Just as we set ourselves to do big things in Government, there are those among us who will always refuse to accept that reality.  They are always blinded by their own beliefs, and they refuse to rise from their deep sleep of ignorance. This state of affairs reminds us of the writings of William Eggers and John O’Leary in their book titled “Getting big things done in Government”, where they identify several traps that people have to overcome in order to realise that it is possible to do big things in Government.

One of the traps is that of creating walls between those who do good things and those who believe that nothing good can be done until it is done by them.  For us as the ANC, we are proud of our track record of doing big things for the people of South Africa. The triple challenges of inequality, poverty and unemployment that the President referred to in his address, are always reflected at the local area.  It is therefore people at this level who will be heard shouting for help when the going is tough, and it is them whose voices will be heard loud celebrating the good message in infrastructure development as announced by the President.

The local area is at the coalface of service delivery, hence as the ANC-led Government we introduced a system of Cooperative Governance and built a three-sphere governance mechanism that is distinct, interdependent and interrelated, and we so guided these spheres to work together for the development of the local area. Promoting cooperative governance is in fact an act in the implementation of the Constitution.  It is the dictate of the Constitution that the three spheres of Government have to work together in a complementary manner, and that they are discouraged from litigating against each other. The infrastructure development programme is meant to succeed with the strengthening of intergovernmental relations, and it is in this context that the programmes pronounced have to be included in the Integrated Development Plans of Municipalities, although they are driven by sector Departments either at national or provincial level.  In doing so, the beneficiary communities would be taken on board, and this is an anchor for our Democracy, public participation.