Speech delivered by the MEC for Health and Welfaee Mr. Seaparo Sekoati at the official reception of Old Mutual Funds for Poverty Alleviation The Ranch Hotel

27 November 2004

Programme Director
Honoured guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Our country is proudly amongst the leading countries in the world about the policies and systems that we have established for public- private partnership to develop our country.

Today we are witnessing yet another initiative by the private sector, working together with government, to eradicate poverty. This represents a historic commitment and passion by the private sector to oil our democracy to become a fully functional tool of development.

We have been drawn to this occasion to acknowledge the huge amount of work that was performed during the exercise of identifying and screening qualifying projects.

All of this work was done with enthusiasm, selflessness, patriotism and the true sprit of voluntarism, hence it was done.

Our country has achieved many things in the past ten years of democracy. One of the most remarkable is the way we have embraced a shared future and reversed a history of divisions.We have developed a consciousness that together, we are custodians of our nation’s well being and future.

Indeed we have succeeded to induce in ourselves a sense that we can galvanise the full wealth of our people’s skills, our innovation and energy to eradicate poverty and drive forward development as a permanent feature of our society.

The transformation agenda remains weighty and tightly focussed: quality health care for all, quality education for all, safe water and sanitation for all, in short a better life for all.

Being confronted with the question of how do we create jobs and fight poverty under meagre state resources, it is not surprising therefore that we look to the full spectrum of our country’s resources, both public and private.

We do so with a clear understanding that the diverse interests of different sectors can in fact be harnessed for the collective good.

The public sector gets better, more cost-effective services, the private sector gets new business opportunities, both in the interests of the nation.

This is the essence of the partnership that we are celebrating today with Old Mutual.

In a concerted effort and drive to redress the stifling socio-economic effects of apartheid, government adopted a policy of public-private partnership as part of the country’s overall growth strategy.

This policy seeks to put a regulatory framework within which private sector and government can partner with clear definitions and roles.

Since then these partnership have been increasing and widely used together with other initiatives to implement government’s infrastructure and service delivery commitments.

The public – private partnership enhances government’s capacity by using diverse sources of funding for meeting the basic needs of our people. It anchors the notion of sustainable development and is cost-effective.

We are therefore excited and we are sure that the same goes for our business partners, that every project takes us several steps further in our noble goal of building a people’s contract to create work and fight poverty.

However this goal can only be met through a rapid growth in well-designed partnerships in which private finance is mobilised in the transformation of our social and economic landscape.

This is one of the most important signal of whether we are expanding the envelope of opportunities for poverty eradication.

The public-private partnership is an important element in delivering social investment programmes.

It allows for the best of public and private sector management skills to work together in the delivery of services for the benefit of the public.

The essence of this partnership is that the private sector will provide private finance to fund projects and enter into a joint venture arrangement with the public sector to provide efficient and improved services.

The value of developments financed, designed, developed and constructed using this approach is immeasurable.

In the past apartheid government work alone in providing these services and had successfully failed.

However, we are pleased that since the dawn of democracy in our country, we have been witnessing negotiations between government agencies and the private sector to develop facilities and projects.

In fact our public service delivery record has been enriched through these partnerships in recent years.

We express our sincere and immeasurable appreciation to Old Mutual and other companies that have bravely forged ahead with this work.

You did this sometimes in the face of resistance, scepticism and under tight budget constraints. You have set an example for many others.

Through your flagship projects focussing on local and rural economic development and linked and aligned to government’s rural development strategy, you are making a difference in the lives of our people.

We want to pay tribute to the commitment and enthusiasm of the board members, for valuing investing in projects that are community based for the sole intention of confronting poverty.

We know that you have suffered more than a few sleepless nights for this work. It has been a daunting task, but we also know that the rewards are not insignificant.

There is no doubt that future generations will read the name of Old Mutual on the wall which would be created for those who served our democracy diligently.

The projects that you have adopted hold huge potential to defeat the scourge of poverty, diseases and other social ills. They have the capacity to develop and transfer skills and create jobs.

To the beneficiaries, your project success and failures in the years ahead will be closely watched and measured. The country’s growing poverty alleviation abilities will draw heavily on your sweat and tears.

We expect you to manage these projects and funds on sound business principles to allow for growth and success, while ensuring accountability. We are a nation at work. We have both public and private resources at our disposal and collectively we will put them together for the common good.

Indeed South Africa‘s time has come. Let us embrace it fully to realise yet another successful decade of democracy and economic prosperity.

The partnership that we are soliciting today between government and Old Mutual, between Old Mutual and our people, it is a people’s contract, that fundamentally rest on trust.

We have a collective duty to reinforce that trust, because it is the bedrock of partnership.

We will continue to learn, as we go forward, mindful of the opportunities that public- private partnerships present, to galvanise the commitment that drives such a wide range of South Africans to play a meaningful role in our unique development agenda.

We wish you a great success. With this funding we expect you to grow from strength to strength.

Thank you.

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