Hon Chairperson, let me once again say I am really quite humbled and enriched and believe I am a better person now, after having participated in these robust debates on our Budget Vote.
Listening to the contributions made by all the members from the ruling party to the opposition, I now firmly believe that working together we can do more.
To hon Nxesi through the Chair, it was due to time constraints that we could not elaborate on the items and points we wanted to share with the hon members in this august House.
One of the issues that I am very passionate about, being a former ambassador, is to work with ordinary South Africans to help them to understand and appreciate the role that international relations play in contributing not only to the core values of that which South Africa stands for, but also to the items that have been identified by the President of the ruling party as our focus areas for the development of this country.
There is no way South Africa could reach its aspirations without working with the countries of the world. By the way, Chair, South Africa is a product of international solidarity.
So we are going to go out as a department, together with our lieutenants seated here on my left, to all the provinces of South Africa to talk to South Africans and listen to what kind of international relations policy they want us to build. We will do that through izimbizo; and we think as we do that it will also help us remove this Afrophobia - not necessarily xenophobia.
While South Africans are a product of international solidarity, we are basically insular people and we always tend to look around, maybe because of the pain inflicted on us by apartheid. We tend to want to look somewhere else for the solution to our problems instead of wanting the solution together with other people. Once again, we want to take this opportunity to urge our citizens to stop these barbaric acts of xenophobia.
We will strive not to disappoint hon members, and particularly members of the portfolio committee, in systematically implementing the agreements and protocols signed by our country. In fact, of the 400 agreements signed by this department with the international community in the past 15 years, we are in the process of reviewing all those agreements and making sure that we focus on the ones that would really help us advance our cause. I really cannot agree more with the hon members who have urged our business community members that when they are advancing to Africa, taking advantage of the opportunities created by our relationships, that they please carry the good name of South Africa and ubuntu with them; that they continue to focus and adhere to the code of good business practice and treat people outside this country with humility wherever they are going to be engaging in business.
With regard to the hon member, now Chair of this sitting, hon Skosana, I really cannot agree with you more that as much as we would want to focus on national interest, having been urged to do so by other members, South Africa has a historical leadership role bestowed on it by its history in Africa as much as we want to advance our own national interest and make money out of our gains and the dividends of peace.
Still, our priority will be to build sustainable peace, and business and other peace dividends will always come second.
With regard to the hon Mubu, through the Chair, Zimbabweans say there was no other alternative except the Global Peace Agreement, hence we all have to work with them to make sure that that agreement which they all are geared towards works, and we support them in hoping that it works.
With regard to members concerned about Myanmar, I was just want to reiterate the statement I made about our condemnation of what is going on in Myanmar and the continued detention of the opposition leader there.
On the issue raised by hon Meshoe about the peace process in Sudan, this coming week starting on Monday, I will be in Washington together with other members who are interested, or who have claimed the midwifery role in attaining the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, and will work together with them and Madam Hillary Clinton to see to the fullest implementation of all the elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of Sudan.
Hon Koornhof, indeed, there is no source of soft relations without the consolidation also of the North-South because the world is about the global village today.
Hon Matladi, indeed, we shall make good use of the new building where we are going to be housed as International Relations and Co-operation and we shall invite members for the official opening of the building.
With regard to the hon Pilusa-Mosoane, I would want to say, malibongwe [Praise!], but I say that, knowing you know I know that you are passionate about issues of functional technologies. Having lived in India, I know exactly what you mean. But sometimes South Africans and South Africa spend a lot of money on technologies that we cannot use. We look forward to working more with countries of the South in accessing these functional technologies for our own rural development programmes.
On the budgetary constraints, there is very little we can do now because of the financial crisis that South Africa and the world is confronted with. But we can assure you that we shall strive to make use of our limited resources to continue to sell the brand, "South Africa".
On co-ordination of our economic diplomacy, we will continue to work with the Department of Trade and Industry to align our strategies to make sure that we take full advantage of the benefits that we should be accruing from our international relations work.
In fact, as we decide which countries should be our focus areas as we deploy cadres for economic diplomacy, we will work together with these departments through our cluster.
There is one organisation that I could not get an opportunity to talk about, which is very much a pillar, if not an integral unit of the organs of the AU, and that is the Pan-African Women's Organisation.
South Africa hosted a conference on the Pan-African Women's Organisation last year and still has a responsibility to host the very important organisation of the AU.
As a department, we are going to work together with the department responsible for women's affairs to see to the realisation of a new home for the Pan-African organisation in this country.
Once again, I want to call upon all members and members of society in South Africa that we cannot move faster in our advancement of international relations policy if the nonstate actors of South Africa continue to consider us to be "Ditaba tsa ka ntle" [Foreign Affairs.]
We are about building relations. Therefore, we need to work with all of them in partnership and working together, we can build a strong international relations and co-operation policy. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.