The silence speaks volumes on how the venomous words of pessimism have led them to crawl back into their holes of misdirected, miscalculated and misguided perception on the ability of the African continent to deliver.
We stand here before you this afternoon, proud of the fact that we are able to meet here to celebrate the successes of our country in hosting a world- class 2010 Fifa World Cup, a legacy that will live forever. This legacy will indeed spread to many generations to come - a legacy epitomised by the patriotism and unity of purpose of many South Africans of different colours, creeds, classes and genders. This is the legacy of a shared dream of changing humanity for a better tomorrow.
Hon Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille, your assertion that we have left our people behind is a distortion. For us the 2010 World Cup was not only a great soccer championship; it was a catalytic imperative to transform the faces and facets of this country, a vision to promote real social cohesion, sustained growth, skills formation, job creation, macrosocial inclusion and continental renaissance.
Government made available a budget of R665 million for the procurement of equipment, as well as R640 million for the deployment of members of the SAPS. In sum, around R1,5 billion was invested in SAPS Fifa World Cup 2010 activities. Within the greater total, this was real value for money.
In ensuring that we provided a safe and secure World Cup, we had to utilise some of the allocated resources for procuring assets like water cannons, bomb detection equipment, helicopters, downlinks for helicopters, fixed- wing aircraft, highway patrol vehicles, mobile command centres, and body armour for public order policing, as well as for the rebuilding of Nyala armoured vehicles.
We provided security for the heads of state who came for the World Cup opening and finals, as well as those who came during the game stages to offer support to their teams. We also provided high-risk forces for each host city, comprising the Special Task Force personnel, the National Intelligence unit detectives, Crime Intelligence Division personnel, bomb disposal unit personnel and other role-players. We also deployed a total of 850 to 1 000 members on special trains on a daily basis.
More than three million fans attended the 64 games at the stadia, and more than one million attended Fan Fests, with remarkable peace and stability. It was said that tourists to the country during the World Cup would be stabbed, and therefore a company in a certain stabbing capital in Europe designed a stab vest. What lame disinvestment.
Our people, like the warriors, rose to the occasion ...
... bana ba thari e ntsho maila ngwathela ... [... South Africans of African descent ...]
... inspired by the spirit of great African warriors - Moshoeshoe, Shaka, Sekhukhune, Cetshwayo and King Sabata Dalindyebo. They, in unison, sang ... "Bulalani abathakathi! Bulalani abathakathi!" [Kill the witches! Kill the witches!] ... in defence of the motherland, in defence of Mother Africa. They defeated the peddlers of pessimism, the faceless bearers of "Plan B" and "Plan C". South Africa was Plan A, B and C.
Our people proved that the optimism of will and intellect far surpasses the purveyors of despair and disdain; that willpower naturally rebuffs toxic tendencies and antics; and that they will not be captives of apocalyptic clerics.
Martin Luther King Jr fittingly captures a denunciation of these kinds of eccentric frolics when he says:
If you succumb to the temptation of [negativity, gloom and despair,] unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.
We could not have allowed our people to fall victim to these walkers in gloom. Our people in their millions rejected this stage-managed despair and dreariness. The spirit of "forward ever, backward never" imbued the rainbow nation. The ill-bred and the boorish may say we lost on the field of play, but we say we won the bigger World Cup - unity of our people across the continent and the pride of Africans in the diaspora.
The challenge that we all have to confront now is to build on the momentum and the window of opportunity created by this unparalleled exposure. The zeal and the love displayed by the country during the World Cup was unbelievable, and we worked tirelessly to ensure that we didn't betray the trust placed in us by the South African population.
Africa has a reason to smile! South Africa has a right to walk with its head held high! However, the success of this World Cup was not only the success of South Africa; it was also the success of the entire continent and a blow against peddlers of pessimism who sought to make it their permanent vocation to say that nothing good would come out of Africa.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf averred that the successful hosting of the World Cup had instilled a sense of pride in all Africans and had to be celebrated. Then, seeing that the vuvuzela-frenzied spectacle was scored 9 out of 10 by Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, people started spreading rumours that after the World Cup there would be xenophobic attacks against African migrants by the South African public!
The legacy of this World Cup will live with us forever. South Africa will never be the same again. Our people are united as never before. Criminals have learnt that when we say, "Wafa, tsotsi" [Die, thug] we mean business. These factors are contributing favourably to macrosocial stability, investment attraction, economic development and poverty busting.
We pay homage to and salute many in our government, civil society and the international community, and President Zuma for his apt stewardship and guidance. We remain forever indebted to former President Nelson Mandela for his selfless belief and, above all, the ANC for its vision.
We take our hats off to all our security agencies. As we say in our township lingo, le dinganga ... [you are heroes ...]
... ovuk'abayibambe ngempela ... [... the real fighters ...]
... and you did us proud.
As we conclude we take wisdom and humility from the inscriptions by Stephen Covey, when he says: There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfilment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase 'to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy'. ... the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.
We live this legacy today; we'll live this legacy tomorrow. This journey has just begun.
Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso! [God bless our nation.]
Thank you very much. [Applause.]