Western Cape Public Hearings: 5 – 6 December 2016
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HIGH LEVEL PANEL ON ASSESSMENT OF KEY LEGISLATION AND ACCELERATION OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE Western Cape Public Hearings: 5 – 6 December 2016 5 December 2016: Morning Session The sign * indicates a translation and † the original language. Mr Tshefuta: Thank you. Please be seated. Good morning. *Good morning. *Greetings. †Well, my name is Thulani Tshefuta, one of the Panel members. We are really happy that you have taken time off your busy schedules to join us in this important Public Hearing of the High Level Panel. The Panel is in this Public Hearing having visited others provinces. We are here lead by the Chairperson of the Panel, President Kgalema Motlanthe. Let’s welcome you. (Applause) Some of the Panel members who join us today is Dr Claassens, Dr Shisana, Prof Hirsch, Rev Damon, Dr Yvonne Muthien, Mr Paul Harris, Prof Taylor and most importantly yours truly the programme director, Tulane Tshefuta. (Applause) Thank you very much for the warm welcome. We do have interpretation devices. Those who need interpretation devices will have to access them. Where are they? We can ask one of the help desks. They will definitely be able to give you an interpretation device. We have interpretation in English. We have an interpretation in Afrikaans, isiXhosa and we should be having a sign language interpreter as well. And those are just some of the few announcements. At this point I would love to invite the speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature or Parliament to come and welcome us. Over to you, Speaker. *Ms Fernandez: Good morning, greetings. †Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sharna Fernandez and I'm the Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. It is indeed an honour and a privilege for me to welcome you to this very important two days of public hearings, which are held in our province on Disclaimer: Disclaimer: These transcripts were produced by different people, including post-graduate 1 students who translated and transcribed the material from the YouTube recordings of the public hearings. We cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of the translation and transcription, and refer those who require absolute accuracy to the YouTube record itself. HIGH LEVEL PANEL ON ASSESSMENT OF KEY LEGISLATION AND ACCELERATION OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE the assessment of key legislation passed by Parliament over the past 21 years. Allow me the opportunity to introduce His Excellency, former President, Kgalema Motlanthe, who is the Chairperson of this High Level Panel. The Speaker’s Forum of the South African Legislature established an advisory Panel to assess the importance of legislation and the acceleration of fundamental change. As Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament I serve an institution priding itself in conducting its constitutional functions efficiently and effectively with specific emphasis on oversight of the provincial executive and effective involvement of the public in our processes and our work. Ultimately all of these efforts are geared towards improving the lives our people, we are elected to serve. This we can only do with the active participation of our stakeholders. The South African Constitution provides a framework for the system of governance that is both representative and participatory. When South Africa drew up its constitutional and institutional arrangements it was able to take advantage of contemporary thinking in the evolving relationships of creating vehicles for dialogue between the people and their governments. In short it means that when people are not involved in the decisions that affect them, political interventions are likely to fail. Public participation should meaningfully improve the quality of policy and legislation, strengthen accountability and enhance overall good governance. It is against this background that the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa has identified the need to assess key legislation passed by our Parliament over the last 21 years. I wish all participants all the best over the next two days and express the hope that everybody involved will be inspired by our beautiful city in the shadow of Table Mountain. I'm sure that all involved will time find to explore some of the many treasures of our beautiful province. I must also add that our participants have come from across the breadth and width of South Africa. We have a participant all the way from Murraysburg, which is 90km away from Graaff-Reinet. So we’d like to welcome them. We have participants from Vredendal, from the greater metro, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Disclaimer: Disclaimer: These transcripts were produced by different people, including post-graduate 2 students who translated and transcribed the material from the YouTube recordings of the public hearings. We cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of the translation and transcription, and refer those who require absolute accuracy to the YouTube record itself. HIGH LEVEL PANEL ON ASSESSMENT OF KEY LEGISLATION AND ACCELERATION OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE Plain as well as the Deep South. So to all our participants, you are the most important people here today. Your inputs are going to be that which takes this Panel forward in terms of recommendations that are made and I would like to say that to the participants this is your day. We might be part of a bigger group, but you had been chosen to come and represent the people and the communities that you serve. And I would like to thank you for that. And I trust that the interactions will be positive, they will be meant in – it will be conducted in a spirit that fosters nation building and that will create social cohesion, so that when we go away here we can say that we are truly proud to be South Africans. I thank you. (Applause) Mr Tshefuta: Let’s give another round of applause to the Speaker. (Applause) And acknowledge that the Speaker is not alone. She is joined by the Deputy Speaker, Mr Piet Pretorius. (Applause) There are also 12 members of the Provincial Parliament who are with us here. Let’s welcome them as well. (Applause) At this point, without any waste of time, I would love us to welcome the Chairperson of the High Level Panel, President Kgalema Motlanthe, to come and address us. Former President Kgalema Motlanthe: Thank you very much, Mr Tulane Tshefuta for your warm words of welcome and thanks to the Speaker, Hon Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature, Ms Sharna Fernandez and for your warm words of welcome. We really feel welcomed in the Western Cape. Mine is really to give you background as to why this Panel was established. The fourth Parliament which ended in 2014 identified the need for assessing impact of legislation as part of the work that the fifth Parliament would have to undertake. Now once the fifth Parliament was sworn in in 2014 after very long discussions by all parties represented in both Houses, the NCOP as well as the National Assembly, they came to a point where they adopted a strategic plan for the five years. And in that strategic plan they identified this need for assessing efficiency and impact of legislation which was contained in the Legacy Report of the fourth Parliament. Disclaimer: Disclaimer: These transcripts were produced by different people, including post-graduate 3 students who translated and transcribed the material from the YouTube recordings of the public hearings. We cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of the translation and transcription, and refer those who require absolute accuracy to the YouTube record itself. HIGH LEVEL PANEL ON ASSESSMENT OF KEY LEGISLATION AND ACCELERATION OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE And they felt that the best way to five effect to that task was to establish a Panel made up of 17 members. And the mandate given to the High Level Panel, is to look into impacts of legislation passed since 1994 in four broad areas. The first of these four broad areas of focus is the triple problems of poverty, unemployment and inequality. And the second area of focus is creation of an equitable distribution of wealth. And the third areas of focus is the land question. In other words land reform, land restitution, land redistribution and security of (indistinct). And the fourth and last area of focus is nation building and social cohesion or social exclusion depending on where you stand in terms of societal pecking order. And so the Panel having given this mandate, decided that the first two areas of focus, which is poverty, unemployment and inequality as well as creation of and equitable distribution of wealth, would be combined. They are so closely related or interlinked that the – they could be tackled by one Working Group. And therefore the Panel divided itself into three Working Groups. Working Group 1’s focus is on the first two areas of focus. Working Group 2 deals with the land question and Working Group 3 deals with national building and social cohesion. Now in the interest of time we were meant to have started this gathering much, much earlier and so we’ve lost a bit of time. In the interest of time we will not get the chairpersons of the three Working Groups to give you their inputs in terms of the work that each Working Group focuses in. Now so we will skip that part, because the interest of the Panel is really to hear from you as to how your lives are impacted upon by legislation passed since 1994. And so if for instance you're a business person who, or an investor with lots of bags of money that you would like to invest in a Greenfields Project you may find that there is just too many regulations to comply with.