Hon Chairperson, hon Minister of Labour, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers here present, hon members, guests and friends, one of the major challenges facing South Africa is the high unemployment rate, which is somewhere around 25%. This challenge is not just a government challenge, but everyone's challenge. We as South Africans we must make every effort to reduce the unemployment rate.
One of the reasons for such a high unemployment rate is that small and medium-sized companies are not being as productive as they could be and, as a result, they either go under or they retrench workers in order to survive.
The ANC government has established an entity whose mandate it is to assist small and medium-sized companies to become more productive. Productivity SA is that entity. This organisation engages with companies and assists them with expertise and understanding of what it takes to become a more productive company in today's business environment.
It is through the work of Productivity SA that countless jobs have been saved. During the 2010-11 financial year, the Turnaround Solutions programme successfully managed to salvage 16 000 jobs nationwide. The Turnaround Solutions programme has intervened in a host of sectors, including agriculture, civils and construction, manufacturing, and clothing and textiles. This is very important for South Africa. Saving jobs is of the utmost importance in today's economic environment.
This government needs to invest more resources in Productivity SA, whose aim is to improve the productive capacity of the economy through interventions that encourage social dialogue and collaboration between government, labour and business. The entity's total budget for 2012-13 is R116 million. Surely more money needs to be invested in this vital entity.
Chairperson, let's look at the impact of social dialogue on our country. Let us all go back in time and think about what would have happened if there had been no social dialogue in South Africa between 1990 and now. What would have happened if the then newly unbanned political structures, such as the African National Congress, ANC, the South African Communist Party, SACP, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Cosatu, had isolated themselves and not engaged with the then sitting government - of which the DA was a member - and with organised business? Where would South Africa be today if a culture of nonengagement had solidified back then? Thankfully, Chairperson, that was not the case. Engagement and social dialogue were the order of the day then, and they are the order of the day now.
The ANC government, under the presidency of Nelson Mandela, established the National Economic Development and Labour Council, Nedlac, which requires organised labour, organised business, community-based organisations and government to work as a collective to promote the goals of economic growth and social and economic equity through the processes of social dialogue. The important concept here, Chairperson, is that Nedlac requires organised business, organised labour, community-based organisations and government to engage with one another. One of the very first Acts that the democratic government passed was the National Economic Development and Labour Council Act, Act 35 of 1994. It is a legal requirement that social dialogue must take place.
The Nedlac Founding Declaration states, and I quote:
The National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) is the vehicle by which government, labour, business and community organisations will seek to co-operate, through problem-solving and negotiation, on economic, labour and development issues, and related challenges facing the country.
Nedlac will conduct its work in four broad areas, covering:
1. Public finance and monetary policy.
2. Labour market policy.
3. Trade and industrial policy.
4. Development policy.
These four broad areas exist in Nedlac as the Public Finance and Monetary Policy Chamber, the Labour Market Chamber, the Trade and Industrial Chamber, and the Development Chamber.
It is the capacity to engage in social dialogue that gives South Africa a moral authority greater than anywhere else in the world. However, in recent years an apathy in the role-players towards this social dialogue has emerged. Parliament will not stand for this.
We expect organised labour, organised business, community-based organisations and government to deploy mandated decision-makers to Nedlac, whose rank is not less than deputy director-general or its equivalent with regard to other role-players. Parliament will not sit idly by while Nedlac roleplayers deploy junior officials with no mandate and no decision-making powers to what can only be described as high-level negotiations. This type of apathy will lead to organised labour, organised business, community- based organisations and government's engaging each other on the streets of South Africa!
The mandate to decision-makers who will be deployed to Nedlac from today must ensure that the rules of engagement are clear and accepted by all role- players. They must ensure that Nedlac agreements translate into legislation that respects the letter and the intent of those agreements. This government needs to prioritise Nedlac by increasing its research capacity, vamping up the capacity of the existing staff and recruiting professional expert facilitators. Nedlac is the structure that ensures continued political stability in South Africa through ongoing and meaningful social dialogue.
Chairperson, I stand here delivering this speech during Workers' Month, and I must make mention of South Africa's vulnerable workers in general and farm workers in particular. South African farm workers are living in terrible conditions, and they are among the lowest paid workers in South Africa.
Most successful, profitable companies around the world consider their workers as assets. They consider their workers an important part of the company family. Sadly, when it comes to farm workers here in South Africa, this is not the case. Farm workers are considered liabilities, mouths to feed and bodies to house. It is time for the farming community and the South African people to realise that the people that plough the land, plant the seeds and harvest the food that we eat are assets, not only assets to the farms where they work, but also assets to this country. [Interjections.]
We in South Africa can no longer afford to ignore the conditions that farm workers live in; we can no longer do nothing about this shocking situation. It is time for this government to deal decisively with farmers that exploit and abuse the people that fundamentally produce the food. [Interjections.] As a collective, we in South Africa need to work together, using the processes of social dialogue to identify ...[Interjections.]