One of the issues that I have raised in that context is our transport system, road, rail and ports. We have raised this before, that the South African economy has grown at a rate that has overtaken the capacity of the transport system. And therefore, we have said that it is necessary to expand our capacity in the ports.

Thabo Mbeki

Categorized in : Said Issues Economy

I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.

Thabo Mbeki

land flower sea

Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.

Thabo Mbeki

resilience adversity people

Our experience over the last 20 years has shown that indeed people must themselves become their own liberators. You cannot wait for somebody else to come and rescue you.

Thabo Mbeki

waiting people years

I think you're a much happier person if you say 'Even if I get involved in politics, I'm only doing so in order to serve the people'. You will sleep much easier, not serving yourself, but having done your best to serve the people. Even if you have not succeeded, at least you've tried. You haven't stolen anything, and you haven't robbed the people.

Thabo Mbeki

sleep order thinking

The problem is not a lack of understanding of what we are saying and doing; the problem is difference of opinion about what to do.

Thabo Mbeki

opinion differences understanding

We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.

Thabo Mbeki

shining sun weather

As Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent.

Thabo Mbeki

recognition common needs

When will the day come that our dignity will be fully restored, when the purpose of our lives will no longer be merely to survive until the sun rises tomorrow!

Thabo Mbeki

dignity purpose sun

Read a textbook. It will tell you. These are the things for instance on the African continent that will contribute to immune deficiency, various tropical diseases because of poor infrastructure, general levels of poverty don’t get treated. Syphilis untreated or not properly treated, which as it happens is a big problem as I hear, gets treated, the symptoms disappear but in fact… it … that impacts on the immune system. You’ve got to deal with these things.

Thabo Mbeki

syphilis poverty impact

Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can't, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.

Thabo Mbeki

viruses groups doe

None dare challenge me when i say i am an Afrikan.

Thabo Mbeki

dare challenges

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable

Thabo Mbeki

future sea islands

South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?'

Thabo Mbeki

country people needs

You cannot just depend on the market, because the market will say: China needs oil; China needs coal; China needs whatever, and Africa has got all these things in abundance. And we go there and get them, and the more we develop the Chinese economy, the larger the manufacturing is, the more we need global markets - sell it to the Africans which indeed might very well destroy whatever infant industries are trying to develop on the continent. That is what the market would do.

Thabo Mbeki

chinese oil trying

We can't treat the matter of black economic empowerment as just the redistribution of existing wealth. It really has to focus on new investment, on growth, on development of employment and so on and so on.

Thabo Mbeki

empowerment black focus

I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education.

Thabo Mbeki

government decision soldier

Many of our own people here in this country do not ask about computers, telephones and television sets. They ask - when will we get a road to our village.

Thabo Mbeki

country people television

I think anybody who knows anything about South Africa and the South African economy would know that one of the big constraints to growth and development is skills shortages. So all of us, need to come at this thing as vigorously as is possible and, of course, the private sector has the capacity to take it on board.

Thabo Mbeki

growth skills thinking

We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest

Thabo Mbeki

future vision survival

The people of Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that the government that they elected behaves properly.

Thabo Mbeki

zimbabwe government responsibility