The parastatals are an important driver of the process of Black Economic Empowerment and they have been doing it, and will continue to do it.
Thabo MbekiI have absolutely no problem with the press criticising policies and the things that we do, the things that we say.
Thabo MbekiWe are continuously looking at the question of increasing the capacity of Home Affairs and that is why Home Affairs introduced mobile units, to be able to reach people. The matter of the establishment of the Social Security Agency was to deal with the matter of the more efficient distribution of these grants, the reductions in the levels of corruption and greater sensitivity. You are dealing with vulnerable people, like the elderly, who you needed to find a way of addressing, so that people don't have to be waiting in the sun in the queue, and so on.
Thabo MbekiIt is quite easy to understand what China would need from the African continent with regards to its own economy, raw materials, oil and a market for manufactured goods. As I say it is not difficulty to understand and perfectly legitimate. There is nothing wrong with that.
Thabo MbekiClearly, there needs to be an increase in the capacity of the railway system. That's why there are these projections of increasing the capacity to carry freight on the railways by 30% over the next five years or so, because the volume of goods moved up and down, imports, exports, and within the country, has grown much larger than the capacity. And this is part of the higher costs to business, because charges, for instance, at the ports become too high and they put up the prices of these goods, whether they are imports or exports. You want to reduce that.
Thabo Mbeki