National Assembly - 09 June 2000
FRIDAY, 9 JUNE 2000 __
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
____
The House met at 09:06.
The Chairperson of Committees took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.
ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS - see col 000.
NOTICES OF MOTION
Mr S J MOHAI: Chair, I give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House -
(1) notes that -
(a) the people of South Africa will celebrate the 24th anniversary
of the Soweto uprisings on 16 June;
(b) this marks an important day in our history, one on which young
people resisted apartheid gutter education; and
(c) the ANC-led Government has declared this day national Youth Day;
(2) believes that this generation of our youth made an important contribution towards the dismantling of the evil system of apartheid;
(3) commemorates the gallant fighters, the young men and women of 1976, for their courageous efforts to fight apartheid; and
(4) calls on the new generation of young people to pick up the spear and play an important role in building a new nonracial, nonsexist and democratic society.
[Applause.] Mr D H M GIBSON: Chairperson, I give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the DP: That the House -
(1) notes -
(a) with shock and disgust the armed invasion of a DP meeting in
Phiri, Soweto, last night;
(b) that the meeting had been widely advertised in the area; and
(c) that only the two DP public representatives, Richard Pillay, MP,
and Manny de Freitas, MPL, amongst all those in attendance, were
robbed of their vehicles and personal belongings;
(2) expresses concern that this incident does not bode well for free and fair local elections when political party representatives are targeted by criminals;
(3) recognises that violent crime is a feature of the daily lives of many South Africans; and (4) calls on the Minister of Safety and Security to honour his responsibility to the South African public by providing effective policing to combat the debilitating tidal wave of crime which is destroying our country and which threatens our democracy.
[Interjections.] [Applause.]
Prince N E ZULU: Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move:
That the House -
(1) notes, supports and gives credit to the Minister of Home Affairs for his concerted effort to search for a world-class immigration policy, one which is now on the cards; and
(2) is of the opinion that such a policy is intended not only to control the movement of people more amicably, but also to attract investment of foreign skills and capital into the country and combat the present scourge of unemployment.
Mr N J GOGOTYA: Chairperson, I give notice that at the next sitting of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House -
(1) notes -
(a) with appreciation the increased participation of ordinary
citizens in exposing and fighting crime; and
(b) that there are new structures for police reservists,
neighbourhood watch groups, voluntary emergency centres and
community police officers in the South Peninsula, Cape Town;
(2) acknowledges that the SA Police Service has ultimate authority in safety and security matters and needs to be strengthened; and
(3) calls for the co-ordination and co-operation of all those involved in combating crime.
[Applause.] Mrs S M CAMERER: Chairperson, I give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move:
That the House -
(1) notes -
(a) with great concern that two more escapes from court buildings
involving 16 dangerous awaiting-trial prisoners took place this
week and that many of these prisoners are armed and are still at
large;
(b) the briefing of the Minister for Justice and Constitutional
Development to Parliament that there are only 595 security
personnel working in the department and that an additional 3 000
security officers are required to secure the courts properly;
and
(c) that funds have been made available to outsource these security
requirements; and
(2) urges the Minister to proceed without delay to do everything necessary to make our courts safe and secure.
Mr M E MABETA: Mr Chairman, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the UDM:
That the House -
(1) notes the timely announcement by the Ministry of Justice of a pilot project for supporting the victims of rape and crime;
(2) calls on all relevant structures in the Western Cape to give full and necessary support to this centre;
(3) commends the commitment by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions that the centre will be functional by August; and
(4) notes that this initiative will go a long way towards making justice more available and accessible to women and children who mostly are the victims of crime.
Mr S P GROVÉ: Chairperson, I give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House -
(1) notes that 5 March 2000 was World Environment Day;
(2) recognises the suffering experienced by those who worked for the asbestos mining company Cape PLC, resulting in severe damage to the health of those workers;
(3) recognises the sterling work done by the South African legal team and British public representatives, most notably the hon Kevin McNamara, MP of the British Labour Party, in support of approximately 2 300 South African claimants who are seeking compensation through the British courts; and
(4) wishes the claimants every success after their long battle to have their case heard.
Mr M A MANGENA: Chair, I give notice that at the next sitting of the House I shall move on behalf of the Azapo: That the House -
(1) notes -
(a) the call made every now and then by some citizens that all
children in our country be afforded an opportunity to learn at
least one African language at school; and
(b) a similar call made recently by some officials in the Ministry
of Justice that judges, magistrates and prosecutors be
encouraged to learn at least one African language to enable them
to dispense justice better;
(2) observes that despite the fact that whites have been in this country for several centuries, they still understand few of the languages and little of the culture of the African people;
(3) is of the opinion that it is, in fact, the African majority who has been compelled by colonial conquest and loveless religious conversion to assume white names, learn European languages and assimilate white culture;
(4) believes that the learning of African languages by all will contribute enormously towards better group relations, mutual understanding and a more suitable society within which democracy can be built …
[Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mr M WATERS: Chairperson, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the DP:
That the House -
(1) notes that -
(a) the chairperson of the Edenvale-Lethabong council, ANC
councillor Virginia Mlobeli, failed to disclose her council
allowance of R4 023 when applying for a housing subsidy; and
(b) Councillor Mlobeli is presently earning an additional R4 198 as
chairperson of the Edenvale-Lethabong council, giving her a
total income from the council of R8 221; and
(2) calls for the -
(a) immediate resignation of Councillor Mlobeli;
(b) Provincial Housing Board to take legal action against Mlobeli;
and
(c) ANC to explain to their public representatives that housing
subsidies are meant for the poorest of the poor and not for the
ANC elite.
[Interjections.] [Applause.]
Mr G P MNGOMEZULU: Chairperson, I give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House -
(1) notes -
(a) the continued and unseemly squabbling between the DP and the New
NP; and
(b) the comments of the leader of the New NP, the hon Marthinus van
Schalkwyk, that ``the DP's actions have removed any basis of
good faith between us'' and that the DP's actions ``can at best
be described as calculated deception'';
(2) urges the New NP to explain to the voters of the Western Cape how its party can effectively govern jointly with a party whose actions are continuously characterised by deception and opportunism; and
(3) calls on the hon Mr Van Schalkwyk to prove that his party has moved away from the blindness of its apartheid past by listening to the wishes of the voters of the Western Cape who supported the ANC in greater numbers than any other party.
[Interjections. [Applause.]
Mr J H MOMBERG: Wat sê jy nou, bobbejaanspanner? [Tussenwerpsels.] [What do you say now, monkey wrench? [Interjections.]
The CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Mr Lee and Mr Doidge, we have the business of the House to consider!
AMENDMENT OF RESOLUTION ADOPTING 19TH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
(Draft Resolution)
Mr G Q M DOIDGE: Chairperson, on behalf of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party, I move the draft resolution printed in his name on the Order Paper, as follows:
That the Report be adopted, except that with reference to paragraph 2 of the Report, it be amended to read as follows:
- The remaining amount of R1 199 022,16, reported as unauthorised by the Auditor-General, refers to expenditure incurred from voted funds to host the Second National Conference on Small Business, in excess of the R2 million donation received. Further information had been requested from the department, but the Committee is concerned at the non-compliance with the relevant Treasury Instructions. The Committee has noted the corrective measures reportedly implemented by the Department. However, the Committee recommends that the unauthorised expenditure in question not be authorised, and that the legal process set out in sections 33 and 34 of the Exchequer Act take its course.
Agreed to.
RATIFICATION OF DECISION OF JOINT PROGRAMME SUBCOMMITTEE ON FAST-TRACKING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: CROSS-BOUNDARY MUNICIPALITIES BILL
(Draft Resolution)
Mr G Q M DOIDGE: Mr Chairperson, on behalf of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party, I move the draft resolution printed in his name on the Order Paper, as follows:
That the House ratifies the decision the Joint Programme Subcommittee took on 8 June 2000 in accordance with Joint Rule 216(2), namely that the Local Government: Cross-boundary Municipalities Bill, 2000, be fast- tracked by, where necessary, shortening any period within which any step in the legislative process relating to the Bill must be completed, in order to make it possible for the Bill to be passed by both Houses of Parliament by 23 June 2000 (see Announcements, Tablings and Committee Reports, p 500).
Agreed to.
CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF AD HOC COMMITTEE ON REPORT 13 OF PUBLIC
PROTECTOR
Order disposed of without debate.
Report adopted.
APPROPRIATION BILL
Resumption of debate on Vote No 12 - Government Communication and Information System:
Mr T L MAKUNYANE: Mr Chairperson, information is power, and we want it for our people. As the South African public becomes more involved in the process of governance, it will demand more information about specific areas, including those critical to their basic survival.
This need defines the task of Government to provide development, communication and information. It also raises the need for Government to encourage and promote the development of community media that will reflect the full diversity of views that make up our society. The mandate of the Government Communication and Information System is to ensure that the public is informed about the Government’s policies and activities.
Government communication is a powerful instrument that can help to deepen our democracy and change the lives of our people. But, in the wrong hands, it can also wreak havoc. In the past the NP used government communication to wage psychological warfare against our people. The apartheid regime used its communication capacity to promote the ideology of separate development and entrench white supremacy. Who can forget the apartheid propaganda products of the time: velaphanda, Nhluvuko, Intuthuko, Tswelopele, Tswelopele, Tšwelelopele, Panorama, and even Wamba, Motswalle wa Bana? These were the products of the SA Communication Service. Through them, the apartheid regime hoped to legitimise itself through misinformation and lies. The aim was to disempower and subjugate our people through the suppression of information and distortion of reality.
The so-called mainstream press - white-owned and bankrolled by big business
- also played along. Through the Newspaper Press Union, this section of the media allowed itself to be manipulated by the apartheid state. Through its participation in the defence and police liaison committees, the Newspaper Press Union colluded with the apartheid government and allowed it to dictate the levels of press freedom.
The Afrikaans press, especially the Naspers stable, publicly supported apartheid and openly espoused white supremacy. The English press, on the other hand, only appeared to be against the excesses of apartheid, but it defined its anti-apartheid stance within the racist framework of white sectarian politics. When it reported on the anti-apartheid struggle, it readily and uncritically adopted concepts that were churned out by the apartheid propaganda machine. Apartheid-sponsored violence against our people was called black-on-black violence. Anti-apartheid activity was termed anti-South Africa. To them freedom fighters were terrorists. It was this press that also subscribed to the notion that white South Africans were actually Europeans. This so-called mainstream media was so grossly crippled and distorted by its association with apartheid that it is today still unable to recognise, acknowledge and root out racist influences within its own ranks.
Information is power, and we want it for our people. The poor and marginalised need accurate, relevant and timely information about Government policies, bursary facilities, services, job opportunities, skills training and so forth. We cannot entrust this task to this unreconstructed, white-controlled, profit-driven media. We cannot rely on the media that still echoes the ideological tenets of a minority that has nothing to gain from the transformation of our society. People need a media that will inform, educate and empower them to better the quality of their lives.
However, the mainstream media has a right to exist. It can continue to provide its own minority audience with accurate, timely and relevant information about share prices and stock market analysis - well and good. But being informed is not the prerogative of this privileged minority, nor should the provision of information be taken to be the monopoly of this mainstream media.
The forces of our struggle for transformation also need accurate, relevant and timely information that will empower them. The workers who bore the brunt of apartheid’s super exploitation need information. The army of the unemployed which was created by apartheid as a pool of cheap labour need information. The rural masses who cry out for land and services need information. The women who have been marginalised and turned into beasts of burden by the migrant labour system, need information. The black middle- class, the managers, the black intelligentsia and other professionals who have caught a distant glimpse of a better life but were kept out by apartheid’s job reservation, also need information.
The Government Communication and Information System strives to meet these needs. It seeks to utilise, not only the traditional methods to target this neglected audience, but also to find new and creative ways to disseminate information that will be useful and relevant to these sectors of our population.
Through the establishment of a network of multipurpose community centres, the GCIS will provide an accessible local network that will bring integrated service delivery through one-stock Government service and information centres. These will use the latest technology to afford ordinary people access to Government services.
There will be many spin-offs that will benefit local communities. Through the media development agency, GCIS will also promote and encourage community media that will reflect the full diversity of opinion in our society.
Also important is the mandate of the GCIS to promote the good image of South Africa here and abroad. This will have a direct impact on business confidence and our country’s ability to attract foreign direct investment. But most of all, it is GCIS’s overarching task of providing development, communication and information that will empower our people to change their own lives. We, therefore, request this House to support this Vote as the GCIS is a powerful vehicle of change whose mission is to empower our people. Mr S J MONGWAKETSE: Chairperson, the Minister, Comrade Essop Pahad, Ministers, comrades, ladies and gentlemen, I think that Comrade Makunyane has emphasised exactly what is needed by our people. Democracy in our country cannot be fully realised if some of the people are left out, if some do not know what the Government is doing in terms of service delivery.
When the President, during the state of the nation address, spoke about a nation at work for a better life and the dawn of the African century, he was announcing the Government programme focusing on a strategy of mobilising people to work with the Government to improve their condition. It is of paramount importance to have an informed society. Information is empowerment, as Comrade Makunyane has said. There is a sense developing amongst the people of our land that Government can only succeed if it is partnered by an active population. Information builds an independent, self-reliant and confident society.
Maabane leloko la lekoko la kganetso, Mme Dene Smuts, o ne a maketse thata, a batla go itse gore go tla jang gore go nne le ditšhaba tse pedi mo nageng e le esi ya rona. Ke solofela gore go gontle gore leloko le le tlotlegang le makale ka tsela e ntseng jalo, ka gonne se monate se ingwaelwa. Ke rona re itseng gore mo nageng e ya rona go na le ditšhaba tse pedi, tseo tse di nang le bokgoni le tseo di senang bokgoni.
Kwa gaetsho kwa Ganyesa, batho ba teng ga ba kgone go bona telebišene. Ga ba kgone go utlwa gore mmuso o dira eng. Le gale ka gonne makoko a kganetso a batla gore tshedimosetso e goroge mo bathong bangwe, mme ba bangwe ba seke ba e bona, ba re nnyaya, Motlotlegi Mopresidente ga a tshwanela gore re ditšhaba tse pedi mo nageng ele esi. [Legofi.]
Nna ke a itse gore Mopresidente Thabo Mbeki, fa e ne e le Motlatsa Mopresidente o kile a kopa gore a fiwe nako mo telebišeneng mo go tlhalosiwang dintlha tsotlhe tsa puso. Makoko a kganetso a ne a ema ka dinao, a re Motlatsa Mopresidente o batla go dirisa tšhono eo go tsweletsa diphitlhelelo tsa lekoko la gagwe. Ke ipotsa potso gore setshosa se sekanakana se ke eng? A makoko a a kganetso a tsaya gore puso e ya gompieno e tshwana le puso ele ya maloba?
Ga go kgonege go tshwantsha puso eno le ele ya maloba. Puso ya maloba e ne e le ya kgatelelo, mme ke bona ba itseng seno. Puso eno ya gompieno ke puso e e nang le Mosireletsi wa Setšhaba. Fa o sa itumelele sengwe, o kgona go lebisa ngongorego kwa go ene. Ke solofela sentle gore fa re eletsa gore batho botlhe mo Aforika Borwa ba lekane - ka gonne rona mo ANC, re bua ka tekatekanyo; batho botlhe ba tshwanetse go lekana - le ka tshedimosetso ba tshwanetse go lekana. (Translation of Setswana paragraphs follows.)
[Yesterday a member from the opposition party, Ms Dene Smuts, was very surprised to hear that there are two nations in this country. I expected the member to be surprised because if the shoe fits she should wear it. We know that there are two nations in our country, those who have and those who do not have.
Where I come from in Ganyesa the people do not have television. They are unable to hear the programmes the Government has in place. Opposition parties want information to reach some people and not others and they state that the hon President should not say that we have two nations in one country. [Applause.]
I know that when Thabo Mbeki was still the Deputy President he asked to be given time on television to explain the Government’s programmes. Opposition parties were up in arms, claiming that he wanted to further the aims of his party. I ask myself what these parties are afraid of. Do these parties think that this Government is similar to previous governments?
It is not possible to compare this Government with governments of the past. Previous governments were oppressive and these parties know this. Today’s Government has a Public Protector. If one has a complaint one can direct this complaint to the Public Protector. We in the ANC want people in South Africa to be equal and we also want them to have equal access to information.]
The Government Communication and Information System is indispensable for achieving this end. It is responsible for the communication environment within which the selected representatives of the people operate. The rural communities, which form a large part of society, must know what the Government is doing. They must understand the programme of the Government. Information for this community is a democratic right - it is not a privilege. One of the critical elements in the mandate of the Government Communication and Information System, GCIS, is to lead Government communication, ensuring that all sectors of Government operate within the framework of an integrated communication strategy.
Radio is an essential tool through which the Government communicates with the people. There are many that have no access to information, except through this medium. In the past few months we have seen a significant improvement in GCIS’s radio production services for community radio stations. The unit recently put in place a new facility that enables community radio stations to pick up key speeches in Parliament and in the Union Buildings. This feedback can be broadcast live to community radio stations around the country.
This process of bringing Parliament and Government to the people has elected a tremendous response from the community radio stations. The President’s state of the nation address, for example, was broadcast live to 20 community radio stations. Many other stations have expressed interest for the future. Radio is the most important messenger, not only because it is affordable and available, but also because it is accessible. Information is communicated in the language of the listener. Radio delivers information directly to the listerner. It is not dependent on literacy, on education and on sight, but on language.
Se ke se itseng ke gore ka 1994 re ne re na le Tirelo ya Tlhaeletsano ya Aforika Borwa, kgotsa SA Communication Services. Tirelo eo, e ne e tshwerwe ke dipuo di le dintsi. Rotlhe re a itse gore tirelo eo tota e ne e se tirelo ya nnete, ka gonne go ne go na le mapodisi mo gare ga yona. Re fitlhetse sentlhaga sa mapodisi mo gare ga tirelo e. Re ne ra botsa gore batho ba sedimosetswa jang fa e le gore ke mapodisi a a boitshegang mo gare ga sentlha seo.
