This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.
16 Apr 1995: RDP - TV Programme on SABC
Click here for Overview of the year
This is a programme on the economic development of the North West Province. It's Sunday April 16th, SABC Television broadcast.
Ø. ... and the unions that is transparent and working together. Then through that co-operation we can have better productivity that can at the same time upgrade the standard of our province.
Ø. Rustenburg as a town is dependent on mining.
Ø. I believe that the mines, as I said, are the heart of Rustenburg and without the mines I don't see the industry developed in Rustenburg, or to promise any growth in the future without the mines.
Ø. Last year Rusplas paid R50 million in taxes. The Company has a well established infrastructure. Rustenburg ... smelter and Rustenburg base metal refiners.
Ø. Platinum is exported to Europe where it is processed into jewellery, car exhaust emission catalysts, to mention but a few products. The MEC for economics says local companies are encouraged to manufacture beneficiative products in the North West Province in order to create jobs.
Ø. Recently South Africa is quite a substantial exporter of raw materials. (This is Abraham Bentor(?) MEC for Economics, speaking.) Raw materials are being beneficiated in other countries, value is added to those products, it means jobs are being created in those countries whilst those jobs can be created in South Africa and in this province and if we have such a high unemployment rate as we do have, we must search every avenue to create jobs.
Ø. What we need to do is to go firstly for the beneficiation route, to add value to our products. Most of the stuff leaves our province in a rather raw and crude form and value is added most probably 1000 miles away from the province or perhaps in adjacent provinces and we are strongly arguing for beneficiation of firstly the beneficiation of our raw materials.
Ø. The Managing Director for RPM says provincialism is a major problem in the area.
Ø. There is one concern that I have as a consequence of some of the things which have been happening. In the Provinces in which we operate – (This is Mr Davidson, Managing Director) - in the Northern Province there have been indications lately that the provinces are seeking obviously to maximise for obvious reasons the level of economic activity in their particular province. The sorts of questions that arise are: why do you not do more to beneficiate the minerals in our province? For example, we mine quite a lot of platinum group metal in the Northern Province. We then make the concentrate containing these platinum group metals which is shipped to the North Western Province, transported to the North Western Province, to the Rustenburg region where it is smelted and further refined. Now the question from the Northern Province is: why don't we do the smelting and refining in the Northern Province? Well the fact of the matter is that we have the facilities for doing that in the North Western Province. I mean duplication, the capital cost of duplicating those facilities would be enormous and it simply would not be economically feasible or sensible to do that. So while one understands that the regions are very keen to promote their own economic development for purposes of employment, etc., one must ensure that the sorts of policies pursued by the regions are also not only in the interests of the regions but also in the interests of the national economy.
Ø. The government is also moving towards diversifying the economy and the Economic Advisory Council which will formulate economic policies for the Premier has been established. The North West Economic Development Council which comprises of business, government, labour, was formed in March.
Ø. The government sees its role primarily as facilitator to create an enabling environment, amongst others enabling legislation, infrastructure, providing a climate of stability, enhancing human resource development so that at the end of the day we can have the competitive advantage to have a sustainable economic growth in the province.
Ø. Despite the fact that there are no major industrial development projects in the area labour intensive projects initiated by public works programmes are in progress. The. MEC for Public Works says his division has implemented a number of projects in the area. For 1994/95, R250 million was spent for construction and building of roads, R23 million to be spent on the building of 165 classes in 64 schools, R2,8 million has been targeted for the building of 19 clinics.
Ø. I think at this point I need to mention that in conjunction with the National Department of Public Works we are having a joint project with the IDT where the IDT has been allocated a total amount. (This is Mr Tolo) In the North West out of that project we have been given R5,6 million rand as a start for pilot projects and we have identified 47 of such projects. They are community based, intended to generate employment for communities. The needs analysis is done jointly with the communities. They are to build these communities.
