Address delivered by the Deputy President, Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, at the 11th the Nedlac Annual Summit

09 September 2006

Programme Director,
Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana,
Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel,
Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor,
Minister of Public Enterprises, Alec Erwin,
Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri,
SABC Chief Executive Officer, Dali Mpofu,
Premier of Mpumalanga, Thabang Makwetla,
President of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Patrice
Motsepe,
Secretary General of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi,
Deputy President of SANCO, Ruth Bhengu,
SA Youth Council Chairperson, Sizwe Shezi,
NEDLAC Executive Director, Herbert Mkhize,
Government Officials,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a great pleasure for me to formally open and welcome you to the 11th Annual NEDLAC Summit.

Under the theme: "Taking stock, fruits of social dialogue, challenges of social dialogue and sustainable development". This theme gives us the opportunity and possibility to assess and review the impact social dialogue has had on our development.

It also provides an opportunity to determine the extent to which we have discharged our founding mandate, and to chart the way forward.

Programme Director, this 11th Annual NEDLAC Summit comes at the time when we are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the historic Women's march. We also saw the launch of the Progressive Women's Movement of South Africa in Bloemfontein. In reliving the memories of 1956 and launching the Progressive Women's Movement, women of this country acknowledged that there are still challenges and hurdles to be overcome. These challenges and hurdles impact on issues of sustainable development. A large number of women are still unemployed, poor and vulnerable.

This year we also celebrate thirty years since the 1976 Student Uprising and we pay tribute to our youth. Both our youth and women make a significant number of our people whose plight we have to address.

Hence as we take stock of the fruits of social dialogue, the plight and conditions of women and youth should be taken into consideration. We need to ensure that women become part and parcel of policy development and implementation processes wherever we are and including this institution and other related institutions. Youth, women, like all of us, have a role to play also in NEDLAC and its affiliates.

They together with all other workers have a crucial role to play if this economy is going to be taken to greater heights and if it is to be shared. The interventions aimed at addressing systemic problems in the Second Economy also need to be at the top of NEDLAC's agenda. Issues affecting the unemployed, the micro-enterprises and small towns are all part of our common developmental agenda.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Summit also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our Constitution. The Constitution promotes respect for all who have worked to build and develop our country. This Constitution seeks to improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person. In our work we have a duty to turn the constitution into a living document.

Programme Director, I would like to reaffirm what I said during the tenth Annual NEDLAC Summit that: "Nedlac and its sister labour market institutions have made an indelible mark in promoting industrial peace, productivity, global competitiveness, economic growth and employment creation". This progress was made possible by the visionary leadership, commitment and sacrifices that all of you are making in spite of your diversity and different interests. I will be the first though to urge you that much more is needed to raise our productivity and competitiveness.

Your contribution to the development of this country is recognised beyond our borders. The election of Minister Mdladlana as Chairperson of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in June this year, is testimony to that fact, it is a recognition of both the individual and also a recognition of the united people of South Africa.

As social partners, we need to redouble our efforts and give the Minister all the support he needs as chairperson of the ILO for the current year.

The Macro-Social Trends report was released by the Presidency earlier this year was an attempt to provide a critical understanding of the movement of our society from the apartheid past towards non-racialism, equity and unity in diversity.

A telling picture from the report is that: "South Africa has experienced an improvement in the quality of life of the majority of citizens, but the backlogs - defined still in terms of race -remain huge. For those on the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder, there are manifestations of a poverty trap influenced by such factors as education, gender and geographic location and reflected in income, access to opportunities and assets - an expression of two economies in one country". This tells us that there is more that needs to be done for people to be developed.

It highlights that poverty and unemployment remains one of the most critical challenges facing our country today and without a concerted creation of a greater number of qualitative and sustainable and productive jobs, our vision for a better life for all will be much harder to achieve. Further we have people who are trapped and will always be trapped in extreme poverty even in good times not unless we have targeted interventions to these citizens.

South Africa is a land of many opportunities but so many of our people do not have the capacity and skills to take full advantage of these opportunities, and indeed to turn opportunity and potential to an economic benefit.

