Chairperson, I would like to start by wishing the Minister and his Deputy well. The Minister has seemingly embraced President Zuma's willingness to engage with the opposition, and we thank him for that. And the Deputy, as we all know, has a long history of engaging with and listening to people, and hopefully taking what they have to say on board, so we look forward to a good relationship with the two. Maybe we should all meet in the "love park" and make things even better than they have been in the past.
Chair, I would like to concentrate on the department's new mandate. I do want to say that it is very good to see the enthusiasm that the Ministry has for its new task, but it is a lot easier said than done. Quite frankly, Chair, there is a lot on their plate. All we are really talking about now, at this moment, is a new political vision, because until we see concrete programmes, staffing commensurate with that, and actual action, it is just words. I think some action will come, but will it be enough? That is the issue.
Chair, there are just three things I'd like to raise in the two minutes I have. First is the role of government at a sort of functional level. Transversal functions are always very difficult, from the government's perspective, and the mandate is really huge. It is all very well, as the department is doing, to describe itself as "a cog in the wheel of government" - that is their description; of course, we are also a conductor - but it is quite another to see this translated into concrete outcomes.
They are responsible for - and I list what they say they are going to do: co-ordinating development planning, funding, implementation and monitoring across all three spheres of government and with civil society. This is a huge task, Chair, and it is not a simple line-function exercise. It is going to take a lot of skill ...