Hon member, your time has expired by
14 seconds.
... 14 seconds. Thank you. My ...
It's over, your time, by 14 seconds. I allowed you to complete your question.
You have not. Okay. My question is then: Are you going to accept the minority report's recommendations as well?
Hon members, I did want to speak on your allocated time. Whatever your philosophical or ideological position is, it can fit within those two or three minutes that you have. Just make your choices better. I won't do this anymore, because it is abuse, quite frankly, of other time.
Hon Deputy Speaker, my answer is a very simple and straightforward one. The minority report by two panel members, Mr Serfontein and Mr Dan Kriek, obviously, will be considered as well. So, both reports are before Cabinet and they are going to be considered. Thank you very much.
Deputy Speaker, Mr President, not long ago we had the Deputy President, standing on the podium, confirming that land will be expropriated without compensation. If one may further say; land is a very
sensitive issue which raises emotions from people who are business civil and general public.
It is a known fact that South Africa is part of a global stage and that has its own consequences. For a smooth implementation of the Presidential Advisory Panel, how is government going to do it to avoid a situation where investors might pull out their investments and that might lead to a situation that Zimbabwe went through? That is my question.
Hon Deputy Speaker, clearly, we are implementing the recommendations that has been put forward which Cabinet will discuss, are going to be very mindful of precisely the issues that the hon member has alluded to. Obviously we got to have a very balanced approach. Expropriation of land without compensation is part one of the instruments that is going to be used to effect land reform in our country. That is what the panel has also said.
And in doing so, we will need to look at a plethora of methods and processes and that is why I also said the
minority report that was put forward by other panel members comes into play because they have taken a different view and the majority took a different view. So, we will be looking at all what has been proposed and see how best we do it.
Obviously we will need to take into account the context; the current conditions and actually, the panel said we need to have a set of criteria as well as we implement the recommendations that they have put forward. I think we are going to have quite a lot of scope and the ability to move forward on this. But the main thing is that in the end we must make sure that the land is returned to the people of our country. That we are going to make sure and we will utilise a variety of measures.
From 1994 until now, we have utilised certain measures but many of those have worked and some have not worked and we now need to embolden our efforts and make sure that we include other measures that will take us further so that the land is returned to our people. As I have said before, we are not going to do it in a reckless
manner; we are going to make sure that land reform is done responsibly.
In all this, we will also be guided by the resolution that was adopted by the governing party at its conference because it said that we should opt for expropriation of land without compensation, taking into account the issue of the impact on the economy, productivity of land and food security.
Those are the issues that need to be taken into account. As we move forward with this; we obviously need to use those as filters; to use those as issues that we need to pay attention to as we return land to our people. And that we are going to do and we will not turn away from returning the land to our people. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Mr President, the restoration of land to those from whom it was stolen has legitimacy. It is the view of the ACDP that there is sufficient land and resources for all South Africans to enjoy and benefit from. The secret, however, is in the implementation of
the policies and corruption sadly cannot be part of the equation.
The ACDP Member of the Mayoral Committee, MMC, for Human Settlements in the City of Johannesburg has been instrumental in restoring dignity to our residents by issuing thousands of title deeds to first time home owners.
Does the President agree that in order to restore dignity of all South Africans, that property rights must be protected by law and title deeds given to the poor and the marginalised which can then be leveraged to grow their wealth? Thank you.
Hon Deputy Speaker, yes I agree that giving land to our people and ensuring that we protect their rights and we give them tenure and title deeds, is precisely what we should do. There has been asset poverty in our country for generations and hundreds of years.
When land was taken from our forebears, what was done through that act, including the legislative part, the Land Act of 1913 and so forth, which was preceded by wars of disposition when our people were moved from areas where they lived, was actually asset stripping. They were stripped of the assets that they had.
Many of our people had two or three types of assets. They had their land, they had their livestock and they also had their own inherent knowledge and experience. When they were moved, they were stripped of all those and they remained asset less for hundreds of years and to that end, many of our forebears were never even able to leave and bequeath anything to their children as inheritances because, what they could have left as bequeaths for their children was taken away. That is when poverty and inequality set in, in real effect.
So this is what we are seeking to change. We are seeking to change the architecture of asset-based wealth in our county. So giving our people land, giving them title deeds, is actually to give the assets they should have had throughout their lives.