Promoting a strong and relevant skills base and improving our commitment to human resources development is critical to ensure that we have a growing and productive labour market, and that we can turn South Africa into a winning nation, not just for a few but for the majority of our people. That is our collective challenge -not to waste the opportunity we have created - but to make South Africa work for the majority.

The recently signed agreement between South Africa and China on textile and clothing issues, is a victory for the Proudly South Africa (PSA) Campaign and for job creation. It is one of the success stories of NEDLAC. But there is a challenge in that, this development may backfire unless we work together to produce and capacitate the clothing and textile industry. It means that despite the disagreements between the role players all have a responsibility to make this work for South Africa! In ASGI-SA the clothing and textile sector is identified as a sector to protect from further haemorrhaging jobs - and this deal does just that. We can bring back jobs and moderately excessive profits.

Thanks to all of you for working so hard to conclude this agreement. That is the spirit of partnership in action. Our representatives led by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), labour represented by the South African Congress of Textiles Workers Union (SACTWU), and business represented by Business Unity South Africa (BUSA).

This throws a clear challenge to our training providers and Further Education and Training (FET) institutions, to the industry based trainers and others in the clothing and textiles industries to supply appropriately skilled workers.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. Failure is not an option here! We can and have to make this agreement work! Again this is another concrete example where an opportunity has been created and it is yet to be turned into economic benefit. Just with failing on the skills we can lose the plot! Imagine our country having to import machinists from China because we have a shortage of these skills which do not require rock scientists. We already have a dubious honour of importing welders to South Africa to do routine and predictable work in our economy.

Through the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) we pledge support, we have similar challenges with artisans in general, engineers, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's), project managers, teachers of mathematics, science and information and communication technologies in public schools. All these scarce skills stand between a realised economic benefit and an opportunity.

It slows down growth, job creation and a shared economy! This NEDLAC Summit has to wake up and prepare to confront these challenges. Our country must never again import mid level skills. In this Age of Hope, a better life is so near and yet so far. It is up to us to make the correct choices.

Hence our emphasis on partnerships with business, labour, civil society and other members of society. Much consultation has taken place and will be on-going so as to build on the emerging consensus on what should be done to accelerate and share growth and seek responses to specific issues that have been raised. We welcome your involvement in ASGI-SA.

Together we also need to commit ourselves to universal access to basic services by 2014. All our people must have decent energy, sanitation and water in the Second Decade of Democracy. In the first decade we expanded access phenomenally, in the second we must achieve universal access. Together we can do much better for the millions whose quality of life is still miserable. Sanitation is about dignity, water about life and energy determines who lives in the 21st Century or 19th Century.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of growing and sharing in the economy. It would be amiss if I do not challenge all NEDLAC partners to take greater responsibility to make things work even better and build on this solid foundation. It would be amiss if I do not remind you of the Growth and Development Summit (GDS) commitments and agreements some of which have not been fulfilled.

We still need to get back to them and assess how far we have gone in their implementation. I see some of them as a natural re-enforcement of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGI-SA) and therefore it is critical to go back to them.

There is a great need for this country to revisit the plight of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO's) and Community Based Organisations (CBO's) in relation to access to resources. Much can be done to support them because some are indeed doing critical work for the country.

Support in Corporate Social Investment and funding from government does not always go where most impact can be made. This has to be given attention by all of us here.

We must help:

• Those who assist with job creation and sustainable livelihoods amongst the poor people,
• Those who assist people who are victims of violence especially directed at women and children,
• Those who are providing with interventions in our education system,
• Those dealing with youth development,
• Those care givers in home based care.
  
  All of these are critical national services for our country and these service providers, their work should not have to suffer and they should not give up because of lack of funds, while there is a lot of waste in untargeted funding. Care givers in our society deserve and need much better support system from all of us.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that social dialogue is an essential tool to tackling the challenges we face and to meet all the socio- economic needs of our people. This is the reason why these annual summits are essential as the gatherings where the principle of social dialogue comes alive.

Lastly, I hope that the deliberations of this summit will generate sufficient debate resulting in firm commitments from all the social partners.

It is my honour to declare this dialogue open.

Thank you.