Ø. Development is also taking place in the rural area. Residents from this village, with the help of Agribank, have established their own village bank.
Ø. The funds that are mobilised by the people in the village bank in the form of shares and savings will be invested with a commercial bank in which they can earn a good interest rate. The difference between the interest rate that they get from the bank and what they pay their members will cover their costs. Once they have achieved a viable portfolio they will also then start lending to their own members' funds from the portfolio that they have and this then can be used by the people for any specific reasons that they need it for.
Ø. The money, the profits of the money in general, can be used for developing certain other things in the village.
Ø. People can open small businesses?
Ø. People can open small businesses, we can establish schools and many other things.
Ø. The bank will help in developing the area. Loans will be given for local development. The region has potential for development but the government needs to come up with a coherent economic policy.
Ø. That's all we have for you tonight from the economic news team and the studio crew. Good night.
These are the views of the Church on the RDP (Jay Naidoo)
X. Mr Naidoo, what does the concept RDP mean?
JN. It means improving the quality of life of our people by meeting their basic needs for water, for electricity, for better health and education facilities. It also means creating jobs in a sustainable and viable way.
X. So, what is to be done in the whole RDP process?
JN. Well the RDP is not about government delivering on its own. It's about government and the people forming a partnership together with the churches, with the private sector, with the community based organisations, with women, working together on plans about how to make our lives better in the new South Africa, and seeing what resources we have and how we can start directing those resources now to meet the needs of all our people.
X. You mention the church, how do you see the church involved in the RDP?
JN. The church is very important. The RDP talks about improving the material health of our population. The church has an enormous network, it has resources that are available in terms of church halls, in terms of access to land, in terms of skilled people and it is the church working closely together with government and other organisations that will make the RDP a reality. We have a development chamber within National Economic Development Labour Council that brings together all the community organisations, but we want the church to play a role in that as well, in an important campaign like the gun free campaign, in providing water and electricity in the rural areas, involved in the project planning and implementation.
X. OK, with the issue of resources and access to the land, do you see the church having much access to land?
JN. Well we are saying that everyone must do something to make the RDP work. It's not just President Mandela. So the churches have to ask themselves what role they can play, what resources they have available such as land or facilities and how can they, working together with people, make sure that we deliver and implement the RDP. So certainly we would look forward to the churches making available resources such as land and expertise and using the Sunday religious prayers also as a way to publicise Masakhane because Masakhane is about working together. The church's role in society is building a more humane caring society so that our children are not injured or raped, that women can walk safely in the streets, that people have clean water. So this is how we create the environment and churches play a very important role in that because they have a lot of influence in South Africa.
X. How are you going to effect the liaison between the church and perhaps the government in terms of the RDP?
JN. At a local level there are local development forums starting in every community across the country. The churches must sit down with those community based organisations and work together. Directly with my office we are liasing with the churches at an interdenominational level to try and see what is the relationship between us and the religious groupings. As I said, there is also the development chamber of Nedlac. So there are various ways. But I would really ask the church to not wait for some instruction to come from my office or from President Mandela. There are many challenges that face us, there are many things that need to be done. The church is very resourceful. Use the resources to make our people's lives better than they have been in the past.
X. At the end of the day the church may be saying to you, "Here we are, we have enough resources but our problem is access to funds." How would you address that?
JN. Well the problem all over is access to funds. We have limited funds and we have much to do. How do we make the most efficient use of the funds we have? So I would appeal to the religious groups to also come to the party, the party in which we are going to celebrate this political miracle to make sure that the economic miracle comes, that people have jobs, that they have access to the basic needs. And I would say in appeal to the churches to come to the party with whatever they can and together we will then make South Africa a better place for our people.
X. To help us along in the discussion tonight we have invited a panel made up of leaders of churches and institutions in some cases and the next phase of our programme will include our studio audience which we have invited to engage together with the panel in this discussion.
