Hon Deputy Chair, hon Minister, hon Members of the NCOP and the honoured, guests allow me to bring you warm and heartfelt greetings from the people of the Eastern Cape, ikhaya lesithwalandwe [home of legends] Raymond Mhlaba, Vusiyile Mini, Robert Resha who together with Isithwalandwe Harry Gwala, we are celebrating their centenary year as they would have turned 100 years, this year, if they were still alive. We pay tribute to them for recognising the sacrifices they made, fighting for the total liberation of our people.
We owe it them and many other struggle icons to intensify the second more radical phase of socio-economic transformation. And as such we are glad that this year has been declared as the year of unity, socio-economic, renewal and nation building.
We are here to debate transforming our economy landscape through infrastructure investment and development. We are particularly pleased that the focus of this debate is on transforming the economic landscape. This is because in many instances, the concentration becomes on other aspects such as; growing the economy, which is important but not sufficient as we had seen during our decade of economic gloom.
It is in this period where we saw that the growth alone has not effectively addressed the interrelated and interdependent challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. If anything, this period has demonstrated that growing the economy without transforming it for the benefit of all, has led to an increase in the levels of inequality in the country.
Another aspect which is much focused on was identified buy South African Communist Party, SACP document titled: Going to the root. Which explained that, redistribution is and must continue to be a key pillar of national democratic revolution but the emphasis on the redistribution has tended to neglect the critical task of transforming the systematic features of South Africa's productive economy.
We are therefore delighted to see the institution such as NCOP including the transformation of the economy in the discourse that is dominated by extreme conservatism that wants to narrowly focus on growth on one hand and on the other hand, extreme opportunities to populism that wants us to narrowly focus on redistribution.
It is for this reason that the Eastern Cape ANC-led provincial government is determined to the urgent and pressing task in the
current phase of our national democratic struggle of growing and transforming the economy to serve the people.
In a province like ours, that still is largely characterised by the apartheid bimodal structure of development an underdevelopment. We have no option than to intensify infrastructure development and investment as part of transforming our economic landscape.
We have seen that massive investment in bulk infrastructure leads to increased investment and the creation of jobs as illustrated by our small town revitalization programmes in the Eastern Cape. However, transforming the economic landscape through infrastructure investment and development is a task that we are advancing under extremely difficult conditions, not of our choosing.
We have an ailing economy that is projected to grow at 0,9% in 2020, 1,3% in 2021 and 1,6% in 2022. Sadly, however these growth estimates may be revised as a result of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease 19 and the impact it will have on the economy.
We are advancing infrastructure investment in the context of extra budget pressures that is declining public finances. Our debit levels are not projected to stabilise over the mid-term and we have a
number of spending reduction, recently announced by the Minister of Finance. These are objective realities that we all need to understand as we make various proposals in the debate.
While we acknowledge that we are operating under tough material conditions, not of our choosing, our responsibility however, is to transform them. As the Eastern Cape, the province and home of legends, we a committed to transforming these objective realities through a set of interventions we are making.
As stated in the people's plan for a better life for all, the ANC manifesto, the ANC-led government has invested more than R2 trillion in infrastructure projects over the past ten years, to build more schools, clinic, roads and the freight logistic network. Through its manifesto, the national liberation movement committed to create a publicly-led infrastructure fund, to enhance investment in the infrastructure and development.
Just months into the Sixth Administration, the President announced that the infrastructure fund implementation team has finalised the list of shovel ready projects and has begun work to expand private investment in public infrastructure sectors with revenue streams.
In addition to this, the Minister of Finance announced that through the Development Bank, Southern Africa will package blended finance mega projects of at least R200 billion and that government has committed R10 billion over the next three years.
In the Eastern Cape, we have established a provincial economic stimulus fund that is being disbursed to key sectors of the provincial economy, including but not limited to the industrialisation. As announced by the premier, the province is rolling out enabling infrastructure network to grow the economy and create jobs through the consolidated investment of R41 billion from all three spheres of government. The premier further announced that the seven catalytic projects have been approved by the budget facility for infrastructure, which will inject R1,4 billion in the provincial economy.
Indeed, siyakhawuleza [we are hurrying up]. Much still needs to be done and we are committed to do more, with the little resources we have as the province, that continues to decline in our equitable share, due to outmigration of our population to the other provinces. We need to ensure an improvement in the spending of infrastructure grants by municipalities. We must intensify the fight against corruption; reduce fiscal leakages through amongst other developing
more efficient methods of delivering services and driving development.
Those who cannot provide sufficient resources for incomplete work and shoddy work done must be placed on the national list of tender defaulters. This will ensure that we are left with genuine business that wants to contribute to the development of this country.
The task of transforming the economy requires decisiveness and boldness but that which is purely based on the interest of the people. In the state of the province address, the Premier of the Eastern Cape, hon Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane, stressed that we will not rest until we can all look at our province with proud, because we would have built the Eastern Cape we want, a province that is enterprising and connected where all citizens reach their full potential.
We are committed to achieve this goal that is also expressed in our provincial development plan. Thank you for inviting us to take part in this important debate and we hope that we can unite, as we have in-fight against the outbreak of the coronavirus to grow and transform the economy, by amongst other things investing in infrastructure and development. I thank you.