Thabo Mbeki Quotes About South Africa

Quotes about: South Africa

• I am sure it is in the medical textbooks, there are many things that cause immune deficiency and you will find therefore in the South African HIV and AIDS programme, that it will say that part of what we have got to do is to make sure that our health infrastructure, our health system is able to deal adequately with all of the illnesses that are a consequence of AIDS.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Hiv, Textbooks, Able

  Interview with Lionel Barber and Alec Russell, www.ft.com. April 3, 2007.

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

  Thabo Mbeki

  Country, People, Needs

  "Tregernomics Interview with President Thabo Mbeki". Interview with Adam Treger, www.mbeki.org. October 31, 2016.

• The principal investors in the South African economy are South Africans. And this is something, I think, we should really pay attention to.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Thinking, Attention, Pay

  Source: www.gov.za

• South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Black And White, Apartheid, South

  Thabo Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa (1995). “Speech of Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, at the ANC National Constitutional Conference, March 31 to April 2, 1995, World Trade Centre”

• For an investor who is sitting in the United States, and South Africa is very far from the United States, you need to go out to that investor to say, these are the possibilities in this particular sector.

  Thabo Mbeki

  United States, Needs, Sitting

  Source: www.gov.za

• 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

  Issues, Economy, Said

  Source: www.gov.za

• What moved us was not so much what would it do for South Africa, but there has been a great keenness on the Continent that the location of the Pan African Parliament must add to its credibility. And, so we said, fine, it's a contribution to this process of the democratisation of the African Continent.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Add, Location, Keenness

  Source: www.gov.za

• Do you know what the largest single cause of death in South Africa is? The largest single cause of death is what in the medical statistics is called external causes and that is violence in the society. For instance I've seen figures that say that if you take the male age cohort from16 to 45 years, 54% of the people who die in that age cohort die from external causes.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Years, People, Age

  Source: www.nelsonmandela.org

• There is a section of our population in South Africa that you can't expect to get integrated in the economy of its own. These are people without skills and that will include young people who might very well have matric certificates, but don't have the skills to be absorbed in the economy. So we need to target people like those in a special way, in a focused way so that they have the skills and the capacity to participate in the economy. That requires special programmes.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Skills, People, Special

• When I was in government, the South African economy was growing at 4.5% - 5%. But then came the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, and so the global economy shrunk. That hit South Africa very hard, because then the export markets shrunk, and that includes China, which has become one of the main trade partners with South Africa. Also, the slowdown in the Chinese economy affected South Africa. The result was that during that whole period, South Africa lost something like a million jobs because of external factors.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Jobs, Government, Chinese

  Source: www.tregernomics.com

• We do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.

  Thabo Mbeki

  President, Ordinary, Reason

  Source: www.gov.za

• The public service needs lots of people, South Africa generally, needs lots of people.

  Thabo Mbeki

  People, Needs, Public Service

• There is a tendency just to talk about foreign investors. Over 80 per cent of new investment in the South African economy is South African and therefore the engagement of the South African investor is also a critical part of this process.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Engagement, Investment, Economy

  Source: www.gov.za

• It's a big problem in South Africa up to this day: many people want to open factories, they want to invest, but then they discover that they don't have the skilled people to employ.

  Thabo Mbeki

  People, Want, Problem

  Interview with Adam Treger, www.tregernomics.com. October 14, 2016.

• A number of African countries came to us and said, we request that South Africa should not field a candidate, because so many other African countries wanted to, and, in any case, South Africa would continue to play a role in terms of building the African Union, and so on. And they actually said, please don't field a candidate, and we didn't. As I have said, it is not because we didn't have people who are competent to serve in these positions.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Country, Play, Numbers

  Source: www.gov.za

• South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination.

  Thabo Mbeki

  White, Criminals, Example

• 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

  Thinking, Skills, Growth

  SABC TV2 Interview, oldgov.gcis.gov.za. February 16, 2003.

• I should also say that apart from the negotiations that are taking place within the WTO, we are ourselves involved in all manner of bilateral negotiations, or, if they are not bilateral, with the South African Customs Union and the European Union. All the member countries of the European Union have now ratified the agreement that we have with the EU and that opens up the EU market in various ways.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Country, Agreement, Way

  Source: www.gov.za

• South Africa has faced many problems in the past. You would understand those problems if you understood the history of the struggle to get rid of Apartheid and the struggle to establish democracy.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Struggle, Past, Democracy

  "Tregernomics Interview with President Thabo Mbeki". Interview with Adam Treger, www.mbeki.org. October 31, 2016.

• I don't think there would be many examples of South Africa pushing its weight around the African Continent. I don't think the facts would substantiate that argument.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Thinking, Would Be, Weight

  Source: www.gov.za

• As we mourn President Mandela’s passing we must ask ourselves the fundamental question - what shall we do to respond to the tasks of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, a people-centred society free of hunger, poverty, disease and inequality, as well as Africa’s renaissance, to whose attainment President Nelson Mandela dedicated his whole life?

  Thabo Mbeki

  Hunger Poverty, People, President

• I think the critical point, really, is that we need to focus black economic empowerment more on the creation of new wealth rather than on these big deals that have been characteristic of this process in the past, of people going to banks, borrowing a lot of money, buying this and when the shares don't perform very well, the shares go back to the banks, because there's other people who own this anyway. I think we need to re-focus it so that it really does impact on growth, new investment, new employment and a general, better spread of wealth in South Africa.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Past, Thinking, Impact

  SABC TV2 Interview, oldgov.gcis.gov.za. February 16, 2003.

• While the WTO negotiations will continue, there are other trade negotiations of a bilateral nature, which among other things, should help to open up these markets for South African products.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Helping, Negotiation, Should

  Source: www.gov.za

• There must be no abuse of people and they did ask that the South Africa Government should give them whatever support they needed to make sure that they have a proper legal process, proper detention, no abuse of people during interrogation and all of that. And so, we agreed.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Government, Giving, People

  Source: www.gov.za

• The King had been a good friend of the government and the people of South Africa and we all mourn his passing with our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Brother, Kings, Good Friend

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