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The most serious challenge new confronting the South African society is the implementation of the RDP. The government and the politicians is acutely aware of this challenge because after being elected into power we have to show our constituents that we addressing their legitimate expectations. While expectations may high, I believe that on average our people are not unreasonable.

THE RDP WHITE PAPER

1. Restructure the budget

Government is committed to fiscal discipline, because as we said before the election the RDP is not an "ad on" programme. The maintenance of fiscal discipline is central to the medium- to long-term sustainability of the RDP.
Re-direct spending within the constraints of the budget. The FDP Fund has an important role to redirect expenditure to capital expenditure and leverage resources from the line departments for recurrent expenditure on the key programmes of the RDP.
Budgetary procedure - At present the budget is decided on a historical coast basis. We are proposing to change the budgetary procedure to a zero-based, multi-year budget. Each department must motivate each programme.
The challenge for each department is to redirect expenditure within their budgets tot he new priorities. Example of the Education Department which already absorb 21,7% of 1994/95 budget.

2. Restructure the public service

natural attrition
redeployment of staff in the programmes that will address the priorities of the RDP
addressing the legitimate grievances of the civil service, such as the wage gap, the grading system and career paths.
improving efficiency and productivity
promote greater transparency - Freedom of information

3. Institutional reform

The interim constitution already introduced significant reforms. We now have a Senate, National Assembly and a Constitutional assembly and nine Provinces.
The major challenge to establish legitimate transitional local government structures. Local government will be the key to effective implementation of the RDP.
The reforms introduced at present are designed to reorientate the parastatals and development agencies.

4. Performance assessment

The government insists that all programmes and projects are assessed against agreed Key Performance Indicators.
We are concerned with accountability not only in the sense of presenting vouchers for spending, but also the quality of the spending.

5. Partnership and the role of civil society

Government wants to build a genuine partnership with the business community, the labour movement and the community organisations.
The establishment of NEDLC is an important development in this regard.
This partnership should not be build on pomp and ceremony, but on concrete agreements that will unblock the constraints to delivery of the RDP.
Rights and responsibilities.
Building the capacity of civil society to meaningfully interact with government, especially those institutions of the poorest sections of our society, such as women, rural, youth ets.

IN SUMMARY THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IS:

to create an enabling environment for the promotion of a growing economy and meeting the basic needs of our people.
to re-direct public expenditure and investment in line with the objectives of the RDP.
to building an effective partnership with civil society.

THE ROLE OF BUSINESS

1. Private investment

Public investment will create new opportunities and government will wish to encourage private investment in enhancing the productive capacity of our economy.

Our industries must take these opportunities by developing excellent products that will address needs of our people and create niche markets for export.

The mobilisation of domestic savings is crucial and promotion of domestic investment in productive capacity will facilitate foreign direct investment.

2. Human Resource Development

The government will make a major contribution to the development of our human resources. The people of our country is our biggest asset.
We need to focus on developing our technical expertise. Our formal education system must be able to produce the technicians and engineers that can improve the capacity of our economy to deliver the excellent products.
Business have an important role play in this area:
Affirmative Action
developing career paths
Improving the management capacity

3. Competitiveness

We must accept that we cannot isolate our economy from the world economy. Therefore we must enhance our competitiveness in the global economy.

The earlier points are relevant - HRD, affirmative action, technical expertise.

Promotion of research and development

Productivity of both capital and labour is going to require innovative managers.

4. Black economic empowerment

The easiest thing to do is to put a few black faces on the boards of companies, this is not enough.

Building a partnership between big business and small enterprises

Government intend to support the promotion of SMME;s by facilitating access to credit, support on technology access to markets and so on.

Transforming the relationship on the shopfloor between organised workers and management.

IN SUMMARY THE ROLE OF BUSINESS IS:

Promotion of private investment in productive capacity.
Contribute to our human resource development programme.
Enhancing the competitiveness of our economy.
Black economic empowerment.