So we support title deeds granting to our people. We support that they should have tenure and the Constitution is very clear on this; it talks about tenure and land rights for all and not for some. We live in a country where land rights and tenure were for some only; for a minority of minorities and this must now end. We must give land to our people. That is something that we are not going to turn away from. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Question 11:
Since the start of the sixth democratic administration in May 2019, I have attended six international summits, covering both political and economic issues. These are the: G20 Summit in Japan; African Union Extraordinary Summit in Niger; SADC Summit in Tanzania; Tokyo International Conference on Africa's Development in Japan; Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia.
These gatherings provided an opportunity for South Africa to advance its foreign policy and promote its economic interests. At the G20 Summit in June, for example,
leaders reaffirmed their support for the necessary reform of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, to improve its functioning. They agreed that action is necessary regarding the functioning of the dispute settlement system consistent with the rules as negotiated by WTO members. On the margins of the G20 Summit, we participated in a Japan-South Africa business roundtable with business people from South Africa as well as from Japan.
Among other things, this roundtable generated leads for possible investment projects in sectors such as minerals processing, automotives and battery production. It also provided opportunities for our farmers who export fruit and vegetables to Japan to be able to interact with their counterparts and indeed with government officials there. I have spoken about this before in this very House how our grape farmers have wanted to export grapes into Japan; the seedless grape and they are being prevented by their processes in Japan. We were able to get them to interact and to raise the matter with the Prime Minister of Japan.
Through these engagements we were able to strengthen relations also with Japanese Business Community. This is important as Japan is South Africa's fifth largest trading partner and one of the largest sources of foreign direct investment into South Africa. We have got hundreds of Japanese companies invested here. They use South Africa also as a gateway into the rest of the continent.
The African Union Summit in Niger in July 2019 launched the operational phase of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and directed that the outstanding work on tariff schedules, rules of origin and commitments on trade in services be submitted to their next Session in February 2020 for adoption. The decisions of the summit are significant for the South African economy since the African Continental Free Trade Area promises great opportunities for trade with other countries on the continent, broadening our manufacturing based and boosting employment in our own country.
The SADC Summit which happened in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania gave impetus to the implementation of the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap and adopted the
Regional Mining Vision and Action Plan. Together, these programmes aim to increase co-operation among countries in Southern Africa on building regional value chains and enable countries to expand their manufacturing base and diversify their exports.
The Tokyo International Conference on Africa's Development, Ticad, which was held in Japan in August, resulted in a commitment from Japan to contribute to economic transformation in Africa and improve the business environment through innovation and private sector engagement. The Government of Japan undertook to bolster diversification and industrialisation, support Japanese investment in Africa, and offer support to the development of regional agricultural capability.
The first Russia-Africa Summit, which was held in Sochi last week, focused on forging economic ties between Russia and African countries, developing joint projects, and collaborating in the humanitarian and social sectors. In addition to the discussion between government leaders, there were also productive engagements between Russian and South African businesses. We have a number of
businesses that are invested in Russia which you might know about.
All these processes have helped to increase co-operation in areas such as mining, information and communication technology and oil extraction. While these international summits do not directly create jobs, they can contribute to an improved environment for investment, trade and co- operation. They provide a platform for the South African government and business to promote the investment opportunities in the country, to explore new markets and to forge strategic partnerships.
It was at this conference that we were able to invite a number of Russian businesses to come and attend our investment conference next week. Some of them will be coming and they also provide an opportunity to advance South Africa's position on a range of issues, like the reform of the multilateral institutions to international support for Africa's development.
The agreements that we reached and partnerships that were forged at these summits make an important contribution
for economic growth, development and job creation. This is where as we travel and get our companies to move with us in these visits, we inform them that they should participate meaningfully because they can move from contact with other companies to contract. In fact we have found a number of them are able to sign up a number of contracts with their counterparts and these are usually mutually beneficial. Thank you very much.
Hon Deputy Speaker, Mr President thank you for the good response and one can see the good work has been done at the summits. After Minister Mboweni made the Budget Policy speech yesterday with the strength assessment and the state-owned enterprises, SOEs and the trimming of government's wage bill and our country's increase in debt, how will this assist in building confidence in our economy?
