There are several reasons why it is always a very special occasion for me to be in Greytown.  I will not go into all of them, but I will mention a couple of the reasons which make my visit to Greytown always such a very special occasion for me.  As many of you know, Greytown is where my maternal great-grandfather King Dinuzulu Ka CETSHWAYO KA MPANDE was tried for High Treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. 

Being here always makes the words of my late mother Princess MAGOGO KA DINUZULU to ring in my ears as she told me so many times, of the day that her father King Dinuzulu was arrested by soldiers at his Osuthu Royal Residence.  It was always painful for me to listen to her as she narrated the story of her father’s arrest.  But at the same time was tickled when she would herself giggle like a child as she told me of how these same soldiers who were tasked with the duty of arresting the King her father, would give them as children some biscuits on this very sad occasion.  Being children they were only too happy to eat the biscuits on this sad day when they were seeing their father for the very last time.  They never saw him alive again even though he was released from jail by the first Prime Minister of South Africa General Louis Botha, because after his release he was whisked away to ‘Uitkyk’ farm in Middelburg in the then Transvaal, where he was exiled until the time of his death in 1913.  He had previously been exiled to the Island of St Helena, where two of my mother’s two brothers King Solomon Ka Dinuzulu and Prince Mshiyeni Ka Dinuzulu were born.  All these things flood my mind whenever I am in Greytown.

The other thing that comes to my mind when I am in Greytown is the story that the Princess, my mother, often told me about how her father King Dinuzulu got into all this trouble because, Inkosi BAMBATHA KA MANCINZA ZONDI asked the King, her father to give sanctuary to his wife SIYEKIWE (uMA-ZUMA) and his daughter Kholekile.  All these things flood my mind that this is after all the home district of Inkosi Zondi whose actions shook the whole Zulu Kingdom.

When I am here in Muden, I cannot help but think of my late father-in-law Zacharich MLUNGUMNYAMA Ka JOSEPH MZILA, whose umbilical cord lies in Muden.  Although I met my wife Irene Thandekile Mzila in Johannesburg, where she was born and bred her roots were in Muden, where her father was born.  She regretted very much being unable to be here with me today.  Her father used to call her “MA-MCHUNU” because he used to tell me that she reminded him of her mother, who was a descendant of Amakhosi of the Chunu Clan.

 All of these things and others make Greytown to have a very special place in my heart.  And of course as you all know I have also been given the freedom of Greytown and I am thus an Alderman of Greytown.  These things may not appear to be so important for the purposes of today’s meeting.  But I definitely consider some of them as important phases of our struggle for liberation.  It saddens me that now that we are liberated that some of my forebears such as King Cetshwayo, King Dinuzulu, my maternal grandfather, Mkhandumba Ka Mnyamana and others, in this Kingdom, are hardly mentioned whenever reference is made to the annals of this Kingdom.  I am also moved to be in the area of Inkosi Simakade Mchunu with whom I have traveled this long journey.  Also being in this district of Reverend Celani Mtetwa.  The two of them are among very few people who elected me to head the then Zulu Territorial Authority in June 1970 in Nongoma, who are still alive.

However, it is a great pleasure for me to be in Msinga again.  I have maintained a longstanding dialogue with the people of this region for many, many years.  For many decades the people of this region have seen the type of commitment that the IFP leadership has given in respect of a variety of issues.  You know me.  You know the IFP.  It is time that the all of South Africa gets to know us.  We have been the champions of development.  We have been the champions of commitment to the people of this region, to the people of KwaZulu Natal and to the people of South Africa.  We come to this region with an established track record which spells out our commitment, credibility and integrity.  It is on the strength of this track record that, from this region where we are well known, we launch an appeal to all South Africans to look at our track record and make it possible for the whole of South Africa to enjoy a much greater measure of IFP leadership. 

The IFP is good for South Africa.  The stronger the IFP, the better South Africa will be after the next elections.  There are only forty days left between now, and the destiny-determining time in which the South African people will have to choose whether to leave South Africa the way it is, or make it better.  South Africa deserves to be better.  The stronger  the IFP after the next elections, the better South Africa will be.  In fact, if the IFP wins, it will be the South African people who win.  The IFP wishes to be the vehicle through which the South African people may make their voice heard on April 14th. 

