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On behalf of South Africa and the organisers of this Conference, I extend our warm hospitality to all of you.

I greet those beyond Sub-Sahara with appreciation for the interest and commitment to Africa which you are showing by your being here.

I welcome our fellow Sub-Saharan Africans with whom we share the responsibility of developing this massive though still largely undeveloped part of the world's workshop.

The Sahara Desert, with an area of 8,5 million square kilometres - almost equivalent to the United States' 9,3 million - is the world's largest arid area. Sub-Saharan Africa is not, as its name might suggest, the subterranean zone lying underneath the desert's wind-swept sands. Instead it is the area shown south of the Sahara on maps that put the Northern Hemisphere on top. It embraces most of Africa. It excludes only the continent's northern littoral countries from Morocco to Egypt.

The Sub-Sahara covers just under a fifth of the world's land area and is home to under a tenth of its people. With twice the population of the United States, its combined GDP is about 4%, and its average per capita GDP about 2,4%, of the equivalent United States figures.

Sub-Saharan Africa has an abundance of natural resources, including minerals and energy. Mining plays an important role in about half of Sub-Saharan countries. There is gold, platinum and diamonds. There are the ferrous metals: iron, chrome, vanadium and titanium. There are the base metals: nickel, copper, cobalt, lead and zinc. There are large reserves of coal. There is substantial gas and oil.

A recent Financial Times Survey found that 164 major mining companies allocated 12% of their combined 1995 exploration budgets to Africa. During the same year, exploration expenditure in Africa rose by 61% to $320 million - close to the figure in Canada and more than that in the United States.

This is a start but it is still difficult to attract investment to the more downstream sectors. They are more capital intensive and high risk. But they are also more rewarding in terms of growth, revenue, skills and jobs.

Despite its resources and primary investment growth, Sub-Saharan Africa remains a poor region. Why? President Mandela on occasion quoted Shakespeare: "The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves". One might add that " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie". Whatever the answer is, then, it lies with us. Whatever needs to be done, it is up to us to do it. No sugar plum fairy is going to arrive from Japan, the United States, Europe or Asia to wave a magic wand.

What is it that we in Sub-Saharan Africa must do? One thing we must do is accept and implement the fundamental requirements for industrial growth. These requirements include:

a stable political climate with corruption and violence reduced; security of property rights for those who invest; fiscal policies which allow equitable and exportable profits;

reduced government involvement in business so that the efficiencies of competition have full rein; government which focuses on its specific functions, namely: law and order, education, health, and infrastructural planning;

consistent and unambiguous support of a market-orientated economic system, by now pragmatically established as the best system to produce prospering societies;

the setting up of an effective regional database on the Internet as part of an improved information network; and the standardisation of measurements, rules and regulations;

reduced government consumption of capital, i.e. reduced tax, leaving more money in the hands of the people to create a demand-driven supply of industrial products;

acceptance of the interdependence of all the countries of the region; development of a stronger sense of belonging to the Sub-Sahara, seen by others as a continental entity; a pooling of resources and skills; the establishment of efficient co-operative structures and trading mechanisms to achieve a commercial and trading community of nations; vigorous Sub-Saharan private sector organisations in fields like mining, energy, trade, transported tourism;

the development of a charter of economic norms, political freedoms and fundamental rights in line with the principles subscribed to in the industrial democracies of the world;

lowering population growth by campaigns on the role of a limited family in building up one's society and region, and improving living standards; and

the strengthening of our work ethic; learning how to work with dedication and creativity, to become passionate about the rewards and desirability of productive work and an entrepreneurial spirit.

The successful, industrialised world does not expect us to achieve these objectives overnight. What we must establish is a credible commitment, willingness and capability to do so. We need to convince the outside world that we can do it - at a given pace, and in terms of a definite programme.

President Mandela's message during his recent visit to Germany was: nationalisation is out and privatisation is in. This has already had an effect on potential financial assistance from Germany. The same message needs to be repeated again and again both in South Africa and throughout Sub-Sahara. Many African countries, having learned from bitter experience, are even more committed to this road than we are.

