My first duty tonight is to thank all of you ladies and gentlemen who are here tonight. I thank in particular my three friends Mr Steve Moodley, Mr Prim Eyer and Mr Logan Reddy and their colleagues in business whose idea it was that we should meet in the way we are meeting here tonight.

We listened just two days ago to the brilliant BUDGET ADDRESS of our Honourable Minister of Finance Mr Trevor Manual which resonated with the theme of “the age of hope”, which was the core of the message of President Mbeki in his State of the Nation Address on the 3rd of this very month. I think that it is our duty as leaders to give hope to our people regardless of how hopeless the situation we may be facing at any particular time. Some of you have heard me quote fairly often a favourite quotation of a dear friend of mine, the late Sir Laurens van der Post, a great son of South Africa known around the globe through his many writings. He was fond of quoting R L Stevenson whenever we were engaged in talking about the terrible situation in our Country in the very dark days of Apartheid. The quote that he quoted was : “IT IS BETTER TO TRAVEL IN HOPE THAN TO ARRIVE”. There is nothing wrong with leaders giving hope to Citizens even under difficult circumstances in which they find themselves, especially when there is an election in a couple of weeks time. I do not imply that these two leaders were hanging whatever they were saying on the peg of hope by way of electioneering. Not by any means. But all I need to add to what they said is that travelling in hope as R L Stevenson stated, should not blind us to the fact that we are travelling up a long hard and winding road. We are scaling mountains.

As a matter of fact Minister Manual hanged his entire budget address on the following quote from Ben Okri: “THERE ARE NO JOYS WITHOUT THE NIGHTMARES THAT PRECEDE THEM AND SPRING THEM INTO LIGHT”.

All I am saying is that while hope means that things can only get better and not worse, it would be self-delusion if we do not concentrate while living in hope on the nightmares that our journey is fraught with.

Our 11 years of democracy have gone better than anyone expected. But this does not mean that for the majority of our people life is not even now a series of nightmares that they go through day in and day out. These nightmares are the challenges that keep us going however grim or gloomy the situation may be. We are gathered here tonight precisely because we realise that we are only at the beginning of a long and hard road. Many of those who have followed my career can testify to the fact that I warned many years ago before our liberation was even in sight that when we achieve political emancipation, we will still be left with a long and hard road. That our political emancipation will in fact be the beginning of another harder phase of the struggle. That it will be the beginning of even a harder struggle.

It is we ourselves who will liberate ourselves from the economic dire straits in which we are still trapped. That is why it is so important that we should not miss the opportunity to do something ourselves about our situation. The local government elections on the 1st of March are that opportunity where we can actually do something ourselves about the nightmares that the majority of our people are still subjected to. These nightmares are the gut-wrenching poverty in which the majority of our people still find themselves, the high unemployment which not even the 6 percent economic growth which we are aspiring to achieve, will not really break its back. These nightmares are HIV/AIDS, they include Crime, the levels of which are still unacceptable. Among these nightmares we include Corruption which if it is not eliminated even the much revenue, which our Revenue services have generated is in danger of ending up in the bellies of corrupt representatives, corrupt officials and corrupt businessmen. Yes, there is a danger of it ending not in the bellies of the population at large but only in the bellies of certain sectors of the population who collude with them in the corrupt games that are now known even outside the borders of our Country. Just a week or so before President Mbeki delivered the State of the Nation Address, an international watchdog, Transparency International issued findings which reveal that Corruption today permeates all levels of our society. Can we go further down in decadence than the Heists that take place so often to steal the very social grants that Minister Manual was talking about on Wednesday. It would be so wonderful if these social grants ended in the bellies of those who in terms of our Constitution are entitled to receive them.

All of these things underscore the importance of the local government elections that take place on the 1st of March, 2006.

After over half-a-century in public life there is something one feels quite profoundly. That is I have no doubt the 2006 local government elections will test the quality of our democracy like no other electoral contest before in our brief democratic history.

My message to our supporters in this campaign has been a simple one. I urged them to exercise their most important political right in order to secure for themselves municipal bodies that will deliver best services which will, in turn, enhance the quality of their lives.

It has been wonderful to see so many of our people over the last few days and to hear their concerns. I have listened carefully.

I was in Hanover Park in Cape Town on Tuesday night. I heard how many coloured people in the Western Cape struggle to gain employment because of how affirmative action is often implemented. One young lady asked me plaintively why she felt that she had to leave the country to find employment. This pained me. Here in KwaZulu-Natal, some Indians have expressed to me the same fear of a black and white zebra nation which excludes them.