Hon Deputy Speaker and the hon August, I see all these processes as being very beneficial. In fact all these seek to do is to get South Africa through government and its business colleagues to interact with various other colleagues in other countries
to raise key issues of garnering investments in our country. The more investments we get, is the more we get companies that can come and invest in South Africa whether they are off-shore or locally based.
As they invest they make profits and profits go to the fiscus and we are then able to address the challenges that Minister Mboweni spoke about yesterday. The more we collect the revenue is the more we are able to have enough funds to be able to support various projects and programmes that government should fund. These will include programmes in health, education as well as supporting our provinces and our local municipalities. So, I see this as being something that is really positive and should be supported because it is not fun when we go to these summits. You hardly ever had fun or any time to have fun. Actually the most part you will would rather say that I would rather stay home and not go because it is just meeting after meeting; pumping flesh after flesh to try and get people to come and invest here. You shake hands and talk about your country continuously and it is a wonderful calling which I would recommend it for anyone but I tell you, it is hard work and it is good work that
needs to be done for our beloved beautiful South Africa. Thank you very much.
Hon Deputy Speaker, Mr President, the sociological characterisation of politicians currently is being questioned in terms of their dishonesty. I would require you to be extremely honest with the answer that you are going to give us. Currently there is more than 55% of unemployment in this country and in 2018 you have launched what we call Youth Employment Service, Yes. We want to check how many thus far, does the Yes programme produced? How many employment opportunities did it produce for young people?
In the state of the nation address of 2019 you promised young people two million jobs. We want to check the progress on how far is that? How many employment opportunities have been created because we do not want to get into a situation where you promise people another millions of jobs without understanding what went wrong with the previous ones that you had promised.
Hon Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I am rising on Rule 142 which clearly states that a question must relate to the original question or response of the President. It is not like. The very same question is of statistical nature and I do not think the President can have numbers with him. [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: The hon member obviously has comprehension problems because a question has to do with summits and the promises of jobs are related to these summits. So, I do not know which Parliament he is part of and which Question Paper is he reading, number one. Number two, if he has to stand and defend his own President for answering questions and giving details about his own promises, then we are in real trouble.
The President must answer. If he does not know he must say so. Then we will know that he is not a useful President. [Interjections.]
You see hon Ndlozi, I do not know how you now put the President into this. You should have
stated out of what the President is going to say yes or no and hear him do so. [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, I am able to answer the question. The Youth Employment Service - let me start out by saying that everybody agrees that youth unemployment is a major challenge and it is to this end that we have set up an office in the Presidency to address the issue of youth unemployment. You referred to the Youth Employment Service, Yes. When the Yes programme started, I would be honest with you, we thought that we would have galloped much further than where we are. We thought that by the first year we would have had tens and tens of thousands of young people employed and given job opportunities. That has not quite honestly turned out as we thought because there have been difficulties in getting the private sector to buy into this project.
A lot more of work is now being done and it is now being mobilised much more effectively and the take up is increasing. We should have known that it would take time because what it really needs is that companies are encouraged to open up employment spaces, including public
sector companies, in their own companies where they currently employ a number of people to create spaces for young people to be employed and be brought into the world of work. Quite a number of them say we have already reached our limit and it is through encouragement that we put across to them and urge them to take more and more young people.
The last time I got the report, it was telling me that it was almost getting to 50 000 young people who have now been brought into the programme. They are looking at more young people coming in. It was hovering between 40, 45 and 50 000 and it is gathering momentum as we are moving on.
The one that we are working on in our office is going to go beyond that. We have agglomerated a number of other partners and other entities that are involved in a similar type of process. We will be able to give numbers without any doubt but the good thing about the Yes programme is that it brings in young people for a year into the world of work but we have found that almost
between 70% and 80% of those young people do finally get permanent jobs in the various companies that employ them.
These companies find that the young people are real gems and they absorb them. A number of them have been brought in and others have also been encouraged and given pathways and platforms to start their own entities and businesses. So, we are seeing a lot of benefit in this and clearly the challenge is much bigger. Everybody would like to hear that millions of young people have been brought in but it is quite difficult to create jobs. It is quite difficult for entities to create jobs and we need our economy to grow by leaps and bounds for jobs to be created. To create one job, actually it is quite expensive.
We are nudging forward; encouraging and we are also doing it through the tax incentive. There is a Youth Employment Tax Incentive process and we are finding that companies are responding to that as well. I hope that answers you and that is the honesty that I am able to give you.