. I think what we want to find out too is what is the church's understanding of the RDP and just to help us through we have here Dean Mhamba of the ... District under the Evangelical Lutheran Church and just next to him we have Mr Thembu former Director of Development and Training in the SACC. Next to me I have Dr. Lebese of the SA Church who happens to be the Director of ... College, which is a teacher training school, and a business school. Next to him I have Pamela Mohatle who is the MD of REBWSA. Our audience will ask questions of the panel and perhaps come up with suggestions of involvement of the church in the RDP.
. Pastor Lebese can you lead us please in the discussion? What is your understanding of RDP?
Dr. L. The RDP is an abbreviation of Reconstruction & Development Programme and the understanding I have of this concept is developing institutions, developing people, developing everybody for advancement.
X. How do you see the church involving itself in developing?
Dr. L. What we want to do is start from the concrete to the abstract. When you are dealing with reconstruction and development and when you do that people need physical structures to live in or to enhance that development. People may need roads to get from point A to point B and we have got to start there to accomplish our mission of developing people.
X. When you talk of roads and developing people does the church have infrastructure and the skills it needs for the whole programme for that matter?
Dr. L. The church will be a motivating power to be able to connect those who have the means to do that. You see the church is a body of many skilled people and you can involve development people, those who can construct roads, build schools and do all sorts of things and others are preachers and teachers and all together link up together to advance this programme.
-. Thank you Pastor Lebese. Pamela Mohatle, you are from REBWSA. Perhaps you could start by telling us what REBWSA is because people definitely want to know, and what your involvement in RDP is?
PM. Firstly I would like to explain the meaning of this word REBWSA. It stands for rebuilding the wealth of South Africa and the corporation itself it means it's a christianised, scientific research institution that uses the church as an educational institution for collecting its thesis wherein it defines the church as the origin of blessings.
X. Can I ask this question, did you come up because of RDP, because you are talking about building up the wealth of South Africa, and your reaction to RDP as a corporation?
PM. In this regard we at the end of the day end up supporting the church and we end up supporting the RDP since we are South African citizens.
X. The question is, have you come up because of, or as a direct response to, RDP?
PM. Yes, I would say it would be that.
X. How do you see yourselves involved in relation to the church when you support it?
PM. OK. In relating ourselves to the church, looking at the fact that we are defined in the church as the origin of blessings, we are one way or the other helping and directing people to understand more about what is the church.
X. How do you hope to achieve the help perhaps, or assess that this is what we have done?
PM. At the end of the day we are trying to make people to know and understand God and know and understand the type of life that surrounds God, looking at the fact that the only place we can get God is inside the church.
X. Mr Thembu, what do you think RDP means to the church or the people as such?
Mr. T. Personally I feel that the Reconstruction & Development Programme is a national challenge to all South Africans as individuals and institutions to play a role meaningfully in reconstructing the country, changing our mindset from the previous thinking that we have had during the past era and directing our energies into the new country, and the Council of Churches' role is to facilitate and offer a platform for various churches who are part of the South African Council of Churches offering and accessing those churches to the resources available in the country, human resources and other financial resources that may be available from the Council of Churches. And that is from my perception the role of the Council of Churches.
-. Mr. Mhamba, you must be raring to go. Everybody has said their piece. What do you have to say concerning the RDP?
DM. First and foremost my understanding of the RDP is that it is a philosophical basis which is aimed at redressing the effects of apartheid, which took many, many years, more than 40 years, but not only ending in redressing the damage that apartheid has done but also to work actively to develop the people. This is my understanding, and as far as the church is concerned I have a feeling that particularly because the church in this country played an important role during the time of struggle for democracy, the church is being called upon by the programme of the RDP to make a meaningful contribution because it must, having helped to eliminate apartheid, now also help in developing the people in the new democratic South Africa where we are. That is why I am critical that during its inception whereas the government consulted the business sector to support the RDP, the church was not consulted which means that the government is not aware particularly in this matter how much of a constituency the church commands to support a programme of this nature.
