Parliament – Government will not change its policies for 2008, but will instead focus on implementing the programmes it already has, says President Thabo Mbeki. “The elections are coming next year, so I think it would be very foolish to try now to add any radically new policies so late in the day of the current Parliament and government,” said the President on Sunday. President Mbeki delivered his penultimate State of the Nation Address on Friday.

Referring to the policy decisions taken at the ANC conference in Polokwane, Mr Mbeki said that while the public had the perception there was about to be radical change in terms of policy direction, this was not the case.

“It might be that people have … a perception that there’s some radical change in terms of the political direction in which we’re going, and there isn’t.”

He said the conference had instead reaffirmed that government was on the correct path.

“Whether you’re talking about economic matters or social matters or any other matter, they really basically reaffirmed the correctness of the policies that we’ve been pursuing.”

In his address on Friday, Mr Mbeki said it would be “Business Unusual” in the coming year.

“We speak of Business Unusual not referring to any changes in our established policies but with regard to the speedy, efficient and effective implementation of these policies and programmes, so that the lives of our people should change for the better, sooner rather than later,” the President had said.

“The policy positions of the government are correct, so the principal task we face is not to elaborate new policies,” Mr Mbeki said in the Sunday interview.

He said in fact, government’s principle task was now to ensure that the policies that had been decided were implemented.

“I was saying then in the State of the Nation Address, that we’ve got to address that matter of implementation in a new way.”

He said while policies would not change, the manner in which government worked would change.

“[There needs to be] more energy, more application, more attention to detail to make sure that it’s correct policy positions, translate into change in much shorter periods of time.

“So we’ve got to do things differently,” said Mr Mbeki.

He said South Africans had expressed concern at where the country was heading.

With the current electricity shortage in the country, people were concerned that there was something “wrong” with the country.

“It was important to acknowledge that the public has fears that something has changed or is changing in a negative direction,” said Mr Mbeki, adding that he was however convinced that the country would move ahead in the same direction it has in its first 14 years of democracy.

“[As a result of] the electricity crisis, among other things that have happened, people sort of feel a bit shaken about the future. I thought it was important to make a point that the country hasn’t lost course,” said Mr Mbeki.

“It has not lost direction and the programs and directions in which the government has been taking the country for these 14 years, those are not going to change.” - BuaNews