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This vision will be achieved to the extent that we are able to construct and direct the activities of a strong activist, responsible, responsive, and caring State authority. This state, as opposed to the paternalistic model of a welfare State, must defend those who are very weak and facilitate self-achievement by everyone. This can never imply any promise to underwrite personal fortunes, to inculcate dependency or to excuse corruption and waste.
Rather we must address the complex problem of providing decent services for people, as well as the problem of dependency on Government. THE NEW PARADIGM acknowledges that welfare institutions are often alienating and bureaucratic. Even in wealthy countries, these services are
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necessary for special groups in need of public assistance. They must never become addictive for those who can be weaned to provide for themselves. Want, disease, ignorance, and squalor are best eliminated by advances in the areas of education, health, community development and welfare.
Bu reaucratic intervention should give way to sensitively structured contributions from individuals, families, non-governmental organisations, as well as the state.
The urgency of the challenges we face dictates the need to forge a new partnership between the state and civil society.
There are at least seven major tasks to be addressed in the short run. We must:
- evaluate, restructure, and generally improve every aspect of our education and training institutions - formal and informal; public and private sector. We must do this against the backdrop of objectives on which we can all agree.
- re-organize and restructure the relationship between labour and management so as to make our industrial relations climate more in keeping with the new work order imposed by globalisation. We need more collaboration rather than confrontation between the
main social partners and we need more flexibility and less rigidity in the organisation of tasks and functions within the work place.
- urgently create the conditions for stimulating more investment in productive assets. In this regard we must place priority on the reduction of the National Debt and its containment within realistic levels.
- advance the reformation of the Public Sector to sharply reduce costs and deliver satisfactory service.
- promote a community agenda, which increasingly transfers resources and decision-making authority to local authorities, in order to encourage greater civic participation in the decision-making, on issues affecting the management of communities and the conditions of life in communities.
- advance a comprehensive Justice Enrichment Program to ensure that every case is disposed of in six (6) months; one (1) year for appeals. This will also involve improvements in the monitoring of complaints regarding the actions of security personnel and other elements of the state.
- maintain our commitment to relieve the decadence of the inner cities. The employment of young people and the revitalization of the inner-city communities must occupy a critical place in the agenda of National priorities. These populations after all are the
worst victims of the crime, violence, idleness and social decay, which have been rampant in recent decades.
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