Excerpts from S.Africa Mbeki State of Nation speech
Source: Reuters
Feb 9 (Reuters) - President Thabo Mbeki promised to step up South Africa's fight against crime, improve AIDS programmes and ease poverty in his annual State of the Nation speech on Friday. Excerpts follow: CRIME, VIOLENCE "While we have reduced the incidence of most contact crimes, the annual reduction rate with regard to such categories as robbery, assault and murder is still below the seven to 10 percent that we had targeted. And the abuse of women and children continues at an unacceptable level." HIV-AIDS "(The) government commits itself to intensify the campaign against HIV and AIDS and to improve its implementation of all elements of the comprehensive approach such as prevention, home-based care and treatment. "We shall ensure that the partnerships built over the years are strengthened, and that our improved national comprehensive strategy against AIDS and sexually transmitted infections is finalised as soon as possible." POVERTY "All these economic and social programmes form part of our strategies to reduce and eradicate the poverty that continues to afflict many of our people. "It is clear that we must among other things, develop a proper database of households living in poverty; identify and implement specific interventions relevant to these households; co-ordinate and align all anti-poverty programmes to maximise impact and avoid wastage and duplication." LAND REFORM "While the land restitution programme has resulted in more settlements in the recent period, we still need to put in extra effort in dealing with remaining cases, many of which are much more complex. "On the other hand, very little progress has been made in terms of land redistribution. We will undertake a careful review of the inhibiting factors so that this programme is urgently speeded up." BLACK EMPOWERMENT "We have seen steady progress in the advancement of black people in the economy. From owning just over three percent of the market capitalisation of the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) in 2004, this has increased to close on to five percent. "And the proportion of blacks in top management has grown from 24 percent of the total to 27 percent. Yet we must remain concerned that these figures are still woefully low." ECONOMY "The advances in the economy have thrown up major challenges for all of us. The massive and sustained increase in consumer demand reflects a healthy growth in levels of prosperity across the population, and the major infrastructure projects that we are embarking on demand massive input of supplies and machinery. "But our international trade balance shows that we have not succeeded in building the capacity to produce the consumer and capital goods that our country needs."The continuing occasional volatility of our currency has also not boded well for export industries." HOUSING "The housing programme has seen close to 300,000 new subsidies allocated in the past two years. However, as we sought to improve quality and develop plans for those who are being missed by the public and private sector programmes currently under way, the pace of roll-out has been much slower than we expected. We must act to change this situation." BASIC SERVICES "Rights-based water reform has enabled it to expand access and overcome the legacy of racial inequality inherited from apartheid, partly through rights-based entitlements. "But it is a fact that eight million people are still without potable water. Many more are without electricity and sanitation."
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