APO Round Table Conference For The Promotion Of Productivity Movement In Africa

Programme Director, Dr Dladla,

Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Labour ? Ms Rebecca Kasienyane,

Chairperson of the JIPSA Technical Working Group ? Mr Gwede Mantashe,

ILO Regional Director ? Ms Amri Makhetha,

Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity in Nigeria ? Dr Timiembi Koripano-Agari,

First Secretary of Japan Embassy ? Mr. Hiroshi Hiraizumi,

The Secretary General of the Asian Productivity Organization ? Mr. Shiego Takenaka,

Ladies and gentleman

Good morning and thank you for coming to share with us your invaluable experiences on productivity development and enhancement.

Back in August 1998, the Diakonia Council of Churches here in South Africa, organised a workshop on new forms of poverty and marginalization in the province of Kwazulu Natal. The participants, who represented 42 organisations, heard harrowing tales of deprivation, but also shared stories of survival against all odds.

Back in 1998, the productivity agenda was launched by heads of the SADC region, as well as the drive to engender a consciousness of productivity in Africa by the Pan African Productivity Association.

Back in 1998, the same year I became the Minister of Labour, we saw the passage of the Skills Development Act, and a year later, a Skills Development Levies Act, that had amongst their main objective to improve the skills of the South African work force, to improve work place productivity and to improve the standard of living of our people.

All these initiatives launched before 1998 and beyond, that we have come to celebrate and once more to reflect upon under the banner of PAPA, are part of our collective initiatives and interventions, to reduce unemployment and poverty amongst our people. The high levels of poverty are not challenges that are only echoed in Southern African communities, they affect communities throughout the rest of Africa and other developing world. They reflect a social system, which has for many years perpetuated gross injustices to fundamental human rights ? the right to work, and the right to dignity. As a consequence, these challenges began to escalate to levels that not only threaten the stability of societies, but also had a potential to erupt into full blown unrests.

It was heartening to witness within the ILO structures, the Governing Body Committee on Freedom of Association, Ministers reaffirming that, and I quote "Opportunities for men and women to obtain productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity are essential to ensuring the eradication of hunger and poverty, the improvement of the economic and social well-being for all, the achievement of sustained economic growth and sustainable development of all nations, and a fully inclusive and equitable globalization?.

The United Nations has also adopted a Ministerial Declaration with the hope that it will help strengthen efforts by the UN and the multilateral system aimed at creating jobs, reducing poverty and providing new hope for the world's 1.4 billion working poor and youth in particular, during the next decade.

In South Africa, Youth Development has become an integral part of addressing the challenges of post apartheid South Africa. In devising policies and programmes for the development of all South Africans we have generated policies and programmes that aim to provide opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection. We have also attempted to provide our people with better prospects for personal development and social integration. Our constitution and Labour laws also provide them with rights to organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and guarantees equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men in the work place. In South Africa, as part of our ?decent work? agenda, we believe that WORKER?S RIGHTS are human rights. A happy and a skilled worker is an asset in any organization that wants to achieve maximum productivity, growth, best service delivery standards or profits. The opposite can therefore be also true for a worker who is disgruntled and has inadequate skills in any work place.

We have also introduced new interventions and approaches in our Learnerships, Apprenticeship, Internship and bursary programmes for our young people and I still believe we can do more. We have done all this because at the core of our concerns is the challenge of creating a solid foundation for a productive nation. By placing young people and their development in the broader context of reconstruction and development, common developmental goals and a spirit of cooperation and coordination is encouraged. It is also expected that by building the productive capacity of our youth, whether through mentoring or formal training, a spirit of entrepreneurship will flame a vibrant SMME sector.

We host this conference fully cognizant of the challenges we face as government leaders to uplift the lives of our people, and the potential that productivity has in lifting our people out of the abyss of all the many social ills.

As government we have set a goal to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014. To achieve this, we have committed to spend more than R370 billion under the ASGI-SA- initiative, over the next three years towards social and economic massive infrastructure such as roads, schools, and municipal infrastructure. Through this initiative we are hoping to accelerate the growth of our economy by at-least 6%.

To our guest, you may be also aware that we have won the bid to host the soccer world cup and not Australia as some maverick has suggested. Let me on the same token also acknowledge that hosting the world cup comes with challenges as demonstrated in Germany just less than two month ago. However, our President, has promised the world, that South Africa, will host one of the best and first ever soccer spectacular on behalf of the African continent. We have no doubt that will succeed with the support of our brothers and sisters across the north of our country.

As a country, We have also identified six major constraints that impact on our ability to succeed in achieving our goals, and my department is already well involved on two of these which are:

?          Shortage of suitably skilled labour and disjointed spatial settlement patterns and

?          Regulatory environment and burden on small and medium enterprises

Looking at the strides our nation took and achievements since the advent of democracy in 1994, we are confident that we will achieve the national goals that we have set. Within the first decade of our democracy, the South African economy grew by about 3%. Since then it has exceeded 4% per year, reaching 5% in 2005. Similarly, according to the recent World Competitiveness Report, South African multifactor productivity increased by a healthy 3.5%. I am not suggesting that we remain complacent.  We still have a challenge to translate these productivity gains into more jobs and improved standard of living for our people.

I hope that this Conference will enable us to learn and share in the productivity gains experienced by most Asian countries, who today, are the front runners in the world competitiveness stage. Their achievements provide and inspire us with compelling reasons to follow the same model that has seen a change in the economies of these countries. It is our belief that in creating partnerships with our Asian counterparts, through sharing of their productivity experiences, productivity movement in Africa will be enhanced.

I look forward to the Pan African Productivity Association in assisting African countries, under the banner of the New Partnership for Africa?s Development (NEPAD), to focus on self-sustained development.

Let me also, on behalf of the South African government, take this opportunity to applaud the effort and commitment of the Japanese government, in strengthening Productivity Organisations in Africa, so that they can play a leading role in self development effort in our continent.

For South Africa, achieving economic efficiency and greater productivity, has acquired a new sense of urgency, and my department, in support of the National Productivity Institution has taken on this challenge with renewed vigour and excitement.

To this end, the NPI under a new brand, Productivity SA, will be embarking on an aggressive productivity movement which I am hoping will inspire every South African to become ?A Proudly South African?.

We are very proud to host you and hope that deliberations in the next four days will plant a seed in our respective countries for a greater productivity improvement drive. A vibrant Productivity Movement is essential for a stable growth and development of the whole of AFRICA. Let us join hands in becoming the Champions of Productivity.

I thank you