South Africans must use the resources and experience accumulated in 2006 to ensure a better life for every South African in 2007, President Thabo Mbeki said in his new year message on Sunday.
”As we approached our third local government elections and our twelfth year of freedom both the public and private sector accumulated fairly substantial resources and experience to accelerate the advance towards the achievement of a better life for all our people,” said Mbeki.
”We must use this and all other additional resources to make 2007 a better year than the one we see out tonight. By this time next year we must be able to say that we have liberated more people from poverty, joblessness, homelessness and all the other social ills.”
Mbeki said South Africa as a nation had both the means and the will to ensure that 2007 would be a successful year for every citizen of the country.
”We must be able to show practically that we have succeeded to realise the hopes of even more of our citizens than we have in 2006.”
Concluding his message, Mbeki wished all South Africans a happy and a safe new year.
Oprah hosts party in Sun City
United States talk show host Oprah Winfrey was in South Africa to throw a New Year’s Eve party at the plush Sun City casino resort that was to be attended by some top Hollywood celebrities.
Winfrey, who has set up a leadership school for girls and made several previous visits to the country, was seen at the resort north-west of Johannesburg on Saturday, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
Some of her guests, including actor Sidney Poitier, comedian Chris Rock and singers Mariah Carey and Mary J Blige were also spotted enjoying breakfast there, according to the report.
Most of the guests are believed to have jetted into the country on Friday for a weekend at the R5 000-a-night resort with the wealthy talkshow host who reportedly paid for everything except the flights.
Local media reported that details of the New Year’s Eve function were wrapped in secrecy amid tight security at Sun City.
Winfrey and her guests were not the only international celebrities to choose sun-soaked South Africa for their year end holidays.
British actor Jude Law, his former wife Sadie Frost and their children spent Christmas in KwaZulu-Natal in the east of the country and in Franschoek in the Cape winelands.
The couple helped orphans put on a play in the KwaZulu-Natal town of Pietermaritzburg, swam with sharks and learned gumboot dancing during their stay, the paper said.
Frost was pictured on Sunday wearing traditional beaded Zulu headdress. – Sapa