And wherever I have gone in this campaign, I have heard a clear message about the pace of service delivery. This is what people have told me. They need water. They need electricity. They want service providers who treat them with the respect that clients deserve. They want safe streets. They want community policing. They need jobs. They want a future for their children.

Frankly, most of the people I have met in this election campaign live in the most difficult of circumstances, but their courage and zest are heart-warming and infectious. I always feel energised when I have been with them. We are a great nation; a winning team.

So inspired by the eternal sunny optimism of our people, I bring you a message of hope tonight.

I believe the difference between the IFP and our main political opponent, the ANC, is the difference between what South Africa is and what it could and should be. There is so much that is wrong with the policies pursued by the ANC at all levels of government. But I do not believe in negative campaigning. I believe that my party, the IFP, must win by presenting a credible alternative.

As I look how this province is being governed after some eighteen months of ANC rule, I remain convinced that the IFP’s continued strong presence in this Province is vital to KwaZulu-Natal's and the wider nation’s long-term success and prosperity.

The ANC give the impression of being in office, but not in power.

Instead of real delivery, the people of the province have been offered by the new administration a series of glitzy Imbizos at which they get to hear how fortunate they are to have an ANC government. I think the people need to hear how unfortunate they are not to have an IFP government.

The key challenge for the Inkatha Freedom Party at this time is to develop a national footprint by fashioning a narrative that speaks to the concerns and aspiration of ordinary South Africans. We are presently doing so and are presenting an exciting programme of service delivery in the local government election campaign that is presently underway.

I cannot overemphasise that the IFP is operating within a procedural democracy which has witnessed a serious erosion of electoral competition in its first decade of freedom. Unlike the democracies of continental Europe or the United States of America, we do not have an alternating party system. In a one dominant party democracy, voter apathy is a serious problem.

Yet, I know that many people do not have time to worry about these matters because their daily lives are so difficult. Crumbling RDP homes, poor sanitation; unsafe roads; spiraling crime; an unchecked HIV/AIDS epidemic; a lack of clinics and indifferent service providers is the lot of many who are less fortunate than us here this evening.

It is now time – twelve years into ANC rule – for the majority party to accept responsibility for the unflattering parts of its legacy such as failure to build enough houses, lack of sanitation and related infrastructure and urban decay.

Our national cabinet takes enormous pride in the fact that it has devoted more than 60 percent of the state budget to local and provincial government. In theory, this augurs a decisive move towards a decentralised administration. But in practice, about half of all municipalities are dysfunctional, councils at large have failed to collect R40 billion in arrears, and billions of rands are left unspent in provincial coffers each year.

The ANC are in office, but not in power.

A classic example of "consistent" under-spending which has the potential to shake up the existing relationship between our province and its municipalities are housing grants, because of the red tape our municipalities have to deal with when they apply for provincial approvals. This is just one example the IFP has been citing over the last week in the National Assembly and here in the provincial parliament.

The IFP is writing a narrative that speaks to the very poor in the rural areas and in urban informal settlements. The very poor feel disconnected from the political, economic and social centres of decision-making. We are their only lifeline.

In many ways the South African state is weak and ineffective in delivering essential services to the poor. It is for these reasons that the IFP's advocacy of federalism and pluralism is so important. It is precisely the ineffective state and the hapless civil service that should discourage the government from pursuing its current corporatist and interventionist policies.

You all know that the ANC government has been hugely overambitious in setting its service delivery targets. The enormous backlogs and recent protest riots which have evoked memories of the apartheid state testify to this. There is nothing more heartbreaking than seeing these terrible images and hearing them being attributed by some to an imaginary 'third force'.

The challenge for my party, the country's largest predominantly black opposition party, is to provide a better alternative to the ANC.

I am speaking of an alternative which addresses the gut-wrenching poverty that is choking millions of South Africans everyday. And I am speaking of an alternative which, at the same time, does not frighten away local and foreign investors and their capital. As I said, I do not want my party to win because the ANC has failed, but because only we offer the best alternative.

The IFP has always seen the gut-wrenching poverty, which daily strangles millions of South Africans as the underlying cause of social strife and disease in our society. Although abject poverty is largely confined to rural areas, it is no stranger to urban settings. The IFP views poverty essentially as an individual’s condition. The task of its eradication must therefore count on improving one person’s plight at a time.