There is a lot about which the voice of the South African people must be heard.  I have travelled the length and breadth of the whole of South Africa.  I have heard the voice of the South African people.  Thousands of South Africans have come to me to place before me their concerns and their aspirations.  I have heard their concerns and I know what they are, because they are the concerns of my own people.  However, I wonder how many other people in Government have really heard the concerns of those who are suffering and struggling across the length and breadth of our country.  For their voice to be heard, the electoral result must make the IFP stronger, otherwise things will remain just the way they are, and the voice of dissatisfaction and concern of the many South African people who are now suffering and struggling now will just not be heard.

By the thousands South Africans have come to me, expressing their grave concerns about the way Government has been handling issues such as HIV/AIDS, crime, unemployment, poverty and corruption.  These are five very severe crises which have the potential of undermining all the gains we have achieved with our liberation.  During the past ten years an enormity has been achieved by our Government.  Development has been brought into areas which have never before seen it before.  In fact, one would have to be blind not to accept that during the past ten years great miracles have been performed, and that a lot has been done to increase the quality of life for vast segments of our population.  Democracy has been consolidated along with its many freedoms.  All segments of our legislation relating both to Government and civil society alike, have been changed by profound reforms passed by Parliament.  Government has brought many services to people who had not received the benefit of them beforehand.  However, over and above what Government has done, the South African people themselves have in the past ten years placed our country into a new and faster pace of growth and development.  Even without the assistance of Government, a large amount of development has taken place throughout the country at all levels, ranging from residential to commercial and industrial development, on a scale and quantity never before seen.  I say this because we recognise that the past ten years have, indeed, been successful in many, many respects.

However, there have been five areas in which the stigma of failure has tarnished Government’s record and has generated grave concerns in the South African people.  Our country is, indeed, in crisis because of HIV/AIDS, crime, unemployment, rising poverty and corruption. These are five areas of crises which have been long ignored by the Government, to the point of their very existence, being denied and then trying to downplay their magnitude, importance and consequences for all of us.  I do not need to describe these problems to the South African people and to the people of this region, because we all experience them day in and day out.  The crisis of HIV/AIDS has reached into the depths of all of our families, workplaces and communities.  Today, we are all either infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.  It is a crisis which is leaving no one beyond its reach, for we all either suffer of this terrible disease, or know people who are suffering from it.  Even if we do not know anyone who is suffering from it, or who has died of it, we will, nonetheless, be affected, because of the enormous negative consequences which this pandemic will have on our entire country and its economy and social structure.

Yet, Government’s actions in this field remain extremely ambivalent and ineffective.  In spite of many promises made, anti-retroviral drugs have not yet been rolled out throughout the country, as should have been the case a long time ago.  The South African people must decide at the next elections whether they want to continue believing in promises, or  if they are ready to demand from their Government, action, action and more action.  I have never promised that which I could not deliver.  The IFP has never promised that which we could not deliver.  We have never made promises our politics.  We have never relied on the politics of promises.  Unfortunately, for the past ten years, there have been a great number of promises made to the South African people, which were never fulfilled.  Once again the politics of promises now characterise these elections.  We have promises in the field of HIV/AIDS as well as in the other fields in respect of which great crises exist.  We hear many promises about the way in which unemployment is going to be solved, crime is going to be limited and resolved, and poverty in rural areas is going to be alleviated. 

However, when April 14^th comes, the South African people will need to choose between voting for promises, or voting for action.  If they choose to vote for action, progress and change, they must empower the IFP to provide its leadership.  The stronger the IFP, the more action there will be in South Africa.  If people prefer promises to action, then they can continue to empower those who, thus far, have made so many promises which have not been fulfilled. 

I believe that the next elections are going to be the most important elections South Africa has ever held.  Never before, as like with this election, were South Africans able to choose between what they really wanted for our future.  If South Africans wish to have five more years of the same, then they can continue to empower the ANC with the task of ruling the country.  However, if South Africans feel that more and better needs to be done in respect of HIV/AIDS, crime, unemployment, economic growth, poverty and corruption, then they must look beyond the ANC because, in the past ten years, the ANC has clearly shown its lack of political will and vision in dealing with these problems. 