X. Just on that, are there any projects perhaps that you think the church can head on with?
DM. Yes. Definitely. There are several projects that I think the church could embark upon. I would see the damage caused by apartheid not only in terms of fiscal existence but also it affected the minds of people, it affected relationships, it affected attitudes, and so the church could embark upon projects that will be helping to redress all those effects. For example, a centre could be set up which could help in giving skills to people who do not have employment at the present moment worked out by the church. The church could start a programme of counselling, counselling, which is very, very necessary. We cannot do without counselling within this situation because we are also dealing with the healing of the minds. We have at the same time to plan at the church that there should be programmes to address, for example, even matters like the status of women in this country, to work towards making them more effective.
X. Thank you very much Professor Mhamba. As for you at home, stay with us, we are coming back and when we come back we will be busy with the audience giving out their questions and ideas.
X. The church has got a history of reconstruction and development. In actual fact the church in its own right nature it is reconstruction and development. The church has always been concerned, for instance, about the hungry. It has always been concerned about the poor, it has also been concerned also about the naked and the homeless. It has been doing something about it. There are ministries that are countless that you can talk about, ministries out there which have been based from the church, that came up and said there is a need there to take care of desolate people, children without homes, children affected by violence and so on. They have always been involved in the RDP as such. Therefore I just wanted to take up upon what Dean Mhamba said that it was a pity that the ministry or the government did not at the inception of the RDP consult the church because the church has already provided a network. It is already there in the church to be able to give wheels to the RDP as quickly as possible to reach its objective. That's what it will have to contribute.
X. Thank you. It has always been there.
ArchB.. My name is Archbishop ... I am from the African Indigenous Churches. My organisation is the African Spiritual Churches Association. Our Association has for a number of years been engaging in what is called RDP today. For that matter we have projects like sewing and knitting, upholstery, gardening, farming also, mostly in the rural areas and also in the urban areas. My concern is that ever since we started this in the seventies we have been struggling and now there is this new RDP which I think is, like my comrade Mr Mhamba said, the government has never consulted with the churches. What is the government's real involvement with the church as such? Because we have been really struggling and we are still struggling. For that matter we are also clothing people. We have tried our best to reach organisations abroad to please help us with used clothing and that we are distributing all around the country to our projects and we are doing that in a very stringent manner because we don't have the facilities and we don't have the resources also. We have also got luckily a farm that we need to develop. It's a big farm and we can't really move in that farm without having the right people and the right equipment. So I think the government's RDP has got to do something. I don't think it's only our church structures that have got those projects going. Other churches also have got the same, I think similar, projects.
X. Thank you very much. I think what is coming up here is that the problem is the problem of mechanics. How does the church get its hands on the funds or whatever the case may be. Like I said, we can all help each other, the panel or whatever. I see there's a hand from Mr. Mhamba on the panel.
DM. I just want to make examples of what is already happening on the ground in terms of RDP from the churches where there are a lot of institutions already existing. If you go to Natal for example you will find that there is an organisation which has long been involved in issues of reconstruction and development. There is the Lay Ecumenical Centre in Pietermaritzburg and we all know about those organisations. If you go to the Eastern Cape you find an organisation called Pastoral Institute which is existing doing a lot of work on reconstruction and development. The same when you come to Gauteng for example, we have ICT, we have SACC, we have YWCA, so we do have as church structures of delivery on the ground with history, with credibility, with visibility on the ground that should be used by the RDP and the government, and that is where the church stands.
X. Can we have somebody from the lay people, the people that belong to churches that are not leaders per se who perhaps want to say something concerning that, maybe it's a question or a reference?