Question 11 (cont):
Thank you hon Deputy Speaker, Mr President when it comes to job creation as it should flow from economic summits, small business is the key. The first step is to recognise how real jobs are created, that is, to abandon the fantasy that governments can create jobs and to look at supporting the private sector because it is small and large businesses that create jobs. The government's role is to provide enabling environments for investments and entrepreneurship. That can be stifled when we have excessive regulation in red tape. If we want that that booming small business sector and to create jobs, we have to cut that red tape as the DA is doing in the Western Cape through our red tape production programmes.
In the past Parliament we proposed a Red Tape Production Bill with those proposals to make it easy for business to run. So, Mr President, when can we start seeing the governments move on red tape reduction? Can we count on your support on such a Bill within the coming year in this House to slash that red tape and enable job creation? [Applause.]
Point of order, point of order. Deputy Speaker, the new leader of the DA asked this question as a follow up earlier on that: Will the President support the Minister of Finance to remove the red tape? There are hon members with new questions. Can we maximise the time of these... [Inaudible.] This question has already been answered in this session. It looks like the new DA does not have creativity now. [Laughter.]
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC: Hon Deputy Speaker, the answer to that is yes. We want and continue to want to remove the red tape. This was raised very prominently with us by the business sector. We then asked them to specify the areas where red tape still existed and they have. In these meetings that I was talking to you about, the first Monday of every month at the National Economic Development and Labour Council, Nedlac, is precisely what we are also doing.
We are looking more specifically at areas where there is red tape. I sighted the water licensing one, I cited a number of others and we were able to bring in those people who run the water permitting process and they
explained the process and we said we want them to reduce the timeline that it takes to get a water licence. This happened when I told them that I waited for three years to get a water permit for water that rose on my farm. I asked as to why I had to wait for three years but they could not give me an answer. Therefore, we want to reduce that, it is a number of other processes.
On supporting, I would say you should really actively engage with the Minister of trade and industry. Minister Patel is the one who is seized with all these matters that have to do with red tape. I will ask him to invite you for coffee or whatever else you drink. He will be able to invite for that, so that you can have a discussion to see how well the proposals that you want to put forward are really synchronised with what they are doing. Thank you very much.
Hon Deputy Speaker, Mr President I note your initiatives to grow the economy and create jobs, particularly the summits and investments conferences that you have gone to. None of these initiatives have created jobs as unemployment keeps on rising. Also, there is a
looming Fourth Industrial Revolution whereby jobs, particularly for the entry level might be lost.
Earlier you spoke about the issue with our economy, that it is the way in which it is structured. The question is: What fundamental transformation to the economy are you going to embark on in order to improve the material conditions of the people? In other words, can you please define what you mean by the restructuring of the economy? Thank you.
Hon Deputy Speaker, let me start off by saying that, it simply is not true, repeat, it simply is not true that some of the outcomes of the summits that we hold do not result in jobs being created. It is not true. I think we need to deal with that. Maybe it is possible that people hardly ever notice what is done in this country, how it is done. Maybe they never see the news that go around. Everybody agrees that unemployment is high and we've got to reduce it.
When I started my input I said, one of the things that is happening here is that, as we create jobs we are finding
that the net effect of it is being diluted by more and younger people who get into the job market. It does not mean that jobs are not being created. Jobs are being created. I give you one or two examples. Last year we held the Investment Summit, R300 billion was committed for investment. Let me give you one simple example, there was an investment commitment by a young man who comes from Uganda who makes cell phones like your smart phones, real beautiful slim line smart phones. When I met him at the investment conference I said to him, I want you to come and invest in South Africa. He said, Mr President, we will come and build a factory in South Africa.
Indeed they have come; they have built a factory and invested hundreds of millions of rand. A week or so ago, I went to open the factory. They have employed 200 young people, 70% of them are women and 94% of them are newly trained young people. That is the job value that you get out of the summit. A number of other companies like Toyota have expanded their own processing and have employed more people. Mercedes Benz made a commitment and they have employed more people. It is a fallacy to say that all these efforts are not yielding anything. It is
not true and I do not think that we should propagate untruths in this Parliament.
