Cape Town - The economic well-being of South Africa will be a critical issue to be tackled by President Jacob Zuma in his state of the nation address on Thursday.
"Importantly, the address will look at how we [can] most effectively support an
accelerated recovery and beyond that, sustained growth over the medium to long term," Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said.
Although Zuma is also expected to dwell on the fact that his government
has done much to undertake the tasks outlined in last year's speech, Chabane
added: "Tomorrow the president will focus on what it is we still need to do
and, importantly, what we will use to gauge our progress."
"The president will emphasise that these are not merely government
outcomes. They are societal outcomes. As a society we need to work together
to ensure that these are achieved."
The minister explained that after the speech much more detail would be
made available by individual ministers on the expected outcomes, and on the
measurable outputs that will be in place.
Chabane also said that the speech will also outline the work that is to
be done to change effectively the way government works in order to speed up
service delivery.
"Last year's address placed much emphasis on changing the way the public
service works," Chabane said, adding that it was for this reason the
president met serially with police station commissioner, mayors and
municipal managers and school principals.
The minister told reporters that there will be something on the fight
against HIV/Aids, and he may well touch on the plans for a national health
insurance system. But Chabane would neither confirm nor deny that anything
would be said about the mandate of the SA Reserve Bank. He said that that
subject would most likely figure on the speech of Finance Minister Pravin
Gordhan when presenting his budget on Wednesday next week.
- I-Net Bridge