Ek is baie bly om te hoor.
English:
Yes, as part of the Jobs Summit undertakings, it has been agreed that the tax should be extended for another ten years. This tax has been found to be very beneficial. It has yielded more benefit than we actually talk about because it has been able to bring in quiet a number of young people into the job situation.
The modalities are what is now being reworked and refashioned as I know. But all that is going to come back to the Jobs Summit Presidential Committee. The Deputy President and myself decided that we are going to focus on issues of job creation and that every first Monday of the new month, we will go to the National Economic Development and Labour Council, Nedlac, bring together all those partners who were part of the Jobs Summit agreement so that we all get to hear the progress that is being made. May I say that the meeting that we had recorded a lot of progress that has been made. It is progress that I was most impressed with because we are getting all the partners now to focus on various sectors of our economy and bring in sector players to come into the meeting to outlined their own challenges and difficulties so that we find ways of addressing them without any waste of time.
One of the things that we address is the time that it takes for permits to be granted and we are now shortening all that. We got sector players to come and explain to us that the length of time that it takes to get water permits all that is far too ling and we got the water people to come and explain why it should not take shorter. We get them to make commitments, commitments that they will live up to. So, we have been having wonderful sessions following the
Jobs Summit process. This is where we all got a sense that we are beginning to move forward.
I insisted that I no longer want to hear about constraints and red tape and breakages and all that and I said, because it's usually talk, talk and talk. I said I want the specifics. If people are complaining about water licenses that take too long, we must bring the water license people to come and explain to us why it's taking long.
In a way put their feet to the fire and say why can't you cut it down, and we were very pleased to hear the water license people, for example, I am just choosing them, saying that they are now able to cut the water license application down quite considerable. Now, I have said to them, bring me what you used to do in the past and what you are going to do, I want to see what the percentage is because I literally want 70% cut in waiting time if not more.
So, we are beginning to gain traction on issues that had been causing problems. I have challenged the private sector. I have said, come forward with the issues that are causing problems. We want practical things. We just don't want newspaper headline talk. We want the things that now need to be done to turn the economy around.
I believe we are arriving at that moment when we will turn this economy around, the real economy for that matter. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Sesotho: