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Rural development
The rural development department was also introduced in 2009.
Zuma said the vision behind this was to improve the lives of rural people and believes that a lot of ground was covered in this regard.
“People who received assistance and support from this department … win in several areas,” he said.
“Instead of theorizing about rural development, we created a specific department to address it.”
ARV distribution
Zuma says many lives were saved when the government finally agreed to purchase antiretrovirals (ARVs) to fight HIV after years of so-called “denialism” by his predecessor Thabo Mbeki.
“When I came in, I implemented that and changed people’s lives,” said Zuma.
“If you say these nine years were wasted, that is the greatest dishonesty.”
Brics
According to Zuma, when SA officially became a member of the economic bloc of Brics countries, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA, there was a broader vision to better position the country on a geopolitical level.
The creation of the Brics Development Bank, among other things, he said, was to allow SA to borrow for its development agenda on better terms and conditions than the IMF and World Bank.
“We were moving a long way by joining the Brics group of countries that established a bank as large as the banks it has [IMF and World Bank],” he said.
“If we were to use that relationship, we would not be crying about the lack of funds because we knew exactly where we were going.”
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