by Hopewell Radebe – SANF 04 no 46
President Thabo Mbeki has pledged to use his second and last term of office consolidating bilateral cooperation agreements that South Africa has with a significant number of African countries and strengthening the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional integration process.
Regional integration has become a matter of strategic importance to President Mbeki after economists at the conference on Empowerment, Finance, Trade and Investment in Cape Town, held recently, warned that South Africa could have a six percent rather than a three percent growth rate, if health problems are tackled at home and regionally and if the country ensures that her neighbours within SADC acquire healthier economies.
In his first State of the Nation Address to the joint seating of parliament’s houses, the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, the president dedicated a substantial amount of time on the need for South Africa to help build viable economic markets within SADC.
“We must continue to contribute to the effective functioning of our regional organisation, SADC, helping to enhance its capacity to speed up the process of regional integration,” he said, adding that South Africa will also focus interaction with the African continent, especially within the context of SADC and NEPAD.
Mbeki said his government will “continue to work with our sister countries Zimbabwe and Swaziland so that the citizens of these countries can also enjoy peace, stability and sustainable development.” Mbeki has been making efforts to improve dialogue between the ruling and main opposition party in Zimbabwe.
Among other issues to be addressed on the domestic front are: increased access by the population to potable water, basic sanitation, electricity, housing and improved education infrastructure. Short-term plans include widening the social security net to cater for those more vulnerable people.
The process of empowerment of blacks, women, people with disabilities and the youth would also continue as would implementation of the country’s Comprehensive Plan on HIV and AIDS.
The envisaged launch of the expanded public works programme in all provinces which integrates development of the social and economic infrastructure, human resource development, enterprise development and poverty alleviation is expected to be in September this year.
On the economic front, the president undertook to consolidate the system of bilateral cooperation agreements that South Africa has entered into with such African countries as Algeria, the DRC, Egypt, Lesotho, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
He told Parliament that in the coming financial year, government would strive to participate on international science projects that would also benefit the region.
Government would increase spending on scientific research and continue to work on the diffusion of new technologies across the economy. This would involve the construction at Sutherland in the Northern Cape, of the largest optical, infrared telescope in the southern hemisphere that will be completed in December.
“A formal bid has been submitted for us to host the largest radio telescope ever built, the so-called Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope … Namibia is host to the most powerful gamma ray telescope in the world, which has now been commissioned.
“I mention all these to indicate the development of our region as a Global Hub for Astronomy and Space Science and Technology. This underlines the need for us to devote more resources to the development of science and technology,” added Mbeki.
South Africa is also working with both Mozambique and Namibia on the development of both the Pande and Kudu gas-fields and these projects are believed to have substantial investment opportunities. Having succeeded to boost the economy of Mozambique with the development of the Maputo Corridor – a first world road infrastructure linking Maputo and South Africa’s economic hub of Gauteng province – the cross-border or regional initiatives have strengthened the SADC leadership’s approach to development.
Mbeki also touched on South Africa’s long-awaited immigration policies that have crippled his administration and created huge backlogs on applications for work and study permits, asylum requests as well as handling the affairs of those with authentic refugee status.
“Within the next three months, the Cabinet will finalise its work on the Immigration Regulations, among other things to ensure that we access such scarce skills from the rest of the world as may be required for our accelerated development,” Mbeki pledged. (SARDC)