On the contrary, the IFP has, for the past ten years put forward clear, tangible and effective proposals which would have solved these problems, or at least redressed their magnitude and implications.  For too long, what the IFP has proposed, has not been done.  For too long, the South African people have suffered because the IFP proposals and visions have not been implemented.  At the next elections we need to ensure that people are no longer forced to suffer from things from which they ought not to suffer, and that they receive the benefit of the IFP proposals and strategies.  In this Province we have been leaders in the field of HIV/AIDS, and we have developed programmes which have alleviated the sufferings of many people. 

It is in this Province that effective programmes, which prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to their newborn babies have commenced.  It is in this Province that we have declared war on HIV/AIDS and moved forward programmes which have not yet been implemented in many other provinces.  However, what can be done at the provincial level is limited.  In order to do more for the South African people in general, and for those of this Province in particular, we need to bring the IFP into power at the national level.  The stronger the IFP at the national level, the stronger the possibility will be of dealing with problems like HIV/AIDS, crime, unemployment, corruption and poverty in an effective manner.

Our proposal to redress the plight of unemployment and deal with our insufficient economic growth has been on the table for ten years.  Indeed, it would not be unfair or exaggerated to say that what has been done in the fields of economic growth and unemployment, was all contained in the proposals the IFP made.  Whatever good has been done in South Africa to promote employment and stimulate economic growth was part and parcel of the IFP vision and was within our set of proposals.  However, much more was on the table which the IFP had proposed, and which has not been implemented.  The action of Government has not been sufficient and it has been inadequate, because it has not gone the full measure in accepting the IFP vision and the IFP proposals.

For ten years, the IFP has identified that the only way to promote employment in a sustainable fashion is that of accelerating economic growth.  We have made clear proposals to accelerate economic growth but they have been implemented only partially.  Proposals such as that of the privatization of our entire parastatal has never been implemented because of the opposition of the Communist Party and COSATU.  Proposals like the reform of our labour laws to ensure maximum flexibility in the labour market have been disregarded in spite of all economists agreeing that they are necessary to entice foreign investors and to unleash the hidden potentials of our economy. 

The IFP knows how to create jobs.  However, jobs are not being created because our proposals and our knowledge are not being implemented.  It is now time to allow like us those who have the knowledge and the expertise in creating jobs to provide the real leadership South Africa needs.  South Africa needs more jobs.  South Africa does not need more conventions, summits, workshops and endless discussions about employment generation.  In the next elections, South Africans must decide whether they want to have more workshops, summits, discussions and endless talks about employment generation, or whether they would rather prefer actions, actions and actions.  The IFP is the party of action.  Some of the actions we suggest are not painless.  We believe that we need to make short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term gains.  I know that the South African people are willing to make short-term sacrifices if there are prospects of long-term gains.

For many years, I have been warning that the road ahead remains hard and uphill.  I know that the people of goodwill in our country have the resilience required to walk the uphill road and are willing to do so if there is the hope of a reward at the end.  Together we can create and offer that reward.  The next elections offer the South African people the opportunity of choosing between actions and words.  We are not the Party of words.  We are the Party of action.  We are the Party which offers hope of a new beginning based on actions.  Our manifesto spells out how we can put the country to work.  We have concrete proposals to make our country a place which grows and which is capable of employing all of its children, ranging from the green revolution in this Province which may create tens of thousands of new jobs by converting our land from one crop to the other to the development of an industrial basis for South Africa,  

Our green revolution intends to change the way agriculture functions in many of our provinces by changing from crops which require a lot of and, little labour and makes little money to crops which require little land and a lot of labour and produce a lot of money.  For instance, growing sugar cane takes a lot of land which makes little money on a per acre basis and does not require many workers.  Conversely, growing avocado pears requires very little land but many workers and generates better profits. The action of Government is necessary to promote the green revolution by assisting farmers in the conversion from one form of agriculture to the other and by enabling new farmers and emerging farmers to come online into the programme.  The action of Government is also necessary to ensure that the additional quantities of value added products can be marketed internationally, because only internationally could one find outlets and markets for such increased supply. 