X. This government that we are having today, I think it is ... of both the political organisations that are there and the church as well, and I think the church has a major role to play in this RDP because it has brought about this RDP to the very same government even though the government is not consulting. But my question to the leaders of the church is what criterion does the church use with those structures that the Reverend has just mentioned to deliver to the people? And the other thing is to say, why is the church concentrating only on certain areas that, like we say the government is concentrating on the East Rand because it had violence and so on, but what about the destitute people who were disempowered by apartheid who live in the West Rand, for example? The church is not doing anything on such regions, it is only concentrating on super powers within -
X. In other words what you want to know is if there are funds how do you get your hands on the funds? Where do you go to? Do you want to respond to that? Or if somebody wants to react or respond to that?
X. I just want to know what criteria are they using for funding pupils for the bursaries because most of the people in the church are at church because they do not have money to go to school and the church cannot go that far to give them moneys to go to school. Can we get an answer from especially SACC?
X. You wanted to respond to the question, I remember.
X. Thank you. I come from the Council of African Independent Churches. I am becoming very bitter about what the church seems to represent in the situation that is transforming the country. In 1994 the SACC called a conference on Vision 94 to take the church from the times of the past to the times of after the elections and the church managed to do that and by so doing it was preparing the church as a watchdog to the government. Then the RDP came up into place and early documents that were distributed by the RDP Department were easily accessible. People were receiving them very easily and people read about the assistance the government was prepared to give to the church only if the church finds itself. Now the problem we are having as a church is that the African churches are still so much held up on the issue of denomination whether there is a movement going with the churches which are part of the SACC. In the African Independent Churches, I'm talking about the Zion churches, I'm talking about the Apostolic churches, people are prepared people are waiting. There is much going on on the East Rand to build up, for the church to build up for reconstruction. So I think we must be careful in our contribution here that as a church we stand together before we start perhaps saying where we are on the RDP.
X. Can we have somebody from the panel perhaps? Yes, you wanted to say something to us.
X. Well in answering the question that was asked wherein ... was saying what is the church doing? How does the church make contributions towards whatever the government is doing? OK, I would like to say that today in South Africa we are singing Hallelujah because we've got institutions today like REBWSA who went all out to go and research on what constituted the church as a body, looking at the fact that as a research institute, scientific research institution it is here today to reach even professionals, even where they are because it even offers diplomas to them looking at the fact that it's coming up as a christianised scientific research organisation. In this regard it's even intervening in the government so as such it doesn't mean that the church doesn't make contributions to the way people are expecting it to operate. It's operating, it's existing, it's there. The only thing is that it only needs to be given time. Well in the time like in these types of institutions when they are coming up, like for now, they don't even know the existence of an institution called REBWSA where it offers research to different governmental departments, even to professions. It even defines the undefined cases wherein the cases were in the Department of Law and Order so they can define them.
X. This is addressed to the whole panel as such, and perhaps to some of the audience, how do we have the church exposing itself to the government for recognition?
X. I think one of the weaknesses or the limitations that the church has currently is proper networking. When the government talks about RDP they say the civil society has to be well organised and prove to the government that it is broadly representative and I think that's where the church is battling and I think that's one of the issues that we should address. How do we approach a government as a body of institutions that represent Christians or a body of believers? We have not addressed that properly. There are many organisations that I have mentioned, yes, but how do we come together as churches? In Europe and in America for example there are institutions that put church organisations together to address issues of development and they are able to approach and access resources from their government, but we have not been able so far to address that issue and I think that is the challenge that is facing us.
X. Perhaps what we should find out from the audience and the panel is, is there anyone who has used, made use of RDP, has been able to get to the funds, maybe he can share the experience with us and we can learn from him?
KTS. I am Reverend K T Sebe from World Vision. I am the Regional Manager of World Vision Northern Transvaal. Since 1967 up to 1995 we have fed five million children and educated them. More than 5000 crèches have been established; more than 500 pre-schools have been erected; more than 100 workshops have been erected; 600 classrooms have been erected; 3500 ferro-cement tanks to collect roof water of 15,000 litres have been erected; 2600 ferro-cement tanks of 5000 litres have been erected.
