We have worked in communities for 25 years and got our hands dirty by working with people in the trenches. I myself have lived all my life in rural areas among the poorest of the poor. I worked with black workers in Durban in the 70's as Chancellor of the Institute for Industrial Education, with Professor Lawrence Schlemmer. It was this very work that I did amongst workers championing their cause before Africans were allowed to join trade unions, which earned me, jointly with the late Dr Neil Aggett, the George Meany Human Rights Award, from the largest trade union in the democratic world, the AFL-CIO in the United States. I participated with my Minister of Interior the late Barney Dladla, in the 1973 Durban strikes which was a turning point in labour relations in this country.
Prosperity can only be for all.
The country is not doing well. Our economy is not doing well. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and unemployment is becoming rampant. Crime is becoming rampant, feeding on poverty and abject social and economic conditions. This has been caused in no small part by people who have forgotten the importance of development and have put economic growth and stringent economic policies as second items on the national agenda.