What are we doing about restructuring the economy? Hon Deputy Speaker, it is possible that even the laws that are passed here, probably their full impact is not noticed by even the Members of this very Parliament. If a Member of Parliament will say, what is it that you are doing in restructuring the economy and they are not aware themselves of the laws that they pass; then I do not know what we are talking about.
That member should have known that when they amended the Competition Act, that Competition Act was meant to help in restructuring the economy. When that member passed a number of other transformative acts that impact on the economy of our country, they should have known that, that is precisely what we are doing. We are in the process of restructuring this economy. We inherited an apartheid and a colonial economy. We are restructuring it, repositioning it to be a transformed economy.
The economy that we inherited was deformed. It locked out the majority of black people out of the economy. You cannot tell me that since 1994 we have not been making efforts to transform this economy, because if that is the case, then I think somebody has been sleeping through this whole process. Thank you very much.
Question 12:
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC: Hon Deputy Speaker, three months ago South Africa submitted its first voluntary review on the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations.
Now, the aspirations of the sustainable development goals, Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, compliment those of the National Development Plan especially the over arching objective of eradicating poverty and inequality.
The report highlights progress in a number of fields covering things like literacy and child mortality to access to basic services, climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The report also notes that South Africa is one of the most unequal societies, not only in the world but on earth. As the unemployment statistics released this week show, we will continue to bear the brunt of the historical distortions of our labour market and our economy for a very long time to come.
Our task is to implement measures that stimulate and grow the economy of our country and create jobs. But, at the same time to address and overcome the root causes of inequality. Now, attracting domestic at international private capital into our economy leads to more job opportunities that can be created.
Over the past 18 months, we've been on a concerted drive to implement policy and regulatory reforms that will make it easier but much more importantly cheaper to do business in South Africa and to undertake other measures to stimulate growth. Next week as I said earlier, we will hold the second investment conference as part of our drive to attract R1,2 trillion over five years.
Last year we were able to raise in commitments to investments and some of those are coming through, we were able to raise R300 billion of investments into our economy. We will be showcasing investment opportunities at this conference in a diverse range of sectors including infrastructure as I say all the time that infrastructure is the fly wheel of economic growth.
We will also be show casing opportunities in our mining sector because we see mining as a sun rise sector in South Africa. The oceans economy beckons the economy in our seas is calling us to come and invest but we will also be showing the opportunities in renewable energy. The whole word is now booming with renewable energy projects. Finance institutions and banks are all rushing to finance some of these projects. We've got the sun, the wind and many other elements that are freely given to us by providence that we must utilise and this gives rise to opportunities that we should utilise to generate growth in our economy.
Now, the commitments made at last year's conference have already translated into projects that have created jobs.
I was citing one earlier, through the jobs summit framework agreement, we have committed resources to support rural and township economies; to stimulate entrepreneurship and encourage innovation.
Funding has been set aside for the establishment of a township and rural entrepreneurship fund that will enable small businesses easy access to markets, financing, business support and other services. Now, this is part of Minister Nchabeni's plans to ensure that the small business sector becomes revitalised.
We are revitalising industrial parks around the country and expanding the special economic zones. Among the industrial parks that have been prioritized include Botshabelo, Phuthaditjhaba, Garankuwa, Isithebe, Komani, and Seshego. Those are some of the projects that we are focusing on. Dimbaza is one other area and we are now injecting more revitalisation in those.
Land and agrarian reform and are key to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Access to land enables our people to farm for themselves and to do so commercially.
And, to have a place to live and have an asset as I was saying earlier that can be used as collateral for business and other loans. We are implementing a range of measures to support commercial, small scale as well as subsistence farmers.
This is essential to fighting poverty in rural households. If we are to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality, we must also address youth unemployment as I was saying. We have set up a project management office in the Presidency, to develop an integrated comprehensive employment strategy. This office will coordinate various other initiatives that I've already spoken about to address youth unemployment both within and beyond government and make all these initiatives work together in an integrated manner
Now, the expanded works program has been a major source of economic opportunities for many of our people and especially young people and women in the process of imparting the job skills that are so needed and re- training.
We also have to reform our education system to make it much more responsive to the requirements of the economy. This includes the work to introduce technical subjects in more of our schools and the conversion of traditional high schools into technical high schools.
