This speech was delivered by GOOD MP Shaun August during the 25th anniversary of our Constitution in Parliament today.
Honourable Chairperson…
Our challenge, as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of our democratic constitution, is to narrow the yawning gap that still exists between the land of fairness, justice, milk-and-honey-for-all that the document describes and peoples’ daily lived experiences on the ground across the land.
Over the past few years there’s been a growing tendency among some politicians to blame the constitution for the far-from-finished business of transforming the apartheid landscape and fixing inequality.
Critics of the constitution say it has been more useful to securing the property rights and economic riches accumulated by the haves under apartheid than to narrowing inequality and affirming the dignity of the have-nots.
This analysis camouflages what has really been government’s failure to implement the Constitutional template fast and meaningfully enough to reduce grinding poverty, landlessness, homelessness and hardship.
Perhaps it’s easier to blame the rules for retarding our progress than taking a long hard look in the mirror at where poor management and corruption have brought us.
Honourable chairperson…
Over the past few years the Constitutional issue that has dominated the national discourse has been the question of land inequity.
Instead of asking why 27 years of democratic government has failed to use the tools at its disposal to effect land restitution and reform, including the right to expropriate land at virtually no cost, we have become increasingly focussed on the ability of the State to expropriate land without any compensation.
There can be few arguments against changing the apartheid expropriation law that is still in use. Provided the process is carefully managed, and overseen by the courts and not politicians, there can be few argument against having to expropriate land in certain circumstances.
But once the new law is in place, and the Constitution has been amended to bring it into alignment, it will be up to the same officials and politicians who have dismally failed land reform for decades to implement…
Which takes us back to square one.
Chairperson…
We need to take that long hard look in the mirror.
We must acknowledge our roles and what we can do better to achieve the social, economic, environmental and spatial justice the Constitution demands.
What we can do better to fix South Africa.