Cape Town | Friday
DESPITE mounting pressure to change his controversial Aids policy, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday pledged merely to intensify the government’s current programme against the disease.
Mbeki did not make any concessions to repeated calls for a national roll-out of the state’s pilot studies on using antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
The president has consistently raised concerns about the toxicity of ARVs, although he did not repeat these in his opening of Parliament address.
Mbeki said the focus remained a massive prevention campaign aimed at lifestyle change, care for the affected and infected, treatment of diseases associated with Aids and research into a vaccine.
He said protection and enhancement of the immune system was critical intervention in both the prevention and management of Aids.
“By implication, therefore, poverty reduction and appropriate nutrition constitute an important front in this campaign.
“At the same time, continuing work will be done to monitor the efficacy of antiretroviral interventions against mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) in the sites already operational and any new ones that may be decided upon.”
Among those in the audience critical of his policy on Aids was former President Nelson Mandela, who on Thursday delivered a thinly-veiled rebuke about the government’s reluctance to expand the MTCT programme.
Mandela hinted to an audience in Cape Town that government was about to rethink its attitude.
Mbeki said that South Africans can look forward to lower taxes and better-than-inflation increases in social grants in the 2002 Budget.
The government also plans to implement many of the critical recommendations of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) commission, and will review its own policies on small business.
On the economy, Mbeki ruled out a change in macro-economic policy, saying the economy remained strong despite the volatile currency.
Addressing both houses of Parliament, he said room had been created for further tax cuts.
“Again, as part of our work to push back the frontiers of poverty and expand access to a better life, possibilities have been created for further tax cuts for the lower end of the salary scale… .”
There had been a marked improvement in the registration of social grants, and both pensions and child grants would be increased this year.
“Let us add that, as the minister of finance will elaborate in the Budget speech, we shall this year increase allocations to both old age pensions and child grants by far more than the rate of inflation.”
Mbeki said the economy was expected to have grown by more than two percent last year, which was a major achievement given the global economic slowdown.
Interest rates and inflation, though still relatively high, were lower than they had been for many years.
“In other words, barring the exchange rate, all critical economic indicators have improved.”
He said South Africa was within its right to be concerned about the volatility of the exchange rate, and the “inexplicable” movements towards the end of last year.
However, the fall in the value of the rand was not a reflection on the structure of the economy.
“As government, we are in no doubt that the sudden depreciation of the currency a few months ago is not a reflection of systemic or structural weaknesses in the economy as a whole.
“On the whole, we should emphasise that the path of an open economy that we have charted for ourselves is not open for review.” Mbeki said part of the government’s programme to bring about social equity was the successful implementation of the BEE programme.
Government had accepted the most critical recommendations of the BEE commission, which presented its report last year.
Mbeki urged South Africans to assist in moving the economy onto a higher growth path through a social accord.
Regarding the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), he said various projects envisaged in the plan would start to unfold in parts of the continent this year.
“We enter 2002 with Africa, through its representative structures, having formally embraced the commitment that this could, in actual practice, be the African century,” Mbeki said. Mbeki has stood firm against critics of the arms deal, saying the government will continue with its controversial multi-billion rand procurement package.
Mbeki said the deal was necessary so that “we stay true to our commitment to peace on the continent and other defence functions”.
The government would continue with its programme to equip the national defence force in line with policies of the country adopted by its elected representatives, he said. – Sapa
President Mbeki’s speech at the opening of Parliament February 8, 2002
The poor get poorer February 26, 2001