X. With due respect, what we want to know is how do we get to the funds or the coffers of the RDP? How do you go about it? You have been able to do that, how did you manage to do that? You have done a lot, we appreciate that, thank you.
KTS. OK, then what we as NGOs, we are in fact NGOs, non-governmental organisations, we are going to approach the government because we have been doing this, achieving this with the people. We have been working with the ground people and as such we are to help the government that it is the people's power which can be used together with the churches.
X. Do you have any idea perhaps how you are going to get it, because the problem is, how do we get to the government? Am I hearing you saying that? How do we get to the pockets of this? Wherever the funds of the RDP are how do we get to them?
X. To get to the pockets of the government we have to work with those communities which are needy, not to go just as an institute. We have to train those people to access those and to manage them with them, not isolated.
Dr. L. A position has been taken in the Eastern Cape by a group of private institutions, churches, that came together and I was part of that group. We sat down to discuss and found a common ground as churchgoers and we had a position paper that was developed that identified what we wanted to do as a church group and we made an appointment with the government to tell them what we have in mind. We are developing the country and this is what it is going to cost and these are the following things that we need from you as a government, as our partner in developing people. I would like to say now that the budget is out, a number of budget's have been allocated to fund those schools that are private in nature and are developing the people. This is how we are tapping into the government resources.
-. Somebody here wanted to respond. Thank you Pastor Lebese.
. Lambete
. I come from East London and I am with the ... for Christian Outreach and Education, I am a Methodist Minister, Lambete is my name. I wanted to say one strength and perhaps two weaknesses that I see. The first one is that I want to answer the question about how do we get the money. I think from the input that I have had the RDP is going to be local and if the churches are not organised at local level, that is the congregation, the congregation must deal with the municipality and the NGOs around there, everybody who is around. And so that is one major weakness that we have. We talk about South African Council of Churches and all other conferences.
X. We're talking big.
. Lambete
. We are talking big, but RDP as I see it starts small. And the other thing I want to say and formulate as a question, is I believe that RDP in the end is supposed to be owned by the people and all what I have heard here is maybe welfare and I don't agree with that. I believe that the ultimate aim for RDP if it is going to succeed must be owned by the people and be viable in the long term.
X. And make the people independent.
. Lambete
. And how do we change the culture of soup kitchens at churches? Do we have the theological background? How do we change ministers from becoming office ministers or becoming field workers? That to me is the critical moment. And the last thing I want to say is that while we must regulate the church we should have started in, because when the walls of Jericho fell the Lord said, "Halt, there is money and riches inside." Unless the spiritual side is uplifted there is going to be corruption. And that is one of the major challenges facing us on how to say, don't take all things that are inside because many of them will corrupt the nation.
X. Don't wait to be served or helped, get involved.
X. I am from the Council of African Independent Churches. (This speaker is speaking in his own language).
X. The question of land is not yet addressed. There is no way that the RDP can take off.
X. Because we reach for our people. Where there is a need we are there with those people who are in need. We suffered, we struggled and suffered with the people.
X. Thank you. You want to say something?
X. I just want to add that what we need to ask ourselves today is what we can do to help the government with the RDP programme. I represent the women, sharing my perspective of what we have done as women in the Northern Transvaal. We have started in the line of education. We have realised that the government is speaking about the bringing back the culture of teaching and the culture of learning and we organised seminars also to help our students. We invited subject supervisors and also examiners of different subjects and we started last year and this year from the 12th till 28th July we will be having a winter school where we contacted teachers around in the community. And also we are trying to look at civic associations to help in whatever way they can so that we can be involved in the church by identifying the needs in our community.
X. Thank you.
Chris. I'm Chris, and my question will be based on the unemployment whereby if I hear well here the answers are just based on employed people. So what are the churches going to do to unemployment because the unemployment doesn't have something to contribute and the RDP is not only about spiritual but fundwise. Are those people forgotten?
