Foreword by the Minister of Minerals and Energy Hon. Dr. Penuell Mpapa Maduna
As we approach the new millennium, government's goal remains the upliftment of the exploited and dispossessed.
That was my message in this foreword last year, and that remains our most important task, because we need to give people hope for the year 2000 and beyond.
Availability of energy will be crucial to this process, and Sapia's members, as providers of liquid fuels, have a crucial role to play. They can help us meet the vast challenges - human development, job creation, growth - which face our country and our continent.
Sapia can help us to ensure that all South Africans, even in the furthest rural areas, have a light to study by, fuel to plough and plant their fields, and energy to run their businesses. Together we can make the African Renaissance a reality.
The need to transform the economy, and make it more representative of the demographics of the country, is also an issue I raised last year. The challenges we face in bringing this about have now come into much sharper focus. In the course of the year several black controlled companies entered the industry. I acknowledge the assistance given to them by Sapia members in terms of support in respect of the supply of products, services and access to the rights to build service stations.
Black economic empowerment is certainly one of the most critical matters on the national agenda as the struggle for political emancipation is given meaning by the economic empowerment of all. Established interests should not see this as a "zero sum game" in which they lose and the previously disadvantaged gain. For, unless there is significant progress in this area, all South Africans will be losers as stability and prosperity in our country will become unsustainable. We simply cannot continue to have the vast wealth of a relative few coexisting with the abject poverty of the majority of our fellow citizens and expect peace and stability to prevail.
We need imaginative solutions.
We shall use State assets to assist transformation in the liquid fuels industry, and, together with the oil companies, work at achieving an industry which better reflects the rich diversity of South Africa.
The scale of change - from survival-by-sanctions-busting in the past, to growth and job creation in the future - means I can no longer tinker with the draft policy documents I inherited. I have to start afresh. This decision, together with the appointment of a Director General and other key staff attuned to the needs of a democratic South Africa, means that rapid progress is now being made in establishing appropriate policy.
The result is the publication of a draft White Paper on Energy, to which I refer readers. They will see in it the intention of government to move towards minimal intervention in the liquid fuels industry.
However it will be necessary that regulation continues for some time to enable an orderly process of adaptation and adjustment by the various role players.
We in government welcome Sapia's commitment, clearly expressed in this report, to work with us in developing and implementing energy policies that can meet national needs, and in restructuring the oil industry so that it assists democracy.
We require many more such co-operative efforts between the State and Business.
To describe the thrust of the draft White Paper in a few words I thought I would simply quote the energy sector policy objectives, with a comment or two of my own:
For each of these objectives short and medium term priorities have been set.
The draft White Paper, under the priority of stimulating economic development, contains a commitment by government to creating and maintaining a climate of certainty and fair returns to investors.
We need to give our people hope for the year 2000 and beyond. And it is a task which contains a special challenge to Sapia because... the availability of energy will be crucial to the process of development and upliftment, and of creating the African Renaissance.
During the transition period the industry's profit margins will continue to be controlled, a matter of direct concern to me, as the Minister responsible for the setting of the margins. I am pleased to be able to record that progress is being made toward developing a mutually agreed system of margin determination to replace the apartheid based MPAR method. In November 1997 I granted the industry a 2c/l interim margin increase. Until such time as the process of agreeing and implementing a new system is completed I will consider further interim relief for the industry, if it can be demonstrated that this is fully justified and needed.
I reiterate that Government remains committed to creating an environment conducive to vibrant economic growth, and I call upon business to join us in this effort. We need to set aside our differences, and join hands to achieve common goals, particularly to win the battle against poverty.
I wish Sapia and its member companies well in the new millennium.