Thank you very much, House Chair President Ramaphosa
Deputy President Mashatile Ladies and gentlemen Fellow South Africans

I think the most consequential moment of our debate is when a leader of an organization that occupies the far right of the ideological spectrum of the political parties represented here in Parliament, makes the following acknowledgement, that the Freedom Charter is indeed the seminal document that should guide the South Africa we want.

He goes further to make the point that it could be a foundational basis of our discussion in the mooted national dialogue. I want to further also acknowledge the most compelling and cogent explication of the achievements of the ANC as articulated by Honourable Dr. Hlophe, especially on key matrices in relation to social indicators.

He decouples the victories and the achievements of the ANC between the period 2009 - 2019 and apportions the victories to an individual and the setbacks to an organization. I think this at best is a misrepresentation and at worst is duplicitous. And I want to say to Honourable Malema, in his predictable quest to discredit the SONA, he uses the NDP and the MTDP interchangeably.

They are indeed interrelated but distinct. They are distinct in the following sense, the NDP's vision 2030 has a long-time horizon. It is also outcomes based and it's also aspirational. The MTDP on the other side

has got a three-year cycle that is output based and it also attracts significant resources and also has got clear timelines and also clear targets and embedded in that, is an overarching framework for monitoring and evaluation. So essentially what Honourable Malema has done is to commit the cardinal sin from a conceptual outlook point of view.

I want to say the following to Honourable Trollip, when he described the SONA as delusional, Honourable Ndlela makes the point that indeed this is a failed state. Honourable Maotwe makes the point that these are hollow promises. I want to counsel the House that for us to have a decent and matured conversation, familiarity with the facts is a minimum requirement.

I want to repudiate this statement by saying the following. First, the SONA itself admits there are significant shortcomings. It indicates we have a growth problem and makes the point that the fact that 28 million people receive social grants out of a total population of 62 million people and expanded unemployment is sitting at 43% is an exceptional indictment on a sitting government.

It does posit that we are putting forward a growth of 3% as our level of ambition. That is driven by the facts as the Bureau of Economic Research from Stellenbosch has articulated or formulated a model. An economic model, its a simplification of the economy that is meant to explain economic behaviour and is made of a set of variables and a set of quantitative terms that essentially speak to each other and are interdependent. It demonstrates that if we are to continue the path of the

OV, we are likely going to achieve a GDP growth of anything between 3.5% and 5%.

It will be a height of folly for President Ramaphosa to stand before the country and promise a 5% economic growth by the end of the term. The reality is as follows: between the years 2005 and 2011 the average GDP was 3.4%. From 2012 – 2019 it was 1.9%, 2019 - 2023 was 0.3%. As I
stand before you, the projection it's likely going to be 0.8% and over the medium term it's going to be 1.9%.

It would be misleading to put forward an ambition that is highly improbable to achieve. It’s important to also determine the flaw. We accept that economic growth must outpace the rate of population growth. Anything less than the rate of population growth understates
what the requirements are, and hence we arrive at a 3% ambition over the period of the term. We propose the following interventions, first, the NDP suggests the levels of gross fixed capital formation, which is a
proxy for investment should be at 30% of GDP.

As I stand before you it is currently at 14.9% and 70% of that is private sector, 18% is public sector, and then the remainder is the SOE. We need to accelerate that investment. For us to achieve those targets, we must invest R2.13 trillion per annum to achieve that target. The R940 billion that the President refers to is a fiscal injection. We need to design bespoke financing instruments that will tap into the liquidity of the private sector and ensures provision of the sufficient guide rails to protect the investments of the private sector.

Hence, we talk about innovative financing instrument to drive this agenda, and we are going to classify infrastructure as an asset class to crowd in private sector investment. Honourable Macpherson appears to have a hostile and antagonistic relationship with the truth. The
investment book for the agenda of Infrastructure South Africa was generated during the sixth administration. The decent thing to say is that you want to accelerate the pace of implementation.

The third area of intervention is around water. We accept there are commercial elements in water investments and then there are social elements. We need to look at the interventions we made working with the private sector like the Lebalele Water-Users Association, the Vaal- Gamagara. This is a combination of private sector and public sector investment and we’ll be able to roll out this investment.

On the electricity front, the state sovereign balance sheet is weak, and the Eskom balance sheet has been eroded. We need to design
instruments that ensure there's accelerated private sector investment. We need to modernise and grow the transmission by over 14,000 kilometres in the next ten years. For that we need about R450 billion.

We have designed an instrument President that we will introduce to the country in the next five weeks and we're going to use that instrument as a template. We take it to take it to all SOEs so that we can drive this infrastructure going forward.

On the freight logistic side, we've got a baseline of 149 million tons per annum. Our target for the year is 170 million tons and by 2030 we want to reach 250 million tons. We have decided to prioritise specific corridors. The Northern Cape - Saldanha corridor, which carries iron ore and manganese, the northern corridor which carries coal and chrome.
The Gauteng – Durban corridor which carries automotive and general freight.

We further need to make an investment in the capacity of local government to ring fans both electricity and water functions of
municipalities. President, I’m happy to announce that we have already started in Limpopo as Premier Ramathuba indicated.

We are starting with Maruleng municipality, we are doing Thabazimbi, Molemole and several municipalities. In the Fee State we are in Maluti- a-Phofung local municipality and moving into Ditsobotla local municipality in the North-West. For Gauteng we are in Emfuleni. So essentially, we have started with the work to design instruments that are able to drive this agenda going forward.

I want to make a point in relation to what I refer to as the ultra-right lunatic fringe in this country, that seeks to undermine the transformation project. They use expropriation as a scarecrow, it's a smokescreen.

Their fundamental grievance is the scale and pace of the transformation project. They have been forum shopping and now they have found an ally.

They are detonating the nuclear options to ensure they undermine the economy of this country to create a groundswell of social discontent that will unseat this government. I want to say we are determined to protect the gains of the democratic project. We will go, explain ourselves to the allies and articulate the vision of the South Africa we want, and that the transformation project is indeed irreversible. We on the correct path Comrade President, we will not be bullied.

Thank you very much.
 

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