WELCOME REMARKS BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES, HON MNINWA
JOHANNES MAHLANGU, ON THE OCCASION OF THE
DINNER WITH THE KING OF THE ROYAL BAFOKENG
NATION, KGOSI LERUO MOLOTLEGI
14 OCTOBER 2009
Speaker of the National Assembly
Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi, King of the Royal Bafokeng Nation
Members of the Royal Council
Members of the Royal Bafokeng Nation
Distinguished Guests
I am pleased to welcome you to this rare dinner with the King of
the Royal Bafokeng Nation. The Royal Bafokeng Nation has set a
good example as a nation with an abiding communal spirit, where
the community is driving development and the administration is
clearly committed to good governance.
We thank you for setting a good example for the country.
Historically, the baFokeng are originally BaKwena people. Like
many other nations in our land, the Bafokeng people originated in
central Africa, from where they migrated southwards over more
than a millennium. They are a branch of the Sotho-Tswana
peoples who eventually settled throughout southern Africa.
According to oral tradition, the baFokeng came upon an area that
boded well for agriculture and animal husbandry. As the valleys
amongst the hills in the area captured heavy overnight dew, the
people felt that the land would be fertile and that the community
would prosper. Hence they decided to settle there and, to mark
this decision, took the name 'baFokeng,' literally meaning 'people
of the dew'. This was added to 'Kwena' (crocodile), the
genealogical totem of the Sotho-Tswana peoples.
It was indeed an honour to have had the members of this great
nation as the guests of our Parliament this week. I have always
held the view that if we are to call ours a ``people’s Parliament’’, it
must provide space for engagement with our communities. It is in
this spirit that we hail your visit to this prime institution of our
democracy.
Your visit could not have come at an important juncture for this
Parliament, at the beginning of the fourth term. The first 15 years
of our democracy have brought us face-to-face with the significant
challenges facing our people. This is much so in peri-urban and
rural areas.
It is for this reason that the issue of developing the areas right
where our people live, especially the poor, is increasingly gaining
momentum. We have realised that we need an approach to
development that balances the interests of our rural and urban
communities. Without that balance, we will continue to see the
growing trend of people moving towards urban areas in order to
earn a living. Some people come to urban centres without
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possessing the necessary skills to survive, which makes them
more vulnerable compared to where they come from.
We salute your visit to Parliament to explore best practice models
on institutional governance that can enhance service delivery. We
hope that we have been able to assist by sharing information and
knowledge. We trust that you will be able to put what we gave you
into good use. We have also learnt from your enquiries and
experience.
The Royal Bafokeng Nation is a legal entity comprising about 300
thousand members who live mainly in the Rustenberg area in the
North West Province, on an area containing the world’s largest
single source of chromium, vanadium and platinum.
It is worth noting that the nation has taken advantage of these
resources to contribute to the development of the community,
including the building of schools, roads, clinics and sports facilities.
The Royal Bafokeng Administration manages service delivery and
economic development in the community.
Your Vision 2020, a programme which aims to foster sustainable
development for the Bafokeng through the effective use of
resources, is commendable. Part of this Vision is to move the
Bafokeng mindset away from being work-seeking employees to
job-creating employers, and to transform their economy from a
resource-based into a knowledge-based one.
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It is important that this Vision is based on the fact that natural
resources are not limitless, they have a lifetime. But knowledge is
increasingly becoming the asset of the future with which we must
be equipped in order to compete in the global village.
We acknowledge the important role played by the traditional
leadership of the Royal Bafokeng Nation in driving development.
South Africa has a unique opportunity to blend a democratic ethos,
transformation and a developmental paradigm with indigenous
knowledge systems, cultural heritage and other traditional
practices. We can all attest to the fact that Parliament has begun
this process of integration with some degree of success by
enacting several laws to enhance the role of traditional leadership
in the development discourse, and some of these laws have been
implemented, albeit not fully.
We thank the crafters of the Constitution for their wisdom in taking
into account South Africa’s history and present reality, to make
space for traditional authorities in the development discourse. We
now have structures that have been set up, such as traditional
councils and houses of traditional leadership, to give traditional
leaders the opportunity to take their rightful place in governance.
With these few words I wish to welcome you tonight and I wish you
success in your developmental endeavours. A e wele mo metsing
(let there be peace).
Thank you
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