X. Do you want to respond to that quickly? We have very little time.
X. I think we have been discussing and dealing a lot with the funding of the RDP. My question is what are we thinking about the redevelopment of the youth because I think what is very important is the child who has lost the previous values which our youth had in the past, that is to bring self-actualisation and self-discipline in the youth itself. For instance in our church, I belong to the Bantu Church of Christ whose leader is Bishop James January Mongi(?) in Port Elizabeth, what he has done recently since 1989, he decided to convene all the youth throughout the Republic to Port Elizabeth every year in June, during the June holidays, where each child from each denomination is free to go and develop himself as far as his activities are concerned there.
X. Perhaps he's got a very strong important point that is coming up very late in the programme, starting at the grassroots with the children right in the home. Maybe just in our last minutes let's have a young person responding to that.
SM. I'm Silas Moses. I want to phrase this question to RDP that we've got members of the church in shelters, what about those members of the church who are still in shelters who want to get out of these shelters, having better houses, because when you speak to people about the church, if somebody is hungry and doesn't have any place to live, it is very hard to talk to that person. If you want to know how is God helping us because we don't have houses, we don't have food, so how do we help those people who don't have houses?
X. Is that only church people you are referring to?
X. (Speaker talking in his own language).
X. On the note on the family, after this we are going back to talk with the panel and their summaries.
X. I think it's very, very important that we follow up a point that was raised earlier and that was the question of resources. I agree completely with those who say that the churches must come together, have a strong voice, that they can even be able to organise themselves and get their funds from the government that can promote projects of RDP. But I want us to go further than that. I want to say that J F Kennedy said, "Do not ask what America will do for you but ask yourself what can I do for America?" So the church must begin by its own resources within, the rich in the church must support the church in the projects then we can ask the government and say, "This far we have gone, please help us in order to support the programme of the RDP which was started by our government."
-. Thank you. Mr Thembu?
Mr. T. I want to conclude by saying the chapter of welfarism and handouts has been closed and we have to change ourselves as churches to look on proper reconstruction and development and I want to give you a formula for that. One is credibility which we have as churches. Two is visibility which we don't have. We must market ourselves, we must make sure that we are now in a competitive world and we can only be visible by making ourselves visible. Thirdly, it's results. What results do you make by your intervention? All that together will make an impact and if we fail to have an impact we have no role to play in development and that is the current situation in the country. Thank you.
X. Pamela?
PM. I'm happy to say that REBWSA already started to make it on consultation to the government because it sells research to different governmental departments. Another thing is that we as pastors, our concentration today at REBWSA has been based on pastors who are governing the churches. We are looking forward to help the pastors in administering and governing the country wherein we want, we as REBWSA feel we need to equip our pastors so that at the end of the day whenever they come and ask questions concerning the church, they as pastors they must have answers to whatever type of question comes their way.
X. Thank you. Dr Lebese, a final word.
Dr. L. How do we tap into resources? That was the major question. As a representative of an educational institution which is a church institution, alumni from my students are beginning to work on raising funds using those who have to donate at least R20 into using a debit order form into the high school account in order to reconstruct the school and they are doing it right away. You could also notice that the church is composed of three people, three groups of people. Those who cause things to happen and those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. Now is the time not only to watch but to cause things to happen in the RDP. Viewers out there, get out and do something to reconstruct and develop our country and our people. There is no time to wait for the government to do things, let's begin doing them right now and the government will follow our example.
JN. I want the churches to work closely with us in Operation Masakhane. It is about working together and the church's role is to get people to work together so that we have less conflict and that we have the basic needs of our people being met. I want to invite the churches to use their resources, their networks, their facilities to publicise this campaign because the Masakhane campaign is to deliver the goods of the RDP and the RDP is the only thing that stands between South Africa succeeding and South Africa that is in chaos.