Ke sone se eleng gore, go bua nnete, re raya makoko a kganetso re re tirelo ya tshedimosetso e re nang le yona gompieno fa ke e e botlhokwa, gonne sengwe le sengwe se tlile go bonagala mo pepeneneng, eseng jaaka maloba. Go bua nnete, ANC e kgonne go fenya ditlhopo SA Communication Services e ntse e le teng. Ga re itse gore e ne e tsietsa batho e re eng, le gale re kgonne go fenya ditlhopo.
[Ke ka lobaka leo ke reng a … [Nako e fedile.] [Legofi.] (Translation of Setswana paragraphs follows.)
[In 1994 we had the SA Communication Service. This service was governed by many languages. We know that this service had police in its ranks. When we came to power we found many police in this Service. We asked how people could get information when there were police in this service.
In truth I want to tell opposition parties that the service we have now is important because everything will be out in the open unlike in the past. The ANC was able to win the elections despite the presence of the SA Communication Service. We do not know how it deceived people, but we were able to win the elections.
That is why I say that … expired.][Applause.]]
Mrs A VAN WYK: Mr Chairperson, a government is nearly always voted in by an electorate in the hope that their expectations will be met by those to whom they have given their support in return for enticing pre-election promises. It follows that such a new government coming to grips with the challenges of actual rule soon realises that the successes it does manage to achieve should be communicated if it wishes to retain power and deliver service. A success achieved or, at the very least, an honest effort in, say the eastern or northern part of the country, holds out the promise to people elsewhere that their turn, too, might come. This is part of the political process in any democracy.
A balance needs to be found, though, between the legitimate responsibilities of a government and the political objectives of the rulers. Without it the distinction between state and party becomes blurred, the integrity of the public service is compromised, misuse of taxpayers’ money occurs and corruption sets in.
It is difficult to govern a country effectively and justly, and the electorate soon notices shortcomings. How great the temptation to follow the tried and tested method of perpetuating your hold on power by means of spin doctoring, positive imaging, etc - all the tricks in the book of the propaganda industry, variously identified as public relations, media liaison or communications.
Mr Joel Netshitenzhe said in his overview to the Portfolio Committee on Communications: ``For the first time in about five years, a majority among South Africans is confident of the Government’s will and capacity to deal with crime.’’ What is true is that strategies and tactics to increase and hold on to power are nearly always rendered transparent by the actions of Government.
The New NP wants to see the discrepancies in our country between rich and poor, urban and rural, the developed and the underdeveloped, the serviced and the underserviced, significantly reduced within a reasonable timeframe. To the extent that it is possible within the demands of such an enormous primary responsibility, the New NP also wants to see, concurrently, our country laying the foundations and setting the example for the true awakening of Africa.
The New NP supports this budget. Power objectives overriding the interests of a country, though, usually result in the appointment of party loyalists to high positions. One wonders whether the advice will be given to the President in the Government communication forum that appointing political activists throughout the organs of state undermines accountability and ultimately democracy itself. If they were honest, they would also tell him that it gives South Africa a bad press and that it does nothing for his image.
I would like the Minister to explain to this Parliament what measures he will institute to ensure that GCIS improves its record as an objective communication and information service. A sure sign of growth towards a culture of democracy in our young country would be nonpartisan appointments to top jobs, and a decorous distance between public servants and politicians. That would inspire confidence in our Government and our country as the regional leader.
The New NP approves of sound renewal. Modernisation of symbols is essential in a country which is trying to improve itself and redefine its identity. This must be done in a way which is universally acceptable. In October last year Minister Ben Ngubane said Parliament would participate, but the coat of arms was decided on by GCIS alone.
Ms N E PHANTSI: Hon Chairperson and hon members, it was Martin Luther King who coined the phrase ``knowledge is power’’. What better way to develop and maintain that knowledge than through the power of the print media? Reading certainly does strengthen the mind.
As we move into the new millennium, we still cannot say with confidence that we have achieved freedom if the majority of our people are still excluded from receiving information. The media in our country is still controlled by people who do not really have, as their priority, the desire and commitment to educate and inform the majority of our people on issues that concern them.
‘n Mens kry nie juis daagliks dekking van nuusgebeure in die klein dorpies in die platteland nie, tensy die President of van die Ministers daar besoek aflê. Heelwat suksesverhale gaan dus verlore omdat daar nie plaaslike mediadekking is nie.
In die gemeenskap van Paballelo in Upington is ‘n gemeenskapskoerant in die middel van 1999 op die been gebring, maar in hierdie stadium verskyn Comnews glad nie meer nie, omdat daar nie fondse is om voort te gaan met die publikasie daarvan nie. Die gemeenskap moet dus nou staatmaak op Die Gemsbok, wat weekliks verskyn en nie alle gebiede en gebeure dek nie.
Ons as die ANC wil graag meer gemeenskapskoerante in hierdie gebiede sien waar daar nie toegang tot die media is nie, sodat hierdie gemeenskappe kan weet van die plaaslike inisiatiewe en mense. Van dié inisiatiewe word deur die mense self bestuur. Ons glo ook dat ‘n verskeidenheid mediavorms ‘n beter diens sal verseker en aan al die verbruikers ‘n wyer keuse sal bied.
‘n AGB LID: Dis reg, gooi kole!
Me N E PHANTSI: Met ‘n verskeidenheid koerante sal die gemeenskappe hul kulturele verskeidenheid kan uitleef. Daardie agb lid se party het ons mense teruggehou, so hy moet nou stilbly! [Gelag.]
Baie van die koerante word steeds beheer deur groot maatskappye, en dié maatskappye se direkteure is meestal wit mans. [Tussenwerpsels.] Ons het dus meer swart vroueredakteurs nodig om ‘n verskeidenheid menings te kan weerspieël. [Tussenwerpsels.] Die spoedige instelling van die agentskap vir media-ontwikkeling en -verskeidenheid sal help om te verseker dat koerante soos Die Gemsbok die gehalte van hulle dekking verbeter. [Tussenwerpsels.] (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[One does not really receive daily coverage of news events in the small towns in the rural areas, unless the President or one of the Ministers visits there. A number of success stories are therefore lost because there is no local media coverage.
In the community of Paballelo in Upington a community newspaper was established in the middle of 1999, but at this stage Comnews is no longer being published, because there is no funding to continue publishing it. The community must therefore now rely on Die Gemsbok, which appears weekly and does not cover all areas and events.
We as the ANC would like to see more community newspapers in these areas where there is no access to the media, so that these communities can know about the local initiatives and people. Some of these initiatives are managed by the people themselves. We also believe that a variety of media will ensure a better service and offer all the consumers a wider choice.
An HON MEMBER: That’s right, turn up the heat!
Ms N E PHANTSI: With a variety of newspapers the communities will be able to express their cultural diversity. That hon member’s party held our people back, so he must keep quiet now! [Laughter.]
Many of the newspapers are still controlled by large companies, and the directors of these companies are mostly white men. [Interjections.] We therefore need more black women editors to reflect a variety of opinions. [Interjections.] The swift introduction of the media development and diversity agency will help ensure that newspapers such as Die Gemsbok improve the quality of their coverage. [Interjections.]]
Newspapers and radio stations rely on advertisements. However, the advertising industry is still conservative and male-dominated. The MDDA should also, once established, strongly engage the advertising industry and big business to support community-based initiatives. [Interjections.]
Die Gemsbok is ‘n wit koerant en hy dek net sekere gebiede. [Tussenwerpsels.] [Die Gemsbok is a white newspaper and it only covers certain areas. [Interjections.]]
It is easy to produce media, especially newspapers, but the distribution of that product is the most challenging. Government must look into resourcing these initiatives and introducing a common carrier for distribution.
Dit is algemene kennis dat die groot maatskappye sorg dat hul koerante eerste Sondagmôre afgelewer word, wat beteken dat hul koerante voorkeur kry. Die klein koerante moet in dieselfde gemeenskap meeding en dan het die mense klaar van die groot mediagroepe se koerante gekoop. Ons moet die speelveld gelyk maak. [Tussenwerpsels.] (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[It is general knowledge that the large companies see to it that their newspapers are delivered first on a Sunday morning, which means that their newspapers receive preference. Small newspapers have to compete in the same community and by then people have already bought one of the large media groups’ newspapers. We must level the playing field. [Interjections.]]
In conclusion, the future is in our hands. We must carry forward the work necessary finally to liberate ourselves from the evils of apartheid.
Ons is nog besig om skoon te maak waar die NP half gewerk het. [Tussenwerpsels.] [Applous.] [We are still in the process of cleaning up where the NP did half a job. [Interjections.] [Applause.]]
It is a long road, but our steps remain sure and our destination is certain. [Applause.]
Muf I MUTSILA: Mutshimbidzamushumo, tshivhangalelwa tshihulwane tsha Tshumelo ya Muvhuso ya Mafhungo na Vhudavhidzano (GCIS) ndi u ḓisa tshanduko kha muvhuso washu muswa siani ḽa u anḓadza mafhungo kha vhadzulapo nga nyambo dzine vha dzi pfesesa.