The IFP advocates a comprehensive strategy that shifts the drive for economic development from the government and the public sector onto the individual and the private sector initiative. In doing so, the IFP is challenging the ANC’s implicit assumption about the role of government, which renders the public sector all-powerful with the capacity to intervene and contribute positively in every nook and cranny of our society.

The poverty, as well as the ANC itself, can only be shifted by a meaningful shift in public policy. We hold quite a big share of the rural vote in KwaZulu-Natal, the nation's most populous province. We truly represent the poorest of the poor. Over the past thirty years, we have worked unceasingly to install a hard-won support of the market economy amongst those who are most susceptible to socialist doctrine. As businessmen and women, I know how important this is to you. We cannot take it for granted.

As Minister Trevor Manual said on Wednesday, the South African economy had grown more strongly over the past year than anticipated with growth edging on 5 percent. Stronger economic growth rests on a stable macroeconomic foundation and healthy investment trends. Yet, if we are to overcome poverty and inequality with which our people wrestle daily, the pace of microeconomic reform and the empowerment of individuals must be increased.

I have always said that we should not expect the government to do things for us. I believe in limited government and unlimited empowerment of communities. Yes, the government is necessary to create the conditions in which we can do things for ourselves, but it only individuals and communities who can transcend their circumstance. We have always believed in self-help and self-reliance under which individuals can flourish and together form a flourishing society.

Investing into service delivery by local government while contending with its insufficient capacity to deliver, is hardly progressive or constructive. Investing into our people as individual clients instead, is. In this election, the IFP is proudly investing into people. This is our pledge. We will fight poverty by knowing where it is, what causes it and what can eradicate it. This is our idea of localism.

I am therefore proud that the majority of our municipalities from rural Zululand to urban Richards Bay are models of service delivery rooted in the principles of self-help, self-reliance and selfless leadership. It is with this record we are confidently contesting this election. The IFP is a party for all South Africans: rural and urban, black and white, Indian and Coloured, poor and rich. When I visited Chatsworth on the 1st of February and met some of the poorest of the poor both Indian and African, their words still ring in my ears.

The battle rages for a better tomorrow. I am a fighter by nature. I will fight and fight again to ensure that the IFP will be back leading the provincial government in 2009. We have much work to do. In order to contest the upcoming local government elections, as well as the next general election, we need to raise funds. We have plenty of ideas but we need funds to develop them into coherent policies.

From the very inception of our organisation I advocated self-help and self-reliance as the very pillars of our philosophy. We do not have funds. It is not enough to sit down and moan about it, for that alone will not drop pennies into our coffers. We need to look at ourselves and think of what it is that we can do for ourselves in the circumstances.

But I still find political fundraising hard. There almost seems to be something undignified about asking people for money in order to fulfil one's public duty. Yet money is the milk of politics. In this campaign, how I wish we could put up more posters and place more adverts and commercials. I have been disadvantaged precisely because my Party is a Party of poor people. We are more disadvantaged than the other two larger parties because we just do not have the resources to fight elections. The fields are far from being level. For democracy to work, the fields must be level.

It is very important to get honest human beings as delegates to be our representatives in these municipal Councils. All I can say to you is that we have all watched with great consternation the riots and protests that have happened in many Provinces in the municipalities that are run by the ANC. There has not been one single such riot in any of the municipalities that we control. You have seen right here in the Durban Metro how corruption rears its ugly head even when it comes to procurement processes. We have seen how contracts are only for political pals, cronies and relatives. People in the Metro particularly business people are crushed between the twin pillars of corruption and nepotism. We want to win elections in order to eliminate these evils. We can only do so by getting right men and women for that job. People of integrity.

And without money, parties cannot conduct political campaigns, mobilise support, issue literature, pay staffers. No political party can simply perform without money, no matter how noble its ideals or fine its programmes.

As a business community, you are in a position to use your economic muscle to change our society for the better. One of the ways of doing this is through politics. You have worked very hard to be where you are today. I urge you to use your influence to make South Africa a better place.

As an opposition party, with a largely poor black constituency, we in the IFP are naturally constrained by a lack of resources. Our political opponents outstrip us by far in terms of spending on political campaigning. If we are to prevail, we must have a more levelled playing field.

I must therefore thank those of you here tonight who have given so generously to our party. From the bottom of my heart, I say 'thank you'.