Pretoria - Efforts will be made to ensure that all South Africans celebrate and participate in the ANC's centenary, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said.
Speaking during the State of the Nation debate in the National Assembly on Wednesday, the minister focused on the ruling party's centenary, which will be marked in 2012.
"The centenary represents a solemn and historic moment for the people of our country, the continent and indeed progressive humanity in general," the minister said.
She added that government would ensure that people from all walks of life were somehow involved in the centenary celebrations and called for religious leaders, the sporting fraternity, intelligentsia, traditional leaders, cultural workers, businesses, women and youth to be mobilised.
Looking back, Dlamini Zuma said some of the major achievements of the past century include:
* People uniting behind the struggle for freedom and democracy;
* The establishment of a legitimate state that derives its authority from the people through regular elections and proper participation in the processes of government;
* A progressive Constitution with its Bill of Rights, in addition to a single citizenship with one population register and one bar-coded ID for all South Africans;
* Eleven official languages have been embraced;
* Freedom of movement, association and speech has been guaranteed; and
* South Africa proudly participating in the affairs of the global family of nations through international fora.
"We are well on the way towards building a united African nation, whose diversity is its strength and adds to the tapestry of the continent and humanity at large," she said.
Already, by working together, government has provided basic needs such as water, electricity, health, sanitation, education, rural development, roads, as well as sport and recreational amenities.
"Yet there are still a lot of challenges that lay ahead and we must be seized with dealing with these from today until we commemorate the next centenary," Dlamini Zuma acknowledged.
She said while the rights of the vulnerable, elderly, children and people with disabilities had been recognised, a level of marginalisation still existed.
South Africans had responsibility and obligation to give to the future generation a better country that what we lived in today, the minister added.
With freedom came responsibility and government still had a lot more to achieve.
"We continue to face challenges of poverty and underdevelopment, which threaten to erode the gains we have made since we received from the people of our country the mandate to govern," she noted.
Dlamini Zuma urged those sectors that will participate in the centenary to evaluate the progress made so far and to think about how government can work towards transforming South African society in the next century.
