Thabo Mbeki Quotes

I am sure that it wouldn’t be in the long-term interests of China which would continue to depend on these African resources for a very long time to see the emergence of any sense of hostility animosity, tension, da da da, between itself and the African continent.

The point we are making is that the general global messages have been communicated, about the politics of South Africa, about the economy in general, all of these general questions. The rest of the world understands these things and are saying, let's now come to the specific things so that even we, as big corporate chiefs from around the world, can assist in these areas, which you have decided are your priority areas.

There are two pieces of legislation that are related. There's the Communal Land Rights Bill. Then there is the legislation that was approved which has to do with the role and the place and the function of the institution of traditional leadership. Now that legislation, not the Communal Land Rights Bill, provides for the setting up of particular committees that would work together with the elected municipalities.

Certainly the Government has tried to handle the matter of our relations with the rest of the Continent in a very sensitive manner.

I am quite convinced that we need to increase the resources that go to municipalities if we want the municipalities to do the things the Constitution and the law say they must do. It can't be avoided.

Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you.

Those who oppressed us described us as the Dark Continent!

Of course we run a very open economy, and therefore what happens in the rest of the world, in economic terms, obviously has an impact on us.

We have to continue to confront the challenge of corruption within the public service.

The public service needs lots of people, South Africa generally, needs lots of people.

I think you're a much happier person if you say 'Even if I get involved in politics, I'm only doing so in order to serve the people'. You will sleep much easier, not serving yourself, but having done your best to serve the people. Even if you have not succeeded, at least you've tried. You haven't stolen anything, and you haven't robbed the people.

This is community land that belongs to particular clans, and therefore, it must go back and its administration and the determination as to what to do, must rest in the hand of the communities. That is why you have these committees, among whose members, of course, they will be traditional leaders. You will have these collectives, which must then deal with the land, the issue of communal rights.

China surely must be interested in a more stable, non-antagonistic relationship with the African continent precisely because of its own needs. And therefore would have to say in our own interests, as China, it is necessary that we participate in the process of the development of the African continent.

I think the Internet is absolutely extraordinary. It's very, very useful and I think one of the things we've got to do is make sure that the African continent gets on to that information super highway.

The question arose, how would the communities manage this land on their own. That's why the Communal Land Rights Bill then borrows an institution that is set up in terms of the role and function and powers of the institutional traditional leadership ( borrows that committee and uses that committee).

If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects.

Those communal areas have got elected municipalities, which have got to do their work as, as fully, democratically elected municipal councils.

The law enforcement authorities have got a fairly good idea of who are these principal criminals. Who are the people, for instance, who receive the cell phones? When a young person goes and snatches a cell phone, there's someone who is sitting somewhere who receives this. Lots of this kind of crime.

There must be public servants who are working regularly among the people.

The principal investors in the South African economy are South Africans. And this is something, I think, we should really pay attention to.

None dare challenge me when i say i am an Afrikan.

If you look at the Company Register, maybe that's what we should say to that business consultant or analyst. If you look at the Company Register with the Department of Trade and Industry, one of the remarkable things that you will see over the last few years is, in fact, the growth of small and medium business, many of whom depend on these services to succeed.

I don't suppose I would describe myself as a showman.

I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education.

I was very fortunate to be able to go to school and university, because many people our age couldn't complete school. This gift of education must be used in whatever ways we can to uplift the people.

It is also important to respect the fact that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which treaty spells out the rights and obligations of signatures to the treaty and therefore that we can’t deny Iran the rights due to it as a signature of the NPT.

The people who steal cars, there's somebody there who is the master, who orders the cars, or just takes a car when it is brought? I am saying the law enforcement authorities have a pretty good idea about a lot of these kind of persons. We want it to pool all that knowledge and all those resources, so that they focus on these people.

One of the matters that must be addressed is that Rwanda and Uganda have to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We're also supporting processes to ensure that the political dialogue among the Congolese themselves takes place so that the people there can decide their future.

We need to increase the capacity; we need to improve performance so that we are more effective at lending that kind of support.

I must say, with regard to Equatorial Guinea, the Government of Equatorial Guinea, as soon as they had arrested these people, sent a delegation here to say they are going to charge them because they have got sufficient information to say these people were planning to remove the Government of Equatorial Guinea by force.

The engagements with the International Investment Council have developed in a very interesting way. It is, again, the point I raised at the beginning.

One of the things that became clear, and which was actually rather disturbing, was the fact that there was a view which was being expressed by people whose scientific credentials you can't question

We would take the same position as the majority of the world about this, including this issue where Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon made a commitment to pull Israeli troops out of Gaza.

We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.

South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination.

We are in the process of negotiating an agreement with the United States. We will be negotiating agreements with India and China. We are in the process of negotiating an agreement with Mercosur, South America. So there are a number of these trade agreements in the major markets of the world.

Science is always inquiring.

South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?'

We very constantly run this campaign to encourage people to go and get Identity Documents, to register, and so on. We'll continue to do that.

We need to do a lot of restructuring of the existing ports, particularly Durban. The separation of oversight and regulation from operations in the port, the possibility of bringing in private investors, to put in new investment to build capacity in the port. So, the restructuring of the ports will take place like that.

I don't think there would be many examples of South Africa pushing its weight around the African Continent. I don't think the facts would substantiate that argument.

One of the issues that I have raised in that context is our transport system, road, rail and ports. We have raised this before, that the South African economy has grown at a rate that has overtaken the capacity of the transport system. And therefore, we have said that it is necessary to expand our capacity in the ports.

There are black companies that are very active in the economy, that are growing and not on the basis of mergers and acquisitions, but because of putting new money into their particular companies and, therefore, their particular sectors. Indeed, if they didn't do that, they would collapse as companies.

There is a section of our population in South Africa that you can't expect to get integrated in the economy of its own. These are people without skills and that will include young people who might very well have matric certificates, but don't have the skills to be absorbed in the economy. So we need to target people like those in a special way, in a focused way so that they have the skills and the capacity to participate in the economy. That requires special programmes.

As a consequence of the victories we have registered during our first ten years of freedom, we have laid a firm foundation for the new advances we must and will make during the next decade.

Сertainly to the extent that we talk about not just procurement in the sense of acquiring goods from the rest of the economy, even to the extent that it is possible to bring Black players in areas where we say we need to raise the capacity of these organisations to deliver services, it is a very important part.

I would regret it if I'd failed at school and university, because if I had, I would have lacked the levels of education necessary to making a serious contribution to building South Africa.

We identified various sectors of the economy, which we said were growth sectors. I have mentioned tourism. We said, for instance, agro-business. We grow a lot of food and fruit and things like that. It must be possible to process those.