South Africa does not have an industrial basis which can create long-term prosperity for all of our children and grand-children.  We are now part of a global village in which each country needs to identify how it intends to survive and prosper in the age of globalization.  The world does not owe us a living and we need to identify what we will be producing for the global village and the global markets, in order to secure enough wealth and prosperity to employ all of our people.  For this reason, we need to have a visionary leadership which is capable of producing an industrial basis for South Africa.  Only the IFP and its partners have this much needed vision which in ten years the ANC government has not been able to formulate.  In fact, we need to identify how now the world economy will evolve and what type of technologies it will rely on in twenty years, so that we can make long-term investments and terms with infrastructures and education for our people to be able to meet the evolution of history ahead of time. 

We need to create our rendezvous with destiny.  We need to identify now what we will train our children for so that they will be able to produce what can enable our country to succeed in the future.  Our children must be trained now to enable them in the future to create and run industries which can enable South Africa to sell its products around the world.  It is that simple.  However, that is not being done and we are in a serious situation where the employment will not be generated in the manner capable of redressing our many social problems.  Unless employment is generated in large quantities, South Africa will not solve its problems.  There is no denying that things are getting worse.  The statistics I have before me indicate that ten years ago, our unemployment rate was in the range of 29% of our population.  Today, 40% of our population is unemployed.  It is obvious that by doing things the way they have been done in the past, things are not going to become better.  For this reason, South Africans cannot choose to have five more years of the same. 

For this reason, South Africa must at the next elections demand that South Africa be given the opportunity of five more years of something which is better.  We need the hope of a new beginning and a change for the better.  Only the IFP can provide such a hope.  We have tested leadership.  All one needs to do is to look at my track record in this region where I have produced massive employment when I was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government at the time in which no one else was generating employment for our people.  At the time in which the ANC was busy chasing away foreign investors who were creating employment for our people, I and the IFP were creating employment in this region.  At the time when the ANC was busy creating unemployment, I was traveling the world asking investors in countries like Taiwan to come into KwaZulu and create opportunities for our people.   The projects I created then still exist and still continue to employ our people.

I created employment when the conditions were desperate.  I created employment when there was no democracy and we had no resources available to promote employment generation in our areas.  It is saddening for me that during the past ten years similar efforts to create employment have not been made, when our Government now enjoys vast resources to direct towards promoting employment amongst our poor people and the oppression of racism and discrimination has been lifted.  We need to do more, and we need to do better to promote employment in our country.  Unless employment is created, all the social evils which our country is now experiencing will not be solved.  We need to give to all the South African people the opportunity of a free and dignified life.  Only through employment will South Africa fulfil its promise to all its children for a dignified life.  There cannot be any dignity when people are forced to remain unemployed. 

Unemployment also lies at the root cause of crime.  I know that the solution to our problem of crime will take a long time, because it depends on the improvement on the abject social and economic conditions in which most of our people still live.    However, not enough of what could be done right here and now has in fact been done to deal with the problem of crime.  Just recently new statistics have been produced to show that the problem of crime might not be as bad as one would make it out to be.  However, the South African people know exactly just how bad the problem of crime really is.  I do not know of any South African who has not been a victim of crime during the past ten years, or is not afraid of becoming one.  This is the reality of the facts.  If we think about the fact that at least two of our Cabinet Ministers by miracle escaped with their lives after having been shot at in the past twelve months, we realise that nobody is safe in South Africa. 

A lot could be done and should have been done about crime.  We need more policemen who are better trained, better equipped and better paid.  We need to have a stronger judiciary.  We need extensive programmes of civic education to make people understand the importance of abiding by law and order and to rebuild the moral fibre of our communities.  All these things are generally accepted as being needed and important for the whole of South Africa and, yet, they are not being delivered because of a lack of political will.  At the next elections the South Africans must choose between those with the will to do, and those who do not have the will to solve problems.  The IFP has the will to do.  The IFP has the political will required to do whatever it takes to change things for the better because we are the people of actions, not of words. 