Kha Phalamennde dzoṱhe dze dza vhuya dza vha hone fhano Afurika Tshipembe, ndi lwa u thoma kha ḓivhakale ya fhano, u wana na riṋe-vho tshaka dza vharema dza fhano kha ḽino dze dza vha dzi sa vhoniwi sa vhathu, dza vho kona u ima fhano phanḓa dza ḓiphina nga lwa ḓamuni, dza ḓiṱongisa nga nyambo dzadzo.
Tshiphugaṱhalu tshashu tshiswa tshi dovha tsha sumbedza vhuḓiimiseli ha uyu muvhuso washu muswa une wa khou dzhiela nṱha tshaka dzoṱhe dza Afurika Tshipembe hu si na tshiṱalula. (Translation of Tshivenḓa paragraphs follows.)
[Ms I MUTSILA: Mr Chairperson, the objective of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) is to bring about changes in our new Government as regards giving information to all citizens in the languages they can understand.
This is the first time in the history of the Parliament of South Africa that we blacks can also stand here and proudly express ourselves in our own mother tongue.
Our new coat of arms is also an indication that this Government is committed to recognising the diversity of cultures in South Africa without discrimination.]
The new coat of arms also reflects language issues in South Africa. The apartheid system in South Africa was based on separate development. It is this notorious system that entrenched racial inequality and, by extension, resulted in what is known as ``identity crisis’’ across the South African landscape. The past policy of bilingualism, which officially declared English and Afrikaans as the only official languages, was also a brainchild of the apartheid system. This policy did not in any way contribute to a shared national identity, but instead created conflicts between the speakers of different languages.
This background serves to explain the rationale behind the adoption of the new coat of arms of South Africa and its motto, namely !ke e: /xarra //ke. [Applause.] It is a way of saying that South Africa is a diverse nation - culturally, racially, linguistically, religiously and ethnically. However, diverse as it is, South Africa should strive to be united. With the coat of arms inscribed with Khoi and San words, the dignity of the very people eroded since the arrival of the colonial system of governance is steadily being regained.
South Africa has to cement its diverse cultural practices. It has to
embrace the unity in diversity and form an identity. Other formerly
marginalised communities must be roped in to participate in the journey of
self-discovery, self-renewal and renewal of other people’s identity. The
coat of arms has symbolically given the Khoi and San languages a new role
to play in shaping the country’s national identity. The idea supports such
concepts as a rainbow nation'' anda new patriotism’’.
Throughout its policies, the new South African Government has embraced diversity as one of the cornerstones of a national identity. Therefore, the coat of arms is, in itself, a confirmation of the fact that views from below are equally listened to by the South African Government. This is a manisfestation of the fact that South Africa is democratically growing in stature.
From a language point of view, it shows that all languages are equally respected in South Africa. The coat of arms is a symbol of unity in diversity, inclusiveness in decision-making by formally marginalised communities, and the beginning of the rediscovery of the ordinary.
Tshiga tsha u ṱavha ha ḓuvha tshi sumbedza lushaka luswa lwo faranaho, lu sa ḓivhi tshiṱalula nga lukanda, hune vhana vhashu vha ḓo ḓiphina nga mutoli wa pfunzo nthihi i fanaho. Izwo zwi nkhumbudza phindulo ya muḓuhulu wanga musi a tshi vhudziswa nga mme awe nga ha khonani yawe tshikoloni. Vho mu vhudzisa uri iyo khonani ndi murema kana ndi mukhuwa naa? Ene a tshi fhindula o ri ha ngo vhudzisa, u ḓo i vhudzisa nga ḓuvha ḽi tevhelaho. Zwine zwa amba uri ha ngo vhona muvhala wa muthu, o vhona muthu ngae. (Translation of Tshivenḓa paragraph follows.)
[The rising sun indicates a united nation without discrimination according to the colour of one’s skin, where our children will enjoy one, equal system of education. This reminds me of my niece who was asked by her mother whether her school friend was black or white. Her reply was that she had not asked her friend about this and would do so the following day. That means that my niece did not see the colour of her friend, but only the person.]
In conclusion, the 1993 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa ends with an epilogue entitled National Unity and Reconciliation. Among other things it says, and I quote:
This Constitution provides a historic bridge between the past of a deeply divided society characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and a future founded on the recognition of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence and development opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of colour, race, class, belief or sex.
South Africa belongs to all who live in it. United in our diversity, we shall build this country together, fighting for change and a better life for all. [Applause.]
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY: Chairperson, I would like to start by thanking all speakers who participated in this debate yesterday and today. Particularly, I want to say to the speakers from the ANC that I would like to thank them for bringing very clearly to our notice the fact that democracy and communications have to be measured by the degree to which one is able to speak to the poorest of the poor, and the degree to which one enables those people to communicate with us.
It would seem to me that for a political party to survive, never mind thrive, it has to be based on some fundamental principles which people can look at and agree or disagree with. What has, unfortunately, happened to the DP is that in the last few years, it seems to have shed any principles it may have had in the past. [Interjections.] It is a process determined by a head-long rush to get as many votes as is possible, never mind on what basis. [Interjections.]
It would then seem to me that even their international allies in the liberal countries would be embarrassed to sit with people who are, surely, even to the right of the British Conservative Party. [Interjections.] One only hopes that, for the sake of proper political debate, discourse, discussion, interchange of views and disagreements, that the DP would soon see sense and at least try to operate on the basis of sound principles.
Yesterday, hon member Dene Smuts of the DP had a four-minute diatribe. It took up a typical position of a tradition that they have inherited from their new constituency, essentially the supporters of apartheid. It took an approach of a policy of divide and rule. Having found nothing to criticise in the GCIS’s report - and may I say, excellent efforts - they seek to divide GCIS from the principals they serve.
I want to tell the hon member Dene Smuts that the problem, it seems to me, is that her party is driven by a compulsion to pander to the basic instincts of her constituency, instead of rising to the challenge of bringing people into democracy and nonracialism. [Applause.] One of the powers of research is that it confronts us with realities that challenge the comfortable attitudes that are nurtured by restricted interaction in society. Ms Smuts nurtures the hope that the world shares her negative attitude to South Africa’s standing in the world and the extent to which it continues to grow as a result of the efforts of President Mbeki.
Those members who were here yesterday would have noticed that there was only one mention of President Mbeki in my speech because we are going to have a debate on the Presidency next week. However, I feel compelled to respond to some of the comments made by Ms Smuts yesterday. She claims that the research that I have spoken about is three months old. So, I do not know what that means and how people have changed their minds in three months. But I want to quote to her from the actual research
First of all, people said that they were very happy with the transition from Madiba magic to Mbeki management. Those responding scored the new President positively, over 85%, as a visionary, a doer, as focused, consistent, honourable, conciliatory and so on.
Now, there is an old English saying - I know Ms Smuts is Afrikaans speaking … [Laughter] … which says: ``Facts are stubborn things.’’ So she should try to get hold of some facts.
She also spoke, yesterday, in a rather disparaging and nasty manner about this philosopher king who is now writing letters about HIV/Aids and so on. A newspaper that she likes reading, but selectively, the Business Day of Wednesday, 7 June, carried an article by Simon Barber - who can by no stretch of the imagination be called anything close to a supporter of the ANC - which said, and I hope it will be listened to:
HIV co-discoverer, Lue Montaigne, a member of the panel and the very antithesis of a dissident, writes in his recent book, Virus, and I quote: ``If we are to compare the transmission of the disease and produce effective treatments, it is very important to know whether the virus acts alone or with accomplices.’’
In other words, whether there are any co-factors that heighten its effects. The quotation continues as follows:
In tropical regions, the number of germs in circulation is considerable. Cases of chronic latent infection are common - malaria, parasites, fungi and bacteria. The number of cells in a state of alert is high, and this is probably one reason why HIV has spread more rapidly in the southern than in the northern hemisphere.
That is precisely what President Mbeki said in the letter, viz that in order to deal with this crisis, we need to understand it. Here is Luc Montaigne agreeing with his point of view. In a paper submitted to the panel, and it is from the same article, Robert Rubenstein, professor of physiology at Michigan State University, says:
Clearly, it will be easier and less expensive to stop the spread of Aids than to cure everyone who develops it. Indeed, preventive measures such as better nutrition, cleaner water, better public health and less disease benefit every individual as well as the economy. Given the fact that there are limited resources, I do not see that there is any question as to whether prevention or treatment is the better option.
I am not going into the details because the Minister of Health dealt with this in her Vote.
However, I would like to ask Ms Smuts again to stop playing party-political games which compel her to be very economical with the truth. [Laughter.] [Interjections.] Ms M SMUTS: [Inaudible.]
The MINISTER: Yesterday we were also told by Ms Smuts that the image of the President is now bad because of his approach in trying to find solutions to the problems in Zimbabwe. The truth of the matter is … [Interjections.] … I want to tell hon members about a chap by the name of … What is his name? I do not know what his name is. [Laughter.] He is a darker shade of pale. Do members know what he does every time he speaks? He looks to those who are a bit paler than he is for support. [Laughter.] Some people will never learn. [Interjections.] Los jou base uit, man! [Leave your bosses alone, man!] He must speak for himself. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
Prime Minister Blair, President Clinton and 13 heads of state that President Mbeki met in Germany recently … [Interjections.]