Now, this is I saw for myself just last week in the Free State, where we were exposed to young people who are being offered technical subjects at schools. At grade 9, 11 and 12 they are now beginning to become boiler makers, they are learning boiler making which is now going to enhance their own capabilities. This for me was the greatest joy to interact with young people as you ask them what do you want to be when you grow up, and to hear them not say I want to do Human Resource, HR, I want to do just a Bachelor of Arts, BA, they are now saying I want to become a boiler maker, welder, aero space, an engineer or a pilot. This is now unleashing the mental energy of our young people who are now looking at great opportunities that are now being ignited by the technical education that they are getting at grade 9, 10 and 11.
So, this we must be grateful for because this represents a silent revolution that is spreading amongst the various educational facilities or schools that we have at that young age. They no longer have to wait to pass matric to go into college and universities to learn about boiler making. They are now learning it as they go on and it will be crowned by the artisan training that they will get once they go to artisan school.
Now, to overcome the unemployment crisis, to end poverty and reduce inequality requires a concerted effort by all of us, all social partners including government, labour, business, civil society as well as this Parliament. So, we all have our job cut out for us and I hope that we will take this up very seriously and commit to what we need to do in a way of our debates, the suggestions that we make, the laws that we pass and interventions that we make on an ongoing basis. All hands must be on deck to address the job challenge that our country faces. Thank you hon Deputy Speaker.
MR M GUNGUBELE: Mr President, one must appreciate the fact that they've gone a long way to articulate and
account to this country on your activities taking this country forward but however, you've articulated what appears to be good work in progress, taking into account that the SDGs are globally dictated kind of imperatives point of human development and there are also dependents that are outside this country within the environment where South Africa is trading.
It would be useful to hear the president sharing with the country with regard to what will be the significant role of SADC and probably the point where 2063 vision of the continent that will actually send a message that we are aware of the dependencies and the sustainability of these goals once they take off from within the country?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC: Hon Deputy Speaker, I
think one most wonderful thing about the Sustainable Development Goals is that they are a mirror, a mirror against which every country needs to look at itself. But to go even beyond just seeing that as a mirror there's a call to action, a call to address the needs of the people of our country and these are universal needs.
The goals that are set out in the SDGs are so over arching and transversal and they affect the lives of people all over the world. We have appropriated them in SADC and Agenda 2063 of the African Union has also appropriated those and when you look at Agenda 2063, it is a real sort of a mirror image of what the SDGs are about.
We must see them as a real call to action and for us they are a guide but more than that they are also an evaluation mechanism to evaluate ourselves in terms of what we are doing to address the needs of ordinary people.
This is what we have to do and it is good that they have put out. It is almost like the universal declaration of human rights which even in liberation movements looked at fared from to inform how the struggle should be prosecuted. For us, the freedom chatter was that mirror and call to arms and to action that we also utilise. So, along the way have been very fortunate to have all these instruments and now in our cases it's also the National Development Plan, NDP, that is a call to action in terms
of what we need to do but the SDGs which we voluntarily decided as a country that we are going to report on. Reporting on them also showed up where we may be weak, where we may have short comings but we had the strength of courage to say we must report because it is the country reporting to the world but more importantly reporting to its own citizens about the progress or lack thereof that we are making.
In a number of areas we are making tremendous progress. But, it is when we see ourselves against the back drop of what other countries are doing that we are then able to quicken our step as we see how other countries are implementing the SDGs so that we are not left behind because those SDGs are meant to leave no one behind and this what we have committed ourselves to ensure that our people as a whole do indeed have an improved life as we implement these SDGs. Thank you very much Deputy Speaker.
THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Mr President, I'm very glad that you mentioned land and agrarian reform as one of the measures to meet these challenges because we believe that South Africans must own land in their own right and that
includes agricultural land. But, while you're busy with the populist hearing of the constitutional amendment, there's plenty that your government could be doing immediately without recklessly attacking property rights.
You could start by reversing the land reform program that you introduced in 2011 called Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy, PLAS. Under the previous called Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development, LRAD, lease agreements with the state had an automatic built in offer to purchase after five years. But, since 2011 this has been removed and that's why a black emerging farmer like David Rakgase had to take you to court with the help of the DA to compel you to sell his own land to him.
