South Africa Belongs To All Who Live

When I Was In Government, The South African Economy Was Growing At 4.5% - 5%. But Then Came The Global Financial Crisis Of 2008/2009, And So The Global Economy Shrunk. That Hit South Africa Very Hard, Because Then The Export Markets Shrunk, And That Includes China, Which Has Become One Of The Main Trade Partners With South Africa. Also, The Slowdown In The Chinese Economy Affected South Africa. The Result Was That During That Whole Period, South Africa Lost Something Like A Million Jobs Because Of External Factors.

As We Mourn President Mandela’s Passing We Must Ask Ourselves The Fundamental Question - What Shall We Do To Respond To The Tasks Of Building A Democratic, Non-racial, Non-sexist And Prosperous South Africa, A People-centred Society Free Of Hunger, Poverty, Disease And Inequality, As Well As Africa’s Renaissance, To Whose Attainment President Nelson Mandela Dedicated His Whole Life?

That It Is Not Enough To Catch A Criminal And Get Them Convicted And So On, Because The Victim Remains With The Consequences Of The Crime. Something Needs To Be Done. Let's Complete That Process, Interact With Civil Society About This, So That We Will Specify What Is It That We Do In The Context Of That Charter That Would Then Make This Positive Impact On People Who Might Have Been Affected By Crime.

There Is A Section Of Our Population In South Africa That You Can't Expect To Get Integrated In The Economy Of Its Own. These Are People Without Skills And That Will Include Young People Who Might Very Well Have Matric Certificates, But Don't Have The Skills To Be Absorbed In The Economy. So We Need To Target People Like Those In A Special Way, In A Focused Way So That They Have The Skills And The Capacity To Participate In The Economy. That Requires Special Programmes.

Clearly, There Needs To Be An Increase In The Capacity Of The Railway System. That's Why There Are These Projections Of Increasing The Capacity To Carry Freight On The Railways By 30% Over The Next Five Years Or So, Because The Volume Of Goods Moved Up And Down, Imports, Exports, And Within The Country, Has Grown Much Larger Than The Capacity. And This Is Part Of The Higher Costs To Business, Because Charges, For Instance, At The Ports Become Too High And They Put Up The Prices Of These Goods, Whether They Are Imports Or Exports. You Want To Reduce That.