Mr D A A OLIFANT: Jy’s ‘n aap! [You are an ape!] [Interjections.]
The CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! I will not allow something like this in the House. If we heckle, can we please heckle up to a point and then keep quiet and allow the debate to continue.
Mr E K MOORCROFT: Chairperson, on a point of order: Is it in order for a member on that side to call a member on this side an ape?
The CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Can you please withdraw that remark, hon member. [Laughter.]
Mr D A A OLIFANT: Chairperson, I withdraw. [Interjections.] The CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! You may proceed, hon Minister. [Interjections.] Can you please give the hon Minister a chance to reply. You may proceed, hon Minister.
The MINISTER: Chairperson, I want to say that all of them agreed with the position and approach of President Mbeki, which is motivated by the determination to find a solution to a very difficult and complex problem. But, of course, as far as the DP is concerned, the President has hurt his image. If she also watched television, she would have heard the Danish Prime Minister only three days ago, affirm that having supported the struggle against apartheid, Denmark was not going to walk away now that the challenge is to defeat the legacy of apartheid. He said that in the press conference that he was holding together with President Mbeki. Now, what about this image?
When he was in Germany, the Prime Minister of Portugal - which will host the next EU summit that takes place within the next 10 days - extended an invitation to President Mbeki. He said Mr Mbeki should please go to the EU summit, because they wanted him to go and meet with them. The President of Argentina, President De La Rua, told President Mbeki about the summit of Mercosur which was to take place sometime later that year, and said that they wanted him to go and join them. What kind of image is the member talking about? Seriously! [Interjections.] No, Mr Chairperson, I am not taking any questions.
What we need to talk about is the fact that the leader of the DP will not get invited to any sensible conferences. What he has to do is to go and scrounge around, begging for invitations. [Interjections.]
The legacy of what the ANC and its allies, as well as the President, refer to as two nations is to put the reality of our situation on the table. [Interjections.]
Ms M SMUTS: It is to polarise us!
The MINISTER: Of course, we are polarised. What does the hon member think we are? What does the hon member think apartheid did to South Africa? [Interjections.] What does she think the apartheid legacy has done to us? What does she think hundreds and hundreds of years of the super- exploitation of black labour power, of the systematic racism, of the worst forms of institutionalised racism since Hitler’s Germany has done to our society, if it has not polarised it? [Interjections.]
The object of our exercise must be to see how we bring our nation together. [Interjections.]
Ms M SMUTS: But we were doing all right!
The MINISTER: But we cannot pretend that we do not have two nations in South Africa. We cannot pretend that on an international scale, we have a few countries who are the haves and the rest of the countries are the have- nots. We have to deal with those issues.
Ms M SMUTS: What happened to the ``rainbow nation’’?
The MINISTER: The rainbow nation is a mirage. When the member was a little child they told her there was a pot of gold at the end of it. This DP has a mirage of its support: it will never find that pot of gold. [Applause.]
What we have to do as a country is to work together with the rest of the developing world, to deal with the issues of poverty and underdevelopment. We have to work together to compel those who have to understand that they also have to change; we have to get international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, not only to democratise their own structures, but to be more sensitive to the needs of the developing countries. This is what we need to do.
May I just comment on the issues raised by Ms Vos - I do not know where she has gone to. She was a bit balanced yesterday, but let me say this to her: When GCIS produced this annual report and the pictures and statements from Government - I do not know why she did not note this - every single IFP Minister was also mentioned therein. Now if the ANC benefited from that, I suppose the IFP also benefited from it. So if I were the hon member, I would not be too opposed to it.
The truth of the matter is that GCIS is not about to publish an account of Government’s progress, since it does that each year when the President reports to the nation during the opening of the parliamentary year in February. It has been done each year, and GCIS can take pride in what it produces for that purposes.
GCIS itself worked out a framework within which it would operate just before elections take place. It was guided by the precepts of the Public Service Act. Section 36 stipulates that an officer or employee may not draw up or publish any writing or deliver a public speech to promote the interests of any political party, and GCIS stuck to that.
The ANC does not need GCIS to engage in propaganda for it. We are quite capable of doing that ourselves. [Interjections.] What do we need GCIS for? I did appreciate Ms Van Wyk’s attempt at being positive. But, again, the coat of arms was not decided on by GCIS. There was a process: Public inputs were received, common elements were identified, heritage people and others were involved, design people were involved. From all of that, 10 proposals were made. Out of those, three were selected. Cabinet, as far as I can remember, took at least two meetings to study the proposals in front of them. Suggestions were made to the designers and, eventually, Cabinet approved the present coat of arms unanimously. So it has nothing to do with the GCIS. What GCIS did do was to facilitate the work for which they were thanked by Cabinet. [Interjections.]
Now regarding appointments of activists, what does one do? The ANC got just over 66% of the vote. I suppose most intelligent and skilled people have, in one way or another, some connection with the ANC. If one wants an efficient, professional, highly skilled Public Service, one is going to recruit people who certainly would have sympathies with the ANC. Otherwise, what are we going to get? Do they want us to go to Ventersdorp and recruit the director-general. [Laughter.] Obviously, the question is: Can one demonstrate that people who have been appointed to senior positions have not been able to do their jobs? If so, then one must look at that. If people fail to do their jobs then they should go. But let us not come here and wage this propaganda because one feels that the New NP must be seen to be critical of the Government, in spite of itself. Otherwise, more people are going to join the DP. [Laughter.] That cannot be correct.
Let me say, at the end, that it is critical, I think, for members of Parliament who, during constituency week and outside of that, do their constituency work, also to monitor the extent to which GCIS is succeeding in communicating with the poorest of the poor, because obviously there are serious limitations on the capacity of GCIS to monitor itself. We therefore invite MPs from all parties - of course, I suppose, it is mainly the ANC that has constituencies in the rural areas and who care about the poorest of the poor, although even the white suburbs will be interested in what they say - to come back to us.
They should say to us that we said we would set up multipurpose community centres, we said we would communicate with the poorest of the poor, we said we were going to want to get views and comments of the poorest of the poor, and, where they come from, we are not succeeding. Then GCIS would have to take the necessary steps to respond to those criticisms.
However, we will do that together with the MPs, because, in the end, it is in all our interests that the people whom we wish to serve, must, at times, be served in a way which cuts across party-political interests. Fundamental for South Africa is to what extent we have the capacity to rise above narrow, party-political interests and put the interests of the nation first; and, on this, I invite all members of Parliament please to engage with us to ensure that GCIS becomes an even better, an even more skilled, an even more professional, and an even more competent communicator. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
APPROPRIATION BILL
Debate on Vote No 34 - Water Affairs and Forestry:
The MINISTER OF WATER AFFAIRS AND FORESTRY: Mr Chairperson …
The CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Could we please take our seats? The Minister wants to start with his speech, please. Those who are going out, let us do it peacefully and quietly.
The MINISTER: Chairperson, pula, nala, kgotso [rain, greenery, peace] [Applause.] From rain comes the greenery of development and progress, which creates peace. Amanzi ayimpilo [water is life].
In France, in 1968, Jeremy Cronin, who was at the Sorbonne, will remember that a slogan went up on a wall, which said: Forests precede civilisation and deserts follow them. We must make sure, in our care for our water and our environment, that this can never happen in our country. My department’s work rests on three main functions: the conservation of water resources, water service delivery, and forests. Let me first address our core business - water resource development and conservation. Why is it the core business? Because, unless we are able to secure and look after the sources of our water, protect them and ensure that the rivers run, that the ecosystem is healthy, along with the environment, we will find a time when the deserts follow, when the taps run dry.
So this particular area of our work, the core business, is all about the sustainable management of this precious resource, a resource which underpins everything now - our lives, our wellbeing, our economy, our industry, our agriculture, our tourism, anything and everything - and must be sustainably managed well into the future.
Over the decades in this country, we have had engineering developments of great dams, big and small; of massive pipelines serving bulk water; of tunnels transferring water from one river system and basin to another; of reservoirs where water is stored; and of reticulation to where people are. In the past, pre-1994, as we know, this was, unfortunately, simply to the privileged. The business of water resource development and care does not end there, because when we are finished with that water and it is discharged back into the rivers, the streams and the ecosystem, it must be treated and cleaned first as it must be purified before it comes to us. This is a massive undertaking, and this is ongoing work of this department.
In relation to this, let me just briefly refer to a terrible action of pollution in Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, which has been dragging on for too long. Iscor, established there since the ’40s, has been polluting the land, and the people who live there have suffered greatly. Their properties are now worthless. The land there is poisoned, and the landowners have been selling out to Iscor in order to move on with as much as they can take, leaving on their smallholdings the unfortunate people who worked and laboured for them. These people, who are living there with no jobs now, are simply being taken by those landowners who have sold out and dumped near the nearest township.
Iscor is saying that it does accept that it is the pollutant and that it will put things right. I want to see Iscor spend millions on putting that land right, and they have assured me that they will. I can understand their case. In order to correct what they have done, they have to have that land and they have to rehabilitate it, and that is why they have been paying out. However, there has been a vexed issue on whether there is real compensation and who is behind the evictions, etc.