South Africa can no longer continue to endure politics of words and promises, whilst problems are being ignored and denied.  The growing poverty in rural areas has been denied for many years.  I have been crucified in Parliament because I dared to say that there is now much greater poverty in rural areas than there was ten years ago.  People of this area know well what the conditions are.  People of this area know well how much the poor people are suffering.  I know well what the conditions of poverty are, because throughout all my life I have been amongst the poorest of the poor.  We know all this because we are here at the coal front where the struggle for liberation continues to be fought.  However, it seems that there are people in this country who have no notion of what is happening here, to the point of attacking me when I tell them the way things really are. 

Rural areas have been abandoned, neglected and ignored.  Rural areas are not going to be lifted from their status of poverty and underdevelopment by high-level speeches delivered across the world in prestigious international fora.  Poverty is not something which one only needs to talk about.  Poverty is something which one does something about.  Too many speeches have been delivered about poverty, whilst its very existence has been denied.  Poverty requires a large number of projects like the ones I have developed for many, many years to promote subsistence agriculture, self-help and self-reliance and food security in rural areas.  Poverty requires the cycle of development to begin with the type of projects which the IFP has championed for many decades to create local markets and begin the chain of productive commercial activities.  The IFP is a champion of development.  Our track record speaks volumes. 

We are the Party of development, development and development.  South Africa needs the IFP leadership in order to develop.  I have forged a partnership with the Democratic Alliance which we have called the “Coalition for Change” because together we can develop South Africa, create jobs and make our country a better place for all.  The IFP and the Democratic Alliance have joined forces together to make South Africa a place in which development flourishes and employment opportunities are created in much larger numbers than in the past ten years.  This is the type of change that we want to bring about.  A change for the better is about development, employment and safety and security for all.  These are things that our country can, and must, achieve. 

We need to have the courage to hope for a new beginning.  The South African people have the power to bring about this new beginning.  I have done my part in creating the condition which makes it possible.  I am willing to carry this mission forward into its next stages.  However, it is necessary that the South African people themselves do their part on April 14.  Very little time is left.  It is essential that all of us become engines of a great electoral campaign which changes the face of South Africa.  The IFP cannot count on large numbers of posters and advertisements to get its message out because we do not have as much money as our opponents.  Our revolution of goodwill must count on each and everyone of you.  I count on you.  We must count on the willingness of each of our members and sympathisers to become engines of our campaign.  It is essential that between now and election day, for the next forty days, everyone eats politics, walks politics, sleeps politics and breaths politics.  We need to discuss politics.  We need to motivate people to vote on April 14.  We need to organise transport to make sure that everyone who is registered, votes, and, votes IFP.   We can all say that we are IFP, but that declaration that we are IFP alone, will not help us if each one of us who has a bar-coded ID and registered to vote does not reach a polling station where one is registered in order to cast our votes.

April 14 is the day on which we can create the beginning of a revolution of goodwill. It is the day on which we can create the beginning of a revolution of goodwill.  It is the day on which we can turn the country around.  I am willing to take the leadership of this revolution, if the South African people do their part on April 14 and give South Africa the hope of a new beginning by empowering the IFP and its partners to provide South Africa with a better and new leadership.  We have a dream which is greater than what we are.  However, our dream is not greater than the will of the South African people.  The South African people have the will to make our dream as great as the need that South Africa now has for new and better leadership.  I believe in this dream, not because it is my dream, but because it is the dream which I have heard being expressed throughout the length and breadth of our country by thousands of South African people. 

I am here to express the dream of the South African people.  This dream shall not die.  This dream shall overcome.  Let us move forward to make this dream become a reality on April 14.  Together we shall overcome, not for our sake, but for the sake of South Africa.  With the help of God we can turn the country around and give rise to the hope of a new beginning.  Let us have the courage to hope.  Let us tell South Africa that a new season of hope has begun.  Let us pray to God Almighty to continue to inspire us with the necessary strength to bring this hope to power and turn our dream into reality.  

May God bless South Africa.  

May God bless all of you.