We all know the phrase Big Brother is watching you. Well, Big Brother - the world out there - watches Sub-Saharan Africa as he does other places on our planet. He does it not malevolently or with evil intent but watching and looking for suitable investment opportunities, chances to engage in productive economic activity.

The world's investors and traders assess us, read government statements and evaluate legislative programmes. Bank information services continually analyse the state of the world's nations and regions. We need to make an impact against that backdrop. Gone are the days when we could avoid detailed and clinical analysis of our internal affairs. Our economic, political and social existence has become the property of the world community.

What role can the oil and minerals industries play in this?

Except for South Africa, Sub-Saharan oil and mineral resources are relatively under-explored and offer interesting opportunities for overseas investors. Even in South Africa, many exploration opportunities still exist. Overseas investors are not yet sufficiently aware of the rewarding opportunities that exist in promoting the beneficiation or the adding of value to raw materials on the African continent.

An excellent to do this is for existing primary or raw materials exporters to set up joint beneficiation ventures with overseas customers. In that way the exporter does not risk entering into competition with his customers. Similarly, the customer/investor does not need to find alternative sources of supply. Both benefit from the economies of converting a bulky raw material into a more compact, higher-value, manufactured product. Only then need it be transported half way across the globe. Another advantage is that Africa, and especially Southern Africa, is relatively near the expanding eastern markets.

There are, it is true, still factors to overcome if Africa south of the Sahara is to attract more investment. They include the small size of most of its economies; its undeveloped financial sector; corruption; criminality in general and its weak physical infrastructure.

But the African mining industry is attracting international attention from mining investors and explorers. African countries have large abandoned their failed post-colonial economic experiments. They have introduced serious economic reforms. There are becoming less regulated and more investor-friendly. About 30 African countries have significantly changed their mining investment laws over the last 10 years. They guarantee security of tenure, expatriation of profits and minimal state interference.

Seventy five percent of investment in Sub-Sahara is in what concerns this Conference - hydrocarbons and mining. One out of every four of the 1995 investments approved by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation is in Sub-Sahara.

The World Bank's 1995 Annual Report points out that Sub-Sahara's 1994 Gross Domestic Product (excluding Nigeria and South Africa) grew by 1,2%. It predicted that economically the Sub-Sahara would grow more than three times faster over the next few years. Twenty-one Sub-Saharan countries achieved positive per capita income growth from 1988 to 1993, a trend that continued and spread in 1994. About half of these countries, representing nearly 30% of the region's income and nearly 40% of its population, attained or exceeded 1994 GDP growth rates of between 4 and 6%. These percentages come off a low base, but they are encouraging.

At every opportunity both here and overseas I have been urging the successful industrial democracies to look at the Sub-Sahara with new eyes. The region needs a new beginning. It needs a basic decision, a basic commitment. The initiative should be in the very areas this Conference will discuss: oil and minerals, and particularly oil.

One of the keys to unlocking the potential of the Sub-Sahara is electricity. The extension of electricity has an extraordinary effect on economic development. The Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and North America was made possible by the unleashing of new forms of energy - electricity, petroleum, coal. In 1850, 90% of the United States' energy was provided by firewood. The first practical electric light bulbs were developed during the 1870s. By 1900 - only thirty years later - electricity was in use in many places throughout the world. Since 1920 electrically-driven modern appliances have further transformed daily life for millions.

What is the potential for a Trans-African energy grid? Can it not do something similar for the benighted African continent? The establishment of the Southern African Power Pool has enhanced the availability of electricity for this region. The centre-pin for Sub-Sahara must surely be the Inga project on the Zaire river, within Zaire itself. Inga is 200 kilometres from the sea, about half way between the coast and Kinshasa.

I first drew attention to this potential powerhouse at last year's Sub-Saharan Conference. It is capable of generating enough electricity to supply the whole of Africa, probably also part of Europe and/or the Middle East.

Inga can produce a definite 45 000 megawatt - about double South Africa's current consumption. South Africa in turn accounts for two thirds of Sub-Sahara's electricity consumption. There are already two small hydro-electric schemes, Inga 1 and Inga 2, with a maximum capacity of 1 775 megawatt. Inga 3, the next phase, would produce an additional 3 500 megawatts, without the need for building a dam.