We had a forum that was established in 1997. I saw that it had become a talk shop and a delaying tactic. Together with Gauteng MEC, Comrade Mary Metcalfe, we have had a number of meetings. Last week we met with Iscor and with all the role-players, the tenants, the landowners, the occupiers, etc. I appointed a representative, on my behalf, to deal with this issue, and I have told Iscor that this has to be concluded by the end of this month. I expect that Iscor must, and will comply now, otherwise I will have to go as far my powers provide in an expropriation of that land. I have told Iscor that it is going to get us into a long court battle and litigation, which will only make the lawyers rich. I have pleaded with them to uphold their moral responsibilities. We will see what happens at the end of this month.
Let me come to the issue of water delivery, the issue that really affects us all. The immediate objective of this Government and our department is to bring water to the 12 million people, mainly in the rural areas, who in 1994 were not serviced at all, because previous governments, colonial to apartheid, did not care a damn.
My department, under my illustrious predecessor Kader Asmal, has done a magnificent job and has delivered to over 4 million people who did not have before. However, I have had an audit done. It has taken a long time and what we can say is that although it looked as though we would reach the mountain top, the 12 million delivery point, in 2007, this was far too optimistic. I must be honest about such figures and estimates. We are far, far short if we continue along present lines and with present funding. This is because this could take us an extra 20 years, to 2027. I have been to Cabinet, and I have reported this to Cabinet. Cabinet has instructed me to form a committee with the Ministers of Finance, of Provincial and Local Government, and of Housing to see what we can do about speeding up this delivery.
I want to tell hon members that in addressing this challenge, I have a concept of four pillars. The hon Hanekom knows about the four pillars of struggle. We will call this the four pillars to address the issue of, on the one hand, delivery and, on the other hand, affordability, sustainability and flexibility, and partnership. Those are the four pillars.
Let me come to the question of affordability. Soon after I took office, I visited a small village near Mount Ayliff which had a very nice water project into a village, pumping from a dry river bed, and along RDP standards, there were taps every 200 metres. I was very impressed.
We walked down to the dry river bed. I wanted to have a look at the pump station. I was astonished to find a young woman. She had a three-week-old baby in a blanket on her back, and she was digging a hole next to the river and scooping out muddy water into a bucket. I could not believe this. People 200 metres away were in queues filling their buckets. I asked her why she was doing this. She said to me she could not afford to pay the R10 a month that everybody had to contribute to the village scheme. A jolly good village scheme it was too - very well run.
This really disturbed me. It is not an occurrence that one does not find elsewhere. Women in the Northern Province have reported the same thing to an NGO. They say they cannot afford the R10 a month that they would have to pay to meter schemes or whatever, because it would mean that they would not have R10 worth of food for their children. We know how low the income is in the rural areas. It has really made me think and urged me to look at the price factor. There are many members here who know very well what the prices are in the rural areas.
To put this in a nutshell, for our glass of water, for our 20 litres of this life-giving water which we do not think about when we turn on the taps, we here, urban dwellers, pay 1 cent. With my best projects in the rural areas, we cannot charge less than 2 cents. Already the rural villages pay double what we pay. The reasons are because of economies of scale in the urban centres and because of the huge problems, capital expenditure, to get the pipes and the taps into these remote rural areas.
However, there is a question of social justice and social equity. I have had to look no further than our country. I have not had to look at Cuba or Vietnam or China. I looked at metro in Durban. The Durban model, and little Hermanus down the road, have a subsidy for the lowest rung of their tariff, the poorest people who are consuming the least. The Durban model is very interesting. They provide free 6 000 litres, 6 kilolitres, that is 25 litres per person per day. That is the first step of the tariff, whether you are Harry Oppenheimer or the poorest of the poor. If Harry Oppenheimer decides to take only 6 kilolitres for that month, he will not have to pay. It is equal.
As one goes up the steps, so the price increases. If one fills one’s swimming pool with 50 000 litres of water, or sleeps on a water bed, as I believe some rich people do these days, or washes one’s car and one’s body six times a day, and does all the things that I do not think hon members do, then one will pay, and pay a lot. That helps to subsidise, in Durban, those unfortunates at the bottom of that tariff system. It seems to me that this is an eminently remarkable model for us to follow.
I have spoken to many people in the water business in the urban centres. After humming and hawing and scratching their heads they did, in the end, tend to agree. The problem is going to be the rural areas where we do not have the economies of scale. That is where Government is going to have to decide: Do we subsidise the poorest of the poor - as Comrade Mandela calls them ``paupers’’ - of the rural areas? When we consider social justice and social equity, I would say then that we have to. I have received considerable sympathy and interest in Cabinet.
The second area and pillar of this strategy is that of sustainability. Those from the rural areas, particularly my colleagues on this side, know very well how we put in the systems, because it is easy to put in the pipes and the taps if one has the money to do so. However, if one does not at the village level, at the small local government level, have the skills, the personnel, the capacity for operation and maintenance, then the taps run dry, the system breaks down, and then there is anger and frustration.
So we have to address the question of sustainability. I have not invented these things. I am putting them together as four pillars to empower people to set up the water committees, to capacitate the local government to whom these functions are soon going to be transferred because, in fact, servicing communities is not the role of my department constitutionally. They are doing this as a bridging issue until local governments are solidly in place and have the capacity. The third pillar is that of partnership. We have very many different types of partnerships. There are interdepartmental partnerships, there are partnerships with NGOs, there are public to public partnerships, and then there is the vexed question of private partnerships. I will come back to that. Let me give hon members a few examples. We have visitors in the public gallery today in the famous yellow shirts of the Working for Water programme. This is an outstanding programme working with Government departments.
We all know about the efforts to clear alien vegetation from our riverine areas in order that water can flow at maximum potential. This is because those greedy alien trees - and please let us not mix them up with people from abroad - suck up approximately 1 000 litres of water a day, whereas, as our rural people well know, our lovely, beautiful indigenous trees get by on far less.
The Minister of Finance has referred to the Working for Water programme as the best poverty relief programme in our country. I would like to congratulate Dr Guy Preston, who unfortunately is not here, and the whole Working for Water team and its management, who are with us today, on the outstanding job they do. [Applause.]
I want to share with hon members an example of a wonderful public-public partnership. Just the other day, near Rustenburg, I opened a water purification plant and supply system at the Vaalkop Dam, set up by Rand Water and Magalies Water. They raised the capital of R270 million. The system there in a few years’ time will be servicing 300 000 people. The stakeholders and their customers who can pay; the Rustenburg city council, which will service that burgeoning city and outlying townships; the Baphokeng royal administration, with all the villages under its jurisdiction; Impala Platinum mines; and others will have repaid their loans within seven years. I therefore very much favour public-public partnerships.
But let us come to the private sector. We cannot as Government provide the type of investment capital we require to speed up this programme. It seems to me that the private sector can provide tremendous amounts of investment, as is happening everywhere in the world today. I believe even in Cuba they are considering bringing in a Spanish company to run Havana’s water system. Of course, the private sector wants to ensure that there are profits. They need to know the name of the game, namely security and clarity. For this reason I issued regulations yesterday for all forms of partnership in terms of the water sector. These have been released for public comment.
I do believe that the private sector has a very important role to play. The point is that regulations will govern and control in the public interest. It is not as we might have thought in another millennium, when to me the idea of engaging the private sector on something like that would have been sacrilege, supping with the devil. We have a reality in our world today. I look practically at what I am meant to do, and that is to deliver water, to give it to our people. I do not want them to wait for decades or never get it at all. If it means that the private sector can provide the capital and gain profits, but under our control and regulations, then I do not see any reason why we should not do so.
Let me come to the fourth pillar. It is a question of flexibility. It is a question of big not always being best or beautiful. Two weekends ago I went to a little place called Zinguthu in the Glen Garry area. There I saw a small system capturing the waters of a stream up in the hills, reticulating water down to six villages by gravity. We opened it. That scheme cost us less than R1 million.
Last weekend I went to Etembeni, near Keate’s Drift, the place in respect of which Tony Leon, on his whistlestop tour earlier in the year, said that ANC delivery was breaking down. He was on one side of the river at a brokendown borehole, set up by the previous Bantustan or homeland administration, which was not working. He turned the tap, it was dry and he concluded that the ANC was not delivering. I asked him, when I heard about it: ``Dear hon member, why did you not cross the river?’’ It is situated at the Mooi River near the confluence of the Umgeni. He would have seen our project, a stone’s throw away. [Applause.] Keate’s Drift is a little CBD of Etembeni. He should just have a little patience.
I was there last Saturday, with the Zulu monarch, a number of MECs and a wonderful amabuthu who I danced with, shaking my shield and knobkierie which they gave me. We opened a project which is immediately servicing 3 000 people. Within a short time the second and third phases will reach 7 000, and within three to four years we will be serving 30 000 people in the Msinga valley. That is the ANC delivery. [Applause.] We do not hide our problems.
