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16 May 2005

Your Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Your Excellency the Former President of Mozambique, Honourable Joaquim Alberto Chissano
Premier of Gauteng, Mbhazima Shilowa
Executive Mayor of Tshwane and Interim President of United Cities and Local Governments of Africa, Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa
Vice President of United Cities and Local Government of Africa, Eneas Comiche
President of SALGA, Mayor Amos Masondo
Mayors and Municipal Managers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

Whenever we meet as Africans from all parts of Africa, to put our heads together for the common good of our continent, it is a moment to be celebrated.

May I begin then by thanking the founding associations of the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA) for ensuring that we reach this moment of building unity in African local government. This historic congress, under the theme: “Towards a unified voice for sustainable local government development in Africa”, takes us another step forward in the journey towards the regeneration of our continent.

It is also a great honour for me to welcome the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency President Obasanjo, and the Former President of Mozambique, His Excellency Joaquim Chissano, two outstanding leaders who have dedicated many years to the goal of building a new and prosperous Africa and who have worked closely with South Africa to ensure that Africa regains her dignity and respect. This founding congress is indeed strengthened by their presence.

We congratulate and commend the leadership and delegates for the important step you have taken as our municipalities, local governments, local government associations, villages, towns and cities, to implement the vision and mission to create a Pan-African association of governmental and non-governmental local government practitioners.

Unity requires compromise and humility. It requires a political maturity beyond the norm, something obviously familiar to our local government structures as you have already come this far in terms of commitment to and planning for the formal step of constituting yourselves as one.

In 1906, in the historic article entitled, “The Regeneration of Africa”, esteemed scholar, one of the exceptionally outstanding visionaries a visible moving spirit behind the formation of the African National Congress and one of its former Presidents Pixley ka Isaka Seme, defined the continent’s regeneration as an entrance into a new life, embracing the diverse phases of a higher, complex existence. That is the phase we have entered, many decades since the publication of that article.

We have indeed entered a diverse phase of a higher, complex existence, in which the developing world has to constantly struggle against the powerful forces and institutions that drive globalisation. However, the advantage is that we are not sitting on our laurels, but are building an institutional capacity to deal with the challenges of our time and find solutions.

This congress is yet another example of the forward movement towards finding African solutions to African challenges, on the African soil. It will definitely contribute to peace and stability on the continent.

Distinguished intellectuals, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Franz Fanon have dedicated their time and intellect to the interrogation of colonialism and its effects on the colonised.

One of their observations is the pride with which the thoroughly colonised, most often subconsciously and inadvertently, identify with their colonial languages, culture and heritage, and how, at its worst, colonialism produces slaves who will outdo even their masters in oppressing and dehumanising their brothers and sisters.

It always does us good, as we engage one another on the challenges of our continent, to be alert to these subtle and insidious residues of colonialism on our psyches. It is against the background of the powerful influence of colonialism that the African Diaspora’s discourse on the subject focuses on the decolonisation of the mind, beginning with the eradication of the borders created in our minds even before attempting to reduce, restrictions on the physical borders between our countries.

Today is a day of celebration therefore, because together, as brothers and sisters, and as fighters in the ongoing battle for the liberation of the continent from economic shackles, poverty and underdevelopment, we have decided not to proceed from a premise of territoriality. We have chosen not to allow our geographic divisions – imposed upon us by our colonisers – to define our attitudes towards one another.

Africa is our beginning, Africa is our ending so said a poet from Soweto, Ingoapele Madingoane. That being the case, it is imperative upon us to invest all that we have – morally, intellectually and materially – in the cause of the development of our continent. 

It is incumbent upon us to ensure that the basic, minimum requirements for a life of decency and dignity are available to all Africans. The achievement of that continental vision depends on continental co-operation and unity both in intention and in action.

Already, at a higher political level, this unity is evident, hence the founding of the African Union and its organs and programmes including the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. This unity is now being taken to the local government, the sphere of government that is closest to the people.

People experience local government directly, and that is where we should focus our energies, to make the delivery of services possible and problem-free. Delegates to this founding congress are carrying the hopes, dreams, wishes, yearnings, aspirations and expectations of millions of people in our continent for a better life.  These are ordinary Africans who long for clean water, electricity, sanitation, tarred roads and decent housing.

Upon these are the fundamentals of life – health and economic development – fundamentals upon which all meaningful life processes and activities are based.

It is remarkable that simply by providing these: water, electricity and sanitation, we can eradicate waterborne diseases, reduce the incidence of other diseases, reduce malnutrition, and create conditions for sustainable development, and therefore change the quality of life of millions of our people in the real sense of our beliefs and goals.

I must, however, indicate that local government is much more than the provision of basic water, electricity and sanitation. It is also about basic housing, environmental management, traffic management, primary health care, public transportation, even schooling in some parts of the continent, as well as a host of other mandates, depending on individual countries.

The subthemes of this Congress attest to your comprehension and understanding of the reach and range of the local government mandate and the challenges it poses.

The subthemes are so comprehensive that, if only half of them were to be translated into sustainable programmes of action, the landscape of the continent would be fundamentally transformed for the better, and our people’s lives materially, qualitatively and vastly improved.

Most importantly, our performance as municipalities must be measured in terms of the impact on those among our communities who have, over the years, faced intense marginalisation. If we succeed, which we must, we will have advanced our journey towards total liberation – liberation in all its forms – social, political, and economic.

In the South African context we no longer speak just about local government but about developmental local government. In that concept is our emphasis of participatory democracy, with our communities involved in the development of integrated development plans, budgeting, ward committees and other processes involving them. The social accountability of local government, then, is assured.

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, history has placed upon the delegates of this congress, the challenge of taking the continent one more step forward in its institutional capacity to improve the quality of life of Africans.

May this founding Congress, which I have the pleasure, the pride and the privilege of officially opening, achieve its objectives, for the common good of all the peoples of Africa!

And I trust that our visitors will enjoy the hospitality of our beautiful capital city, and that you will be able to explore some parts of this country - your home, before you depart.

I thank you all.

Issued by: The Presidency
16 May 2005