HEADLINE:   In the words 22    

PUBLICATION: Cape Argus

PAGE NUMBER: 22

AUTHOR:     Zubeida Jaffer, Kaizer Nyatsumba, Rich Mkhondo, Mathatha Tsedu and John Matisonn

DATE:       2000-06-13 22:00:00

In the words of the President

President Thabo Mbeki speaks about his first year in office, on hot potato issues like Curriculum 2005 and the Zimbabwe crisis, and other more global issues. He talked to Independent Newspapers journalists Zubeida Jaffer, Kaizer Nyatsumba, Rich Mkhondo, Mathatha Tsedu and John Matisonn

on his first year

'We have a good cabinet. We have a whole group of ministers who are properly allocated.

In the first five years, ministers had to be appointed.

With President Mandela there were occasional assessments. And clearly, in some instances, you could understand the kind of mismatch.

I'm talking about particular persons with particular interests, and particular enthusiasms, and they might very well work as ministers and deputy ministers, wherever they were placed, but without 

the drive and passion which they would have if they were (placed) elsewhere.

We have a more effective system of government.

A lot of work has been done in the criminal justice area.The rate of convictions is increasing, the numbers of awaiting-trial prisoners are decreasing. That work is continuing.

My assessment of the ministers is that they are performing very well. 

formulating policy

We spent much time in the first five years on policy formulations.

There were lots of green papers, white papers and legislation to define the kind of South Africa we are trying to create.

That process is by no means complete, but I think we have in very good measure made that definition.

And, therefore, what needs to happen in this second five-year period is to attend to realising those policy objectives.

The process of the better co-

ordination and integration of the government departments is going very well.

Governments around the world are talking about re-inventing government. I think we had the advantage of this democratic change - we are new and can try out things.

Capacity to change

There is tremendous resistance to change.

People are comfortable with what they have always done.

In the first five years, we brought in new people who could discuss policy and reflect new thinking.

But when you come to the implementation stage, you do not have the capacity to actually do the implementation.

If we take one high-profile issue of the European Union, the negotiations were detailed and technical, relating to South Africa and the EU, South Africa and the SADC (Southern African Development Community), South Africa and the world.

You deal with issues like intellectual property rights and the World Trade Organisation, you find the 

EU has capacity, but where is the capacity in our Government? You are talking about the capacity to implement things in a complicated world.

That is why we needed to change SAMDI (South African Management Development Institute) and you needed more and different skills.

That is why, for example, we set up SITA (State Information Technology Agency) to deal with the information technology challenges.

curriculum 2005

It has been said we tried to move at an unrealistic speed and a level of sophistication that was too complicated. 

Slow down, simplify this process. Speak to the outcomes-based educationalists, and so on.

textbooks

We are not abandoning the provision of free text books.

The problem is not that textbooks change every year, but that they disappear at the end of the year.

We spend money buying new 

textbooks, because kids take them home.

The weakness of the system of school governments is at issue, not an abandonment of the supply of textbooks. 

Controlling what happens to textbooks is important.

challenges in africa

In our first five years everybody understood that we were creating a new government and a new society and needed to settle down.

Now everyone wants us to engage challenges of the African continent in a more involved way.

The pressures on the South African Government to tackle African and global African issues have increased radically.

The late former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere raised this matter with me more than twice.

He said South Africa had a particular role to play on the African continent that we are not playing.

In the end, Nyerere said, the rest of Africa will conclude that you are doing something on the African continent and doing it surreptitiously.

There is a resolve among leaders to change the African continent for the better.

There is a strong will and a strong sentiment to say let us end these wars and coups and face development.

The pictures of war and famine 

in Ethiopia are true, but that is not the definition of the entire continent.

There are strains on the continent, and in this country, but the bulk is pointed in the right direction.

rwanda/uganda

I spoke to (Rwandan President ) Paul Kagame about the conflict. 

He said: "Useless conflict."

I spoke to (Ugandan) President Museveni. 

He said: "Useless conflict."

So I asked why they continue?

Museveni said: "I need to sit down with you and explain in detail."

I said in the meantime they should stop it.

zimbabwe

We want free and fair elections in Zimbabwe.

We are against stolen elections. If anyone stole elections, I'm sure there would be some response. We would not sleep well.

I do not know why (the UN Development Programme) withdrew.

We went to look for money and UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said the UNDP should distribute the money.