Ma’ Lydia Ngwenya met me up at Arabie in the Northern Province. There is a big dam, with huge pipelines and wonderful reservoirs. She said to me that the project was a white elephant. There were no pipes from those reservoirs into the villages. There are 56 villages. Only 10 or 11 of them are getting the water. I told her that I would not be a Minister of white elephants. My department will be an African elephant of delivery - indlovu yase-Afrika yokuphakela. [Applause.] I want to give Ma’ Lydia my director-general’s assurance that we now have the money. Within a month or two, we will start laying down the pipelines to those villages. Within two years all 56 will be serviced. [Applause.]
That is the strategy of the four pillars, and for the department it is the question of ``bereka thata’’ - we will work hard to achieve. We have got to do a lot with sanitation. It is a Cinderella - nothing much has been done. There are 20 million people in the rural areas without it, and a Government task team has not done the work. Education, Environmental Affairs, Health, Public Works, Housing and my department are kickstarting it again, to come up with a strategy.
I now want to turn to the third main function of the department - forestry. We are selling off the forests; we are leasing them off. In the 19th century, government developed forests in this country, because they needed the wood. That was strategic. Government does not have to be in the business of growing pineapples, pumpkins or pine trees. We are losing R200 million a year as the department. So, we have put the forests on the market. There are three categories: the large-scale for big investment, the medium for local business in the provinces and the third, woodlots, for the communities. The rural communities need the wood for fuel. It is not for nothing that the forests have been called ``the poor person’s overcoat’’, and we will ensure that those woodlots become part and parcel of agricultural development for those communities.
I want to say briefly that there are areas of forest in our country - the indigenous Nkandla forest of Shaka Zulu, the Amatola of Sandile and Maqoma, and the Fundudzi in the Northern Province of King Makhado - which were sites of resistance against the colonialists. These can be developed, not only for educational and tourism purposes, but for the wholly sacred respect that they deserve linked into those rural communities. And they must become part of the African renaissance.
I want to state briefly that we are dealing with the issue of Dukuduku. It is a question of ensuring that there is no intimidation of those who are registering with my department, in order to be relocated to the two farms that we bought in the nearby area. I have been there, and I have talked to the committee that represents the foresters. We are setting up a trust and we will give them all the help they need. We have to finish the registration first. My colleague, the Minister of Safety and Security, and I have been addressing this matter. We will see that the registration takes place, that there will be no intimidation and that people can move. I am afraid that those - with their automatic weapons and dagga fields within that forest - who are refusing to budge, will have to be shifted. But we are trying to do this peacefully.
I want to turn quickly to the issue of transformation in this department. It is becoming more representative, and is improving. There is a long way to go with the middle management level and improvements are required with gender representivity. The department needs to be speedier in terms of its responses to the public. In terms of culture and attitude, there is a strong educational campaign. We have changed the names of our buildings. They no longer have the names of the past. Our head building is called Sedibeng; our second, eManzini; our third, Waterbron; and our fourth, where the forestry people work, is called Ha madaka, which is Tshivenda for ``the forests’’.
The issue of corruption in our society must be rooted out, whether in business, in Government or in sport. And we are doing that in the department. In the past year, as a result of the campaign, half a dozen people have been uncovered involved in fraud, and they have been charged and dismissed. To take a bribe, someone must offer one a bribe - Hansie Cronjé could tell us that. [Laughter.]
With regard to the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, there has been an unfortunate development, as we know, over the past number of years, where the chief executive officer of that development authority has been found guilty of taking bribes. A criminal court case is underway and others are under investigation. As far as this is concerned, we have been giving our fullest support to the Lesotho government and we are working on this whole issue together. But when they say that there is corruption in Africa, they do not say that the people and the companies that are offering the bribes do not come from Africa. They come from Europe, North America and other continents. [Applause.] What we are saying is that there needs to be a thorough international review of methods to control this type of corruption, and the main contractors - who are these big guys from abroad - must be held responsible for the subcontractors.
I want to say of the exchequer budget account of my department that 28% goes to resource management, 60% to water services and 12% to forestry. Looked at another way - this is very revealing, and I am very proud of this department’s management - 16% of that exchequer budget is spent on personnel expenditure, 5% on administration expenditure and 69% on capital expenditure. This is an extremely good division indeed. It demonstrates sound financial management and I congratulate my director-general and his team. [Applause.]
I will end by asking all hon members, whom I know to be supporters of water, this colourless fluid, to support this budget. In conclusion, I wish to extend my appreciation to my director-general, Mike Muller, and to his entire department for their outstanding work and effort in a difficult period of transformation. I want to extend my very deep appreciation to the chairperson and all members of the portfolio committee from all parties, for their vigilance, their support and their positive criticism, which I no doubt will hear today. I will be listening with both ears and noting what they are saying, and so will the team here, so that we can learn from them.
I want to say a special thank you to my advisers, Dr Eugene Mokeyane and Janet Love, for their lovely support. I also want to extend my appreciation to my charming ministerial staff for being prepared to work with somebody like myself at such irregular hours. I want to thank them all for helping me keep my head above the water, and for helping me to see the wood and not just the trees. I can tell hon members that there have been many occasions when they prevented me from barking up the wrong tree. I want to say to the hon members that they have known me as a red, but I think they can see that the green has emerged from the closet.
Siyabonga [Thank you], and I shall conclude with the slogan of the department:
Viva water, pure and clean!
HON MEMBERS: Viva!
The MINISTER: Viva forests, rich and green!
HON MEMBERS: Viva! [Applause.]
Ms B P SONJICA: Chairperson, it is definitely very difficult for me to follow on such a vibrant Minister. I think he was a firebrand this morning.
I just want to make a comment that there is a party in this House called the DP which always claims to speak on behalf of and for the poor, and yet the evidence shows that they are hypocrites. I think we need to change their name and call them the ``Hypocritical Party.’’ [Applause.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Hon member, withdraw the words ``Hypocritical Party’’. [Interjections.]
Ms B P SONJICA: Chairperson, I will withdraw. Water has been politicised, therefore I think I have every right to speak politics around it.
I wish to extend a word of thanks to the following people: the ANC study group on Water Affairs and Forestry for their support, discipline and political guidance; members of the Portfolio Committee on Water Affairs and Forestry for their co-operation; and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry for being available whenever we need them. I think it is only now that I understand what is meant by being accessible. I would also like to thank the Minister’s advisors, Ms Janet Love and Dr Mokeyane, for their preparedness to share information with us and, of course, the staff.
I rise on behalf of the ANC to support this Vote. We would obviously have preferred an increase of 7,7% rather than a decrease of the same percentage. However, we realise that the national Budget has competing priorities which it needs and has to satisfy. We welcome the projections reflected in the medium-term expenditure estimates of Vote No 34, which reflect an increase in the department’s budget allocation for the 2001-2003 financial years, which we think will go a long way in addressing the backlog. We also welcome the efforts of the Minister who seems to have been trying to ensure that delivery of basic water services is speeded up.
The core function of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry is to provide water services in an equitable and just manner. Water service provision is a matter of moral and economic imperative. It is a matter of life and death to the majority, namely the poor South Africans. To them, basic water delivery is about survival. It is therefore important that the department ensures that this budget will go far, insofar as reaching the target that it has set for itself.
URhulumente okhokelwa yi-ANC usebenzise iSebe leMicimbi yaManzi naMahlathi, wenza imitsi ukutshintsha impilo yabantu beendawo ngeendawo, ebe imaxongo meko leyo esiyishiyelwe nguRhulumente wangaphambili. Amanani abantu esibanike ezi nkonzo zibaluleke kangaka ayazixela. UMphathiswa ulichaphazele eli nani kwintetho yakhe wathi abo bantu bangaphezulu kwezigidi ezihlanu ezinamawaka amathandathu.
Andiqondi ukuba likhona ilizwana kulo lonke eli limiweyo … (Translation of Xhosa paragraphs follows.)
[The ANC-led Government engaged the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry to make strides in transforming the precarious lives of communities in various areas which the former regime left for us. The numbers of people to whom we have delivered these important services speak for themselves. The Minister referred to that number in his speech and said that they were in excess of 5,6 million.
I do not think that there is a country in the entire world that has …]
… delivered so much within a period of five years. The lives of those people who have benefited were improved to a great extent as social conditions in those areas changed for the better. For example, the delivery of basic water services to over 5,6 million people has meant a reduction in the mortality rate which has always been a consequence of water-borne diseases. In monetary terms, it means that the Government saved some of the R4 billion that it spends every year on the treatment of water-borne diseases. Most importantly, women’s priorities, which include access to water and sanitation, were taken care of. However, I must hasten to say that there are still huge inequalities and imbalances of supply, quality and consumption, and that about 8 million people in the rural areas are still subjected to such bad conditions.
The provinces that are mainly affected are the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape and the Northern Province because of their history of being former homelands. Unfortunately, these very areas are where one experiences gross unemployment, a high rate of poverty and underdevelopment. Giving a water supply to these people means giving them a lifeline. The department will have to ensure that these provinces are prioritised when it comes to the allocation of funds.
Water provision cannot be seen in isolation. It should be linked to economic development. Government and the department need to find a way of giving a daily allowance to help the poor to kick-start local economic activities. This would be in line with international arrangements where there is a basic minimum of about 50 litres of water that is given to citizens in other countries. This should be done in our country within the context of an integrated rural development approach, which means therefore that there should be co-operation between related departments to ensure that this is realised.