But in a separate basin parallel to the flow used by the existing projects, slumbers a hydro-electric giant of world proportions. Let us call it Grand Inga, a development which would deliver about 40 000 megawatt. The Egyptian and Zairian Governments have already commissioned a pre-feasibility study on the construction of dams, power lines and other infrastructure to carry Inga's electricity to Cairo and beyond.

Three remarkable attributes make it a world phenomenon. The first is the incredible power of the river's flow. At Inga, when the river flow is at its lowest, 25 000 cubic metres of water surge to the sea every second. This can increase to as much as 80 000 cubic metres per second when the river is full. The Zaire is the ninth largest world river in terms of length. But only the Amazon and the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh exceed the Zaire's average discharge rate of 41 000 cubic metres per second.

The second attribute is the steep drop of the river course at Inga. Over a distance of 20 kilometres, the river plunges by 150 metres. This, combined with the latest design of low-head water turbine which reduces the necessary height difference to produce a given amount of electricity, adds up to a formidable energy dynamo.

Thirdly, at the end of this massive water course, there is a natural gap which allows the construction of 13 turbines each with a capacity of 3 000 megawatt. This would constitute by far the largest hydro-electric scheme in the world, three times larger than Brazil and Paraguay's Itaipu and one-and-a-half times Russia's Turukhansk.

This is not to say that there are not formidable obstacles: political instability in the region; unprecedentedly long power lines of 5 000 kilometres to Cairo and 3 500 kilometres to Johannesburg; the massive interest charges with years before the first returns; and the question of whether and when there will be customers able to draw of the power. There are plenty of sceptics who say this will be an impractical dream for decades.

There are also other beginning to consider the prospect seriously. I refer to my Egyptian friends and their pre-feasibility study. I refer to banks and engineers with whom I consulted in Frankfurt last week. Whatever the time needed to make Grand Inga a reality, the time to start planning is now. I predict that the time will come when the energy possibilities of Inga become so compelling that if Africa has not developed it by then, Europe will.

The Energy Ministers of the Southern African Development Community are due to meet at Mbabane in Swaziland this weekend. Inga will hopefully be one of matters we will discuss.

The Southern African grid demand will take some 20 years at an average GDP growth of 5 - 6% annually to utilise Inga's capacity if no other power plant is provided. Even if half of this capacity is availability to SADC countries (which is high) we would cope, with other projects on the Zambesi and new gas and coal-fired stations. Half of Inga's capacity could be exported northwards to North Africa, Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. We are not in competition with the North for Inga capacity.

What is necessary to get the Inga Project moving? We need:

to develop a synthesis report on recent studies and a draft strategy on integrating they hydro-electric potential with North Africa's plans;
to establish the possible demand for Inga power and when it will be required;
to welcome Zaire's electricity utility, SNEL, as a Southern African Power Pool member;
to strengthen transmission systems through Angola and Namibia - and through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana - to South Africa; and
to start arousing the interest of world financial-agents.

True, the basis of this grid will be hydro-electricity, not oil. Yet we all know that where electricity goes, development follows, Where there is development, the need for oil, minerals and their products grows. I see no reason why the powerful exploration companies of the world should not be amongst the prime movers to realise this potential in an as yet underdeveloped region.

Pinpoints of light are visible in Africa. There are increasing opportunities for enterprising entrepreneurs like yourselves to carry effective economic endeavour to those pinpoints. By so doing you will expand them into ever-increasing fields of light, the kind of light that sprawls over Gauteng.

I will soon be leaving South African politics after 26 years. I will not burden you with reminiscences. I realise that ultimately each of us - particularly men! - will have to account for our transgressions. That is a lonely venture and must be done all by oneself. No audience can help you there. In that process we stand alone.

In the meantime I have no intention of becoming a recluse. I may still be useful to drive a truck or two on certain roads, those which I know well - the sharp curves, the potholes, the tricky surfaces. There may still be a distance to be travelled.

Until then, have a good conference - and remember Inga!

<EOD>