The issue is compensation. The withdrawal of the UNDP means farmers will not get compensation for land.

lessons for sa

It does not pay to pretend the colonial and apartheid legacy does not exist. You find this kind of attitude in this country where we have a 

legacy of racism.

People talk about the rule of law and that is correct.

The legacies will explode. It does not matter how much propaganda you make.

Racism cannot be left to the ANC to deal with alone. You cannot have 350 years of colonialism and apartheid wiped out in six years.

global affairs

The same thing which is happening in Africa is happening globally.

People would say South Africa must have a view to present.

We are involved in negotiations to restructure the IMF, issues such as what should be done with international financial architecture, what to do about landmines, what to do about conflict in the Middle East? I'm saying there are expectations that South Africa can make some useful contributions.

It comes back to the issue of the capacity of the Government to respond to these things.

information technology

We should have been more aggressive on the issue of information technology as it impacts on society.

When we were in the United States, we asked heads of information technology companies: what 

do you think we should be doing 

in South Africa? Out came lots of ideas.

I can tell that they are very keen.

We have agreed to form an international advisory committee on IT. It's clear that IT is critical to the 

formation of modern societies, 

government systems, and the development of economies.

the rand

In 1994 there were very strong foreign exchange controls.

We removed the financial rand, so the rand could then find a more natural level and exporters were happy.

It's a normal part of the functioning of open economies.

The Euro has gone down, and the Australian and New Zealand dollar.

The criticism was uninformed.

Where is it a problem? It has positive impacts.

Sometimes it is overvalued, sometimes undervalued. That's how financial markets operate. I don't think it should cause panic.

mbeki, the control freak

The level of ignorance in the media and the willingness to believe stories distresses me.

For example, that I appoint all the directors-general.

The Presidential Review 

Commission said we need to move to the professionalisation of the senior echelon of the public service, and the role of appointing directors-general should be moved from ministers.

In the British public service, the permanent secretaries are the first-level managers and they get shifted from this department to that because they are managers.

Your director-general of education does not need to be an educationist.

So that appointment needed to be taken away from ministers, but the president has the power to delegate that function to ministers.

If they need redeployment, that is the prerogative of the president.

We immediately delegated the power of appointment to ministers.

I haven't appointed one director-general. It is a delegated responsibility.

Where the idea that I am a control freak comes from, I have not the slightest idea.

When I met the Forum of South African Directors-General, the oldest serving director-general, from the previous regime, said it was the first time since 1910 that a head of government sits in a meeting with the directors-general.

tensions with madiba?

There is no problem between Mr Mandela and myself.

What happened was that he was dealing with the Burundi matter.

Before that it was the Middle East, travelling to Iran, Israel, Syria and Jordan.

He spoke to me from the United States about what had been happening, and said when he got back, we should meet and discuss them.

But then it became difficult to agree to a particular day which would be suitable for both of us.

In the end, we agreed that rather than communicate with me one 

on one, which was difficult, we 

needed to use the rest of the government structures - and involve 

Aziz (Pahad), Nkosazana (Zuma) and others.

So there isn't any tension.

 

Mangosuthu Buthelezi

We discussed with Mangosuthu Buthelezi whether he would stay in government after the 1999 elections.

We agreed he would stay in government.

We did discuss the position he would occupy, including the deputy presidency. It was unconditional.

There were no strings attached.

In KwaZulu Natal, the ANC and the IFP were talking, and the provincial leadership there said if Dr Buthelezi becomes deputy president, then the ANC should have the provincial premier.

It came from the local ANC.

And Dr Buthelezi came to me and said this was unsustainable, because his own party would say that "I sold out because I was interested in a high post, it would be dishonourable". 

It cropped up in KwaZulu Natal.

The Government works very well.

And there is no change in his participation as a minister in the processes of government.

He is Minister of Home Affairs and the leader of a different party; two of the six cabinet committees are chaired by him. Two are chaired by myself and two by Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

(This has been done) in recognition of the fact that Dr Buthelezi is not just an ordinary minister but the president of the IFP.

It is not a coalition government, but both the deputy president and I thought that we should recognise the fact that this is a leader of a different party.

So I am saying that in terms of the functioning of the government there is no trouble.

a day in the life

There's no standard day.

For example, (Ugandan President) Museveni will call me tonight after this interview. After that I'm expecting a call from the president of Rwanda. If those calls come at 2am, I have to wait.

Then there's the speech for my vote in Parliament. I have to work on that after you go.

This morning (Sunday), I was at the Vaal, at ANC branches.