Thank you hon Speaker. Let me address two issues; the first issue being this issue that is being repeated by hon Ndlozi, having being raised by the hon Malema which I responded to. In my response I said that the issue of prescribed assets has been raised on a number of occasions in our country. As I responded, I even interposed the key role-players which are labour, particularly in relation to utilising their own pension funds and labour in our country is well disposed towards the utilisation of their assets or their pensions to generate investments.
I happen to know that the Congress of SA Trade Unions, Cosatu's, view on this issue is in line with precisely what the hon Ndlozi has said. The discussion needs to ensue. We are saying that the discussion needs to ensue in our country and we need to discuss this matter with a view of asking what is it that we can do to utilise the various resources in our country to generate growth in a purposeful manner. Right now as we speak, the one reservoir of public servants' pension funds is in the Public Investment Corporation, PIC - the Government Employees Pension Fund and the portion of that money is used for developmental purpose in a number of cases that has worked extremely well.
We now need to have this discussion with the pension fund industry and the insurance fund industry in our country - we should have a broad and wholesome discussion. I would encourage all those who have views to come forward with their views. We are faced with a situation where our financial resources have been depleted and we are facing a situation where our developmental needs are enormous. In a number of other places, pension funds funding is utilised for developmental purposes and
for infrastructure and quite often, those pension funds make good returns out of infrastructure developments.
So, I am saying now that let us have that discussion; let it be a national discussion and thereafter as a nation we would arrive at a conclusion that there is efficacy in utilising resources to whatever extent to ensure that we enhance development.
Hon Ndlozi, with regard to the NDP issue, the NDP targets are out of sync; we are way behind the targets that were set by the NDP. I would not say that the NDP has dramatically failed. There are quite a number of things that we are doing now as a nation which are inspired and which are based on what we adopted in relation to the National Development Plan. It is for that reason that when I spoke here I said that the National Development Plan remains the loadstar in terms of a vision for our country and of course hon Ndlozi, I would welcome any opportunity where we can sit and discuss what we then can do.
You posed the question and I can say that the state must be at the centre - at the centre of development in our country. That
is what we have been saying and much of what we have been doing. Precisely what we are doing now is to ensure that the state play a leading role as the regulator. It also needs to play a role in some cases as the investor and we need to be a smart state - a state that is entrepreneurial; a state that will take risks and where the private sector is not able to take risks, the state should be able to take risks.
So, I don't see much of a difference between what you are saying and what we are seeking to do. What we need to do is to choose sectors - sectors where we can play, and this has been done all over the world. You look even at what we would call the most capitalist country in the world - the United States. It is the United States government that led the way in the creation of Silicon Valley. It is the United States government, through its military that led the way to the creation of the internet and the state, does need to play an entrepreneurial role and a leading role and cede certain industries or sectors that need to come up. A good example is precisely what has happened in a number of countries, China is one and a number of countries in South East Asia have done precisely that.
So, we are not completely in different terms on this matter. We see ourselves as becoming more and more of an entrepreneurial state; a state that will take risks; a state that will work with private sector and lead the private sector to invest more and more money. We see symbiotic relationship between what we do as a government as well as what the private sector can do. Thank you, hon Speaker. [Applause.]
Question 2: