Deputy Speaker, hon Mantashe, yes, we have as part of implementation of the NDP adopted a process through which we want and assess, evaluate and look at the progress that we are making. And fortunately we have got the statistician-general and his office who are doggedly looking at the data and not only the data but our performance, how we are moving the needle to achieve some objectives we have set ourselves up for particularly in relation to meeting the needs of our people which as we do ultimately does have an impact on poverty and ultimately should have an impact on reducing inequality in our country.
For the past 25 years, we have made tremendous progress and if you look at the statistics; we rose in terms of reducing poverty and inequality and we reached a stage where we began to slide down. We became acutely aware of this and this is precisely what we are addressing but we are addressing this in a situation of great economic challenge as alluded to right at the beginning and even during this challenge we are able and we will continue to make sure we do not regress in as far as meeting the basic needs of our people particularly in relation to efforts we are going to make in job creation, in education and in health and also, as I said earlier, in infrastructure build because part of the infrastructure build has an impact on social infrastructure and that too will have a direct impact or a derivative that will reduce poverty as well as have an impact on reducing inequality. So, all the efforts we are making that we are making we want to be efforts that are measurable, efforts that the statistician-general measure in a very direct way.
So, yes we are on course of building this national democratic society that you have alluded to and this we
want to do with all the programmes and the measures and interventions that we embark upon. We are on course the way of improving the lives of our people notwithstanding the economic challenges that we face right now. Thank you, Deputy Speaker. [Applause.]