Thabo Mbeki Quotes

You can't abandon people there and say, go and find a job, when you know they are not going to be able to find one, and therefore starve to death. So we have got to address that matter, but we have got to address it systematically.

Procurement policies of all of the major parastatals, it is a very important element of that processes that will continue.

What we are saying is that we need to consolidate the capacity to lend support. Because, one of the problems that's mentioned with regard to the Black Empowerment process in the case of small and medium business, is shortage of credit or difficulties of accessing credit.

We will continue to count on your unwavering support and commitment to working with leaders of our continent in bringing about the desired renaissance of Africa.

The King had been a good friend of the government and the people of South Africa and we all mourn his passing with our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia.

There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of.

I know there is a lot of concern I know about plans that Iran might have to develop nuclear weapons which arises from positions that Iran took in the past when in fact it did not disclose things to the IAEA… because they were hiding something. I can understand that.

We do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.

Part of the issue around communal land, which became a matter of controversy, is that we are saying that this land must go back to communities. Not chiefs and traditional leaders.

A matter that seems to be very clear in terms of the alternative view, is what do you expect to happen in Africa with regard to immune systems, where people are poor, subject to repeat infections and all of that. Surely you would expect their immune systems to collapse.

You'll find a lot of rural municipalities, very, very big district municipalities that actually have no tax base whereas our system of government presumes that the bulk of resources from government will come from resources that they will generate themselves.

I should also say that apart from the negotiations that are taking place within the WTO, we are ourselves involved in all manner of bilateral negotiations, or, if they are not bilateral, with the South African Customs Union and the European Union. All the member countries of the European Union have now ratified the agreement that we have with the EU and that opens up the EU market in various ways.

South Africa has faced many problems in the past. You would understand those problems if you understood the history of the struggle to get rid of Apartheid and the struggle to establish democracy.

For the first time in human history, society has the capacity, the knowledge and the resources to eradicate poverty

The matters I am talking about regarding the ports. That matter has been discussed with the unions, and agreed, and therefore there is no particular reason why there should be a problem about it. We will continue to move like that. We need the engagement of the unions in these processes.

Our troops are in Burundi. We were requested by African countries who said, look, the United Nations is not moving on this matter, can you people deploy people, so we can move Burundi forward.

You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.

The Auditor-General has been complaining year in and year out that the municipalities have not paid auditing fees. It is not because they are reluctant but they don't have the money to pay the Auditor. So, you can't say that you are throwing money at somebody who doesn't have money. Lots of the things that the municipalities can't do are because resources are not there.

Historically during the years of the White minority regimes, the State, the national Government held this land in trust for these communities. We said, but no, why should we do that ( return the land to the communities). We didn't say return the land to particular traditional leaders, but to the communities.

Really, a critical matter in the public service is radically to improve the quality of management.

We are a very big mining country and historically have been exporters of raw minerals. There is no particular reason why we should not be processing those further.

It will be a comprehensive response. The ID issue is one of them. It will make sure that Home Affairs has the capacity to reach people and to make sure that the people themselves know that they have got to get these documents and where to go to get them.

As Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent.

At the same time, you have got these traditional councils. And the challenge is how to make sure that they function together [with municipal councils], smoothly, and that is part of what this legislation is trying to address.

I think the critical point, really, is that we need to focus black economic empowerment more on the creation of new wealth rather than on these big deals that have been characteristic of this process in the past, of people going to banks, borrowing a lot of money, buying this and when the shares don't perform very well, the shares go back to the banks, because there's other people who own this anyway. I think we need to re-focus it so that it really does impact on growth, new investment, new employment and a general, better spread of wealth in South Africa.

The issue of racism and racial prejudice. It is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the issue of apartheid. Many have made the observation that it is very difficult to find anyone in SA who ever supported apartheid because everyone was opposed, it was against our will and so on.

If you look for instance at the automobile industry, part of the reason that you have the expansion of that sector, is precisely because we have gone out to talk to the automobile companies to explain government policy with regard to that sector, to talk to them about the MIDP and things like that. And indeed, it has been a very important part of attracting those investors to put in money in the South African economy and build motorcars in South Africa.

Do you know what the largest single cause of death in South Africa is? The largest single cause of death is what in the medical statistics is called external causes and that is violence in the society. For instance I've seen figures that say that if you take the male age cohort from16 to 45 years, 54% of the people who die in that age cohort die from external causes.

I am sure it is in the medical textbooks, there are many things that cause immune deficiency and you will find therefore in the South African HIV and AIDS programme, that it will say that part of what we have got to do is to make sure that our health infrastructure, our health system is able to deal adequately with all of the illnesses that are a consequence of AIDS.

It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.

For an investor who is sitting in the United States, and South Africa is very far from the United States, you need to go out to that investor to say, these are the possibilities in this particular sector.

Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village.

If you don't understand history, you will not be able to deal with today's issues.

It 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.

We are very keen to see that nobody gets ill-treated or abused.

The problem is not unique; the challenge is not unique to South Africa. Other African countries have faced it. But in our case, we have got to solve the problem. You have got an institutional traditional leadership, which functions in a particular way, in for instance, your communal areas.

The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living.

When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow!

That it is not enough to catch a criminal and get them convicted and so on, because the victim remains with the consequences of the crime. Something needs to be done. Let's complete that process, interact with civil society about this, so that we will specify what is it that we do in the context of that Charter that would then make this positive impact on people who might have been affected by crime.

That is one of the reasons why we have raised this matter about the need to focus quite sharply on the function of local government, but also on the resourcing of local government. Because it may very well be that we say to local government, you have got to run an indigent policy.

You can see now with all the assurance that people have about the overall general management of the economy, they then ask more specific questions that we are able to answer.

A modern economy and society requires skilled people, so you need to train them.

The matter of social security and these grants is to help to address the levels of poverty in the country.

You might indeed be able to provide this money that people need to start a business, but can they run a business? This new consolidated agency [National Empowerment Fund] focuses on that matter of preparing people so that they can run business successfully.

I don't know why you should isolate women in this regard. If you have a traditional leader who says 'I am the sole exclusive ruler, I am the autocrat', it will affect everybody in the area, whether they are men or women. The challenge that South Africa faces, and it is not a new challenge, a whole range of African countries have faced this challenge, is that where you have institutional traditional leadership, which in our country is protected by the Constitution, how does that institution function side by side with a democratic system?

I have absolutely no problem with the press criticising policies and the things that we do, the things that we say.

If we only said safe sex, use a condom, we won't stop the spread of AIDS in this country.

Read a textbook. It will tell you. These are the things for instance on the African continent that will contribute to immune deficiency, various tropical diseases because of poor infrastructure, general levels of poverty don’t get treated. Syphilis untreated or not properly treated, which as it happens is a big problem as I hear, gets treated, the symptoms disappear but in fact… it … that impacts on the immune system. You’ve got to deal with these things.