So, Mr President, here's a suggestion for you today, if you are serious about land reform and about freeing black farmers from the permanent sifter that they under, isn't time that you put a tiger in your tank and committed to reversing this unjust policy and give them chance to own and buy the state owned land?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC: Hon Steenhuisen, I'll be very clear and direct with you and fair and say yes, a variety of interventions we should make on land reform should include precisely the point you are making. Thank you very much.
Question 12 (Cont):
Hon Deputy Speaker and hon Deputy President.
Afrikaans:
Eerbare President. Agbare President. Ek glo dis agbare en eerbare.
English:
Sustainability is an integration of the three concepts of social, economic and the environmental issues. In your exposition you gave a lot of attention to economic and socio issues, but not to the environment which I do not find surprising if I look around me, because we nearly literally drown in waste in South Africa while waste is actually a concept which should be abolished because every waste stream is actually a resource stream.
I specifically want to refer to a Karoo town in the Northern Cape where they predominantly make use in new sewerage plants of evaporation dams, rather than finding some way of which many are extremely labour intensive to reuse that water and to use the resources logged up in the sewerage stream.
I would like to know from the President if it's part of the plan of the sustainability to recover our environment in a labour intensive way? Thank you, Mr President.
Hon Deputy Speaker, the answer is yes. If you were to spend time with Minister Creecy, she will tell you that part of the plans they have in the department or the Ministry she runs, the Department of Environmental, Forestry and Fisheries, is precisely that. To make sure that firstly, we look after our environment and this we are bound to do. We have no choice because with the challenges of climate change we are duty bound, historically bound and futuristically bound to look after our environment in more ways than one.
We have been found to be one of the biggest polluters particularly on our continent. We have to address climate change challenges and carbon emissions much more seriously. We have a very clear programme and plan for that.
However, on issues like addressing wastage, the department or the Ministry have a huge programme to do precisely that. So, the answer is definitely yes, we want to do it and we see it. We see the economic derivative out of the environment, because the waste treatment for instance is a subset of an industrial sector on its own which needs to be mined properly, which needs to be properly exploited and it can be a great job creator. In fact, it is a great job creator.
So, from that point of view we are looking very closely at it. We are coming up with programmes and interventions that are going to address that because the whole process of job creation is just really overriding. It cuts across everything that we and we are also focusing on this.
The other important benefit is that we have a number of women who participate in that subset of the economy. So, the answer is yes, we see environment as a huge job creation process that we need to embark upon.
So, have time to have tea with Minister Creecy. Thank you very much. [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Speaker and Mr President, the goals as listed require a long-term strategic commitment from government to grow the economy and provide sustainable jobs for people.
Your Minister of Finance was quoted yesterday saying that the country spends more than we earn, which alludes to the point about the country being unable to directly finance the realisation of these goals, but rather requires a flourishing economy to realise such goals.
Now, putting aside short-term employment, I would like to know from you: What programmes the Presidency has or will be putting in place to permanently locate industry in order to address each of the listed sustainable goals and
whether you think that South Africa will meet the 2030 Agenda? Thank you.
Hon Deputy Speaker, our aim is to meet the 2030 Agenda from our own purposes with the National Development Plan, NDP. On a number of areas we are behind, we accept that on job creation, we are behind. On an overall basis, we do want to meet those goals. We have to keep trying. We are going to make every effort to meet those goals.
Of course we are making a lot of effort as much as the Minister of Finance did say that we are spending much more than we can afford or much more income than we have. We want to redress that. We want to turn that around as well. He laid out clear interventions that we need to embark upon. Interventions that can lead us there without at the moment getting us into heavy austerity measures, we think we are gently wishing to turn this ship around from the precipice. I believe that the interventions that he put in place and the interventions that we are going to continue taking are such that they will ensure that we
do not go into that precipice. Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker. [Applause.]
Hon members that concludes questions to the President. Before you rise please hold on.
There are two ... Mr President. Alright. There are two members of staff who I thought I cannot inform you that they have requested early retirement. Now, they joint Parliament at a very significant period of our country. One of them is Sandy Williams. She worked here for 27 years and the other is Shumiera Davids who worked here for 26 years. They were both working in the members facilities. This is why I thought I should ask you to give them a round of applause and wish them well. [Applause.]
Unfortunately, I did not ask them to come over here. They had a party with staff where they were and this is what they had fun for. We will communicate on your behalf, hon members. Thank you very much. That concludes the business of the day. This House is adjourned.
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