Deputy Speaker, hon President and hon Deputy President, hon Premiers, hon members, comrades and friends, and representatives of all host cities who are here today, I greet you.
Motlatsamotsamaisi wa dipuisano ya hlomphehang, batho ba rona ba nkopile hore ke fane ka molaetsa ona, letsatsing lena la ho tla keteka mosebetsi ona o matla o entsweng ka hara naha. Motsamaisi wa mosebetsi, batho ba rona ba re ke re ho Moporesidente: Le sebeditse jwaloka bana ba thari e ntsho, bana ba ho peptjwa ka letlalo la tshepe hore ba tle ba tshepahale. Moporesidente, ba re ha Ntate Mandela a ne a nehelana ka lesokwane lena, a le fa Ntate Mbeki, Ntate Mbeki ha a ka a hana ka lona kapa ho le diha. O ile a le nehela Ntate Motlanthe. Ha Ntate Motlanthe a le tlohela, o ile a le fetisetsa ho wena Moporesidente, Ntate Zuma.
Ena ke ketso e makatsang ka lebaka la hobane hangata ditabeng tse jwalo, monna e mong o diha lesokwana ka boomo e le hobane a le mona, kapa bao a mathang lebelo le bona ba a mo diha e le ho mo sitisa hore ba tle ba kgone ho hlola lebelo leo. Mosebetsi o kang oo, ke mosebetsi o ka etswang ke rona ANC hore re tle re kgone hore re neheletsane ka mosebetsi ona o kgabane hakana. Re se ke ra ba le pelo tse telele hore o batle ho qeta lebelo o le mong. Neheletsa ba bang re tle re tsebe ho qeta lebelo mmoho. (Translation of Sesotho paragraphs follows.)
[Hon Deputy Speaker, our people have requested me to convey this message on this day when we celebrate the great job that has been done in the country. Hon Deputy Speaker, our people asked me to say to the President: You have done a wonderful job, just like South Africans of African descent, whose mothers used to carry them on their backs with the skin of a springbok. Hon President, they say that when hon Mandela passed on his baton of presidency to hon Mbeki, the hon Mbeki did not hold onto it for too long. He passed it on to hon Motlanthe. When hon Motlanthe left the presidency, he passed it onto you, hon President Zuma.
This is an amazing act, because in most cases a person would hold onto the position for a long time as a result of jealousy, or those who were competing with him would try to bring him down, so that they could assume the position. This is why we as the ANC do things in such a way that we are able to pass the baton on to others. Let us not be greedy or wish to be the only ones who finish the race. Pass the baton on to others so that we can finish the race together.]
I want to say to hon Lee that for the first time in the history of Fifa and of South Africa, Fifa had to accept that there would be Acts to regulate how Fifa was going to conduct business with our people. There are two such pieces of legislation, which are the 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa Special Measures Act and the Second 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa Special Measures Act, which we passed, together with Donald Lee. We were not afraid of Fifa; Fifa has never dictated to us. What we had was a mutual agreement and we wanted our people on the ground to be able to say that we had had a grand occasion where all of us benefited. I think it is pleasing for our country to have taken that bold step and taken care of our people.
On the issue that Cope has raised around Dr Sutcliffe and the president of rugby, Mr Oregan Hoskins, what I can say is that the two gentlemen have big egos, because theirs is not a national matter. It is a provincial matter to do with KwaZulu-Natal where the two have to meet and discuss how they are going to use the facility that our government said should be a facility for every federation in the country. That is how it is supposed to be. They should not come here and make that a national issue, as if there is a crisis around the stadium. There is harmony and agreement.
There are people who came to us and said that they had asked them how they intended to use the stadium so that it could be sustainable after the World Cup and 60 years from now. They presented a plan and told us that the Development Bank of Southern Africa was going to come up with a detailed plan which Parliament was going to oversee in making sure these stadiums became a lasting legacy for our people. There is no earthquake; I don't know where this comes from.
Members must go to the committee and engage on these issues vigorously. The ANC is open to engaging about these assets. The ANC says that in our resolutions we must make sure that the assets and the investment beyond the 2010 Fifa World Cup are something that the ANC guards and that our people will benefit from for ever and ever, amen. [Applause.]
Hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup has helped elevate all Africans to their rightful place. Given a fair chance, these are the fruits of building a democratic government. This is what we requested all the time, saying, "Give us a fair chance." After we were given a fair chance, this is what we delivered to the world and today we tower in the world. After the delivery of a successful 2010 Fifa World Cup, no one will ever again have the courage to argue that Africa is hopeless, because Africa has lived up to its undertaking of hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
This has been an incredible, exciting and painful journey of 16 years. Hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup required revolutionary technological advances. It required high-speed communication, a new organisational model, leadership, and a participatory environment due to the nature and complexity of the project that the country had to deal with.
The journey started in 1994, when we set ourselves targets. We said that we had to build the nation through the 2010 Fifa World Cup. The President and everybody - nobody has had a different view - have said that we have built the nation through this. We have built a nonracial society, and the country that all our forbears aspired to see - a South Africa that has no colour. That is one of the objectives that we set ourselves.
Increase tourism in this country is what we have done. The 3,18 million fans who arrived in this country were not simply lost - they came to this country deliberately in order to be a part of the celebration of the big moment that South Africa was given by the nations of the world.
The gentleman from the DA said that branding South Africa means a South Africa that is safe and a South Africa that attracts investments, and we have lived up to that expectation. South Africa has been free and is free after the World Cup, and everybody is ready to come and invest in South Africa today. That was one of the targets that we set ourselves.
With regard to building infrastructure, when we were debating here we said - hon Donald Lee knows this and, in fact, he himself said it - that after the 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa would never be the same again. South Africa is not the same today, because of the dividends that have been yielded by the hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup for the people of this country. Infrastructure and roads - everything is up to standard. [Applause.]
We said the delivery of major events in our country would help to build the kind of South Africa that we wanted to see - nonracial, nonsexist and democratic, Africans united in their diversity. We created unity by bringing the people together and engaging them in a project that all would feel part of, and that is what has happened.
Even though Kimberley was not a host city, through the SABC programme Morning Live it became part of this grand occasion and celebrated. Everybody in the world saw that the World Cup also touched the cities that were not host cities. That is what we have done.
We wanted to draw tourists into this country and thus far we have drawn in 10 million tourists, which was our target for 2010. Our target for 2015 is 15 million tourists. We are going to reach that target against the odds. We wanted to show that South Africa was well placed for investments, trade and business, as well as a growing economy with great job opportunities.
We wanted to build infrastructure to generate investment. We had strict deadlines that we had to meet, and our people who were in construction understood that we had a project to complete. It was not because Fifa dictated, but because we had a time frame and had promised the world that we would be able to meet the targets.
One of the things that happened in this country, which has never happened before in the history of the Fifa World Cup, is what happened at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Twelve months before the World Cup that stadium was complete, despite the fact that people from Iraq said that the roof was going to fall into the sea, and that it was likely that it was not going to be completed in time. They completed the stadium a year before the 2010 Fifa World Cup! It was a record, and when the inspection was done for the last time, they said that the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was ready. Unfortunately, it could not get the Africa Cup of Nations.
Hon Deputy Speaker and hon President, the world has been shown that being an African and being world-class are synonymous. You can't be an African and not be world-class, because the two go together, and that is what we are to the world today. [Applause.]
During the 2010 Fifa World Cup, we received 12 million Internet visitors per minute. We had more than 16 000 broadcasters, journalists and photographers.
One hundred days before the 2010 Fifa World Cup, we toured the length and breadth of this country with 300 international journalists. South Africa would come to a stadium and say: "Go into the stadium and see what you wanted to know."
The climax was in Durban when we met with the Deputy President. On the day of that historic conference one of the African journalists asked the Deputy President whether what had been happening to South Africa - its being under such heavy media scrutiny - was going to happen to other countries that were going to host World Cups subsequent to 2010.
Jrme Valcke and Sepp Blatter responded by saying that South Africa had set a precedent. They further said that it would not be fair to subject South Africa to such heavy scrutiny and pressure to open its doors - something which South Africa complied with - and not apply the same to other countries. What could have been wrong with South Africa and right with other countries? So, that is going to be the pattern throughout the world. One hundred days before any Fifa World Cup journalists will be called in to see how ready the host country is. We were ready, and nobody had a doubt. Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly adjourned the Joint Sitting at 16:59.