With regard to sanitation, this is, unfortunately, a programme that has been treated as a Cinderella in the department. Perhaps a review of the present demand-responsive approach needs to be done by the department. About the implementation of policies, there has been a significant shift in delivery service policy and legislation in line with the new Constitution. The department has been successful in implementing this new policy, especially, the Water Services Act of 1998.
However, a lot more attention should be given to the National Water Act of 1998, where there are still distortions or a deliberate undermining of the provisions of the Act by some individuals or groups, especially the farmers. We have evidence that landowners still link their water rights to property or land rights. There are also those who still live in the past, and who think that clean and potable water is an exclusive privilege of the few rich whites.
Education of the rural communities about their water rights is crucial, especially the education of the water committees, so that they can demand their water rights wherever they are. The biggest question though is how enforceable these Acts are that we have put in place. What happens when a person violates those rights? Do the victims have any recourse?
Regarding the cost recovery, the portfolio committee has made an observation that cost recovery for basic services is very low. Consequently, the trading account has suffered a deficit of about R294 million. There are various factors that could be contributing to this. Firstly, it could be poverty, and, secondly, it could be the lack of capacity of local government in handling this responsibility. The portfolio committee is busy conducting an investigation for all the reasons behind this problem.
Concerning the public-private partnerships, the committee will support them as long as they do not add a financial burden to the poor. There are also concerns around corruption. It is said to be perpetrated by regional officials in a very sophisticated way, especially with regard to tendering procedures.
There is more to be done with regard to transformation. We believe that the department is very slow in driving this process. The light has flickered, that is why I am stammering. With regard to forestry, we have to concentrate on restructuring. There are various problems there, and communities are not participating in the process of restructuring. [Applause.]
Mr E K MOORCROFT: Mr Chairperson, in February this year, the hon the Minister addressed an important gathering of people in Durban. This was the Tenth Congress of the Union of African Water Suppliers. In his address, he sketched his vision of the way ahead for the supply of water in South Africa. This morning he expanded on this vision, and we were interested to hear what he had to say about it.
While we, in the DP, cannot agree with every sentiment expressed by the hon the Minister, there was a great deal in his address and in his approach with which we can associate ourselves, and this, together with the manner in which the hon the Minister has conducted his stewardship of this important portfolio during the past year, has enabled us to give our support to his Vote. The contribution that I would like to make on behalf of my party this morning is to pick up some of the important themes introduced by the Minister, and to scrutinise them with a view to suggesting constructive improvements.
With regard to the way forward, the hon the Minister claimed that the critical challenge facing us is to find ways of stepping up the pace at which the poor can gain access to sustainable water and sanitation services. We agree. The Minister then went on to express his belief that the way to do this was by way of creating effective partnerships, both cross-border and domestic partnerships, between Government and the private sector; and between Government and nongovernmental and community organisations. Again, we agree. The question is: What will these partnerships involve, how will they be structured, and what sorts of benefits are likely to flow from them?
It has always struck us that, whereas service providers of other basic commodities, such as electricity, have sought new and innovative ways of either providing or saving that commodity, water providers have often lagged behind. The obvious constraint is a financial one, and supplying water is an expensive business - reservoirs, pumps, pipes, etc, all cost huge amounts of money. But can we honestly claim to have exhausted all the possibilities as far as stretching our present resources is concerned? We believe not.
Let me begin with the most insatiable water user of all, agriculture. Agriculture, I believe, uses some 60% of all water resources. Yes, water is essential for agriculture and agriculture is essential for our wellbeing, but can we honestly claim to have exhausted all possible ways of cutting down wasteful use of water in agriculture? Since agriculture is almost entirely in private ownership, is this not the first place in which to start seeking some kind of beneficial partnership between the state and an important beneficiary of the water supply? For example, we all know that modern systems of irrigation can cut down enormously on water use, but they are expensive, and given the narrow profit margins in agriculture, farmers are naturally reluctant to overcapitalise. But let us suppose again, for example, that where farmers are obliged to pay for their water, usually on the basis of how many hectares they are irrigating, tariff adjustments could be introduced for those who invest in water-saving irrigation equipment, thereby encouraging the sustainable use of water in that regard. The next area which suggests itself for a partnership is industry, also a massive user of water. Here the prevention of pollution is a major problem. The hon the Minister dealt with this matter extensively in his address this morning, and we are pleased to hear that he is taking a tough line on pollution. And perhaps this is where this idea of partnership with industry could come into play. So I shall set that particular aspect aside and move on to another source of enormous wastage of our precious water resources, and that is in the disposal of household sewerage.
There has been a great deal of research work done in other parts of the world on the use of water-saving chemical toilets, particularly in water- scarce areas. Now, are we exploring this technology as an alternative to the wasteful flushing of toilets, particularly where this water has already been purified and is potable? This is surely another area in which the private sector could make a contribution, either by way of research into improving the technology, or in the practicalities of applying it.
A further source of significant wastage is cracked or leaking supply pipes. A pipe on a village green not far from where I live has been leaking unattended for at least the past two years. How many thousands of litres of purified water have leaked away here I shudder to think, and there are many thousands of such leaks, I am sure, all over the country. Is it not time that, in terms of some sort of partnership, perhaps, between the state and municipalities, which are responsible for these services, the state could assist with the repair of such leaks? Of course, there will be a cost involved, but is the cost of not fixing the pipe not greater in the long run?
One last example of a partnership, this time directly between the private sector and the poorer communities, could be that of providing communities with the good old-fashioned water tank which is filled by rainfall run-off from the roofs. Many of us here will still remember, I am sure, a time when certain suburbs were not supplied with reticulated municipal water and residents had to make do with tank water. It was not a convenient system, but it did serve a good purpose.
The old-fashioned tin tank was heavy and rusted, but there is now a modern, fibre-glass tank which is virtually indestructible and can hold 2 000 litres of water. Perhaps, one day, some enterprising company will see the value of having its name or its logo emblazoned on a thousand water tanks in our townships, and this form of advertising might even be a more effective way of advertising than expensive TV or radio adverts. I am just putting these forward as suggestions which could be thought about.
What I have tried to do by using this simple illustration, is to indicate that the idea of a partnership being put forward by the Minister, which we endorse, could be carried forward cheaply and effectively and be a benefit to all parties. All that is required is the will to do this, and we hope that the hon the Minister will demonstrate this will. [Applause.]
Mrs L R MBUYAZI: Chair, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has embarked on a policy shift to stop establishing and maintaining commercial forests operations. This is a desirable policy shift. The questions which nevertheless have to be raised and answered are: Who are the successful bidders and which of the forests will be allocated to each bidder? What access to recreational areas within the forest will be obtained for the public? What guarantees can be given to this House that our forests will not fall into the hands of foreign companies which then export the logs to their own sawmills for their own benefit? What guarantees do we have that sufficient timber for our construction and furniture industries will be available at affordable and competitive prices? Who in future will undertake research and ensure that new forests are being and will be established to meet our future needs? In this respect, the promotion of the preservation of our indigenous forests must be clarified.
In so far as forests are concerned, the IFP supports the leasing of industrial plantations to new bidders and investors. This will remove the maintenance burden from the state. But we still hope that much is going to be done in the case of indigenous forests. The IFP applauds the fact that these forests will not be transferred to new owners. Our concern is that some of these indigenous forests are not being utilised in a manner that will help the local communities.
Umhlonishwa uNgqongqoshe ukhulumile, njengoba kade ekhuluma lapha, waphatha indaba yamahlathi emvelo akhona le kithi KwaZulu njengakoNkandla, koShaka Zulu nakoDukuduku mayelana nabantu abayizivakashi. Kunelinye ihlathi engifuna ukwenaba ngalo lapha, okuyihlathi laseNkandla, eliyihlathi lemvelo elinomlando omkhulu. AbaseNdlunkulu baye baze bafunge bathi: Ngifunga uCetshwayo eseNkandla, ngoba yilapho iNkosi uCetshwayo yalala khona.
Eduze naleli hlathi futhi kunomuzi wePhini likaMongameli. Yindawo le enomlando omkhulu. Ngaphesheya kwakhona kukhona amanzi ashisayo aqhuma phansi, angumthombo, eduzane kwaleli hlathi. Ngakho-ke, kumhlonishwa uNgqongqoshe sithi sifisa ukuthi kule ndawo kube khona intuthuko ethile engenziwa ukuze izivakashi eziya kule ndawo zikwazi ukusizakala, futhi balekelelwe laba bantu bakhona ngokuthi mhlawumbe bakhe izindlu zokuhlala izivakashi uma zizobona lezi zindawo, ngoba kunezindawo eziningi ezakhelene esibona ukuthi mhlawumbe kungaba usizo uma abantu bakhona beba yingxenye yehlathi, bazi ukuthi kwenzekani.
Okunye futhi esikucelayo kumhlonishwa uNgqongqoshe ngukuba kwenziwe ubudlelwano nabantu laba abasebenzisa amakhambi abathatha ihlathi njengendawo yabo yokuthola imithi. Siyazi ukuthi abantu bