SEE Why I Just Love the Economic Freedom Fighters of Azania :) BUDGET VOTE SPEECH ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS Commissar A. Mngxitama 17 July 2014 Honourable Chair, The mandate of the department is framed by our constitution: “all South Africans have a constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being”. Sadly, this modest mandate cant be fulfilled because the department like all departments of this government is driven by a logic with is inimical to the protection of our flora, fauna and people! The department’s logic is profit before people! The ANC government has inserted our nation into the global system (capitalism) that will ensure the end of our planet as we know it. Honourable members, if we continue with the current levels of Green House Gas emissions we shall have only one outcomes: an ecological holocaust! Our country is amongst the highest assaulters of our planet with Green House Gas emissions. This is not a good story to tell! The simple truth is that, the West including the UN system despite the numerous Cops have been eroding the Kyoto Protocol, which is fast being overtaken by business interests, not the interests of people or planet. Europe and the United Stated of America have no answer to the ecological and social catastrophe of climate change. This is so because the West is married to capitalism. Sadly, the National Development Plan shares the same logic that favours capital accumulation. Capitalism is going destroy our world. capitalist greed is going to inaugurate natural disasters that shall leave Africa a wasteland! This century, if we don’t act fast and radical 200 million Africans shall perish from climate change impact. In the SONA president zuma spoke at length about the new energy generation sources. All of which shall contribute to the warming of our globe. The President further surrendered any prospects of a green economy to the whims of private business, whilst committing the state to undertake all the polluting energy processes. The ANC pocketed R50 Million from its hitachi stake. This government creates an energy crisis and make a profit from it! To the end the energy crisis government must simple stop giving BHP Billiton our electricity for almost mahala. Why are we subsiding a foreign multinational? We need to move to clean, local job creating options such as solar and windpower (which have the ability to generate industrial baseload power) and stimulate our manufacturing sector, which has been bleeding jobs for some years now.. The President in the SONA provided us with enough evidence of policy confusion on the one hand and commitment to bad practices on the other. He said, the energy crisis “…calls for a radical transformation of the energy sector, to develop a sustainable energy mix that comprises coal, solar, wind, hydro, gas and nuclear energy.” Between nuclear power and Shale gas in the mix and you have expensive and harmful systems in place, not the protection of our people and planet. EFF says very clearly: No to nuclear energy! (we remember the human and economic disaster in Japan, lets not repeat the same mistake) No to shale gas fracking! No to coal based energy sources! We must ask where is the policy for sustainable clean energy that creates jobs? This budget vote is itself silent on these major issues thereby rendering it wasteful expenditure that can’t be support by the EFF. We must ask, who is going to pay the human and ecological debt of capitalist profiteering? The mining houses have poisoned the water sources of the Reef,, yet the Dept is paying to clean up their acid mine drainage mess. They also continue to poison our people This Budget is silent on black communities living with high levels of industrial toxicity. This is tragic!. What must be done? 1. Lets adopt the One Million Climate Jobs? 2. Lets demand polluters pay their ecological and social debt 3. We must say no! to GMOs! 4. No to more emissions from fossil fuels or of nuclear radiation! 5. Lets adopt The People’s Agreement of Cochabamba! 6. Lets stop giving PHB-Billiton our enegy for free and save (10% of our national energy supply). 7. SA government must support the class action of ex mine workersBut most importantly, let’s put people before profits Honorable Minister, we need a paradigm shift. We must put people before profits. The Rhino is a perfect metaphor for the system we are up against. Those driven by the profit motive shall continue chase the animal, steal its horn and leave it in great agony and death. The horrid picture of a rotting carcass of a murdered Rhino speaks to our collective future. The Rhino, like our planet has no future outside a future that puts people First! WE echo the sentiment of the president of Bolivia Evo Morales, “Either capitalism dies or Mother Earth dies”. I thank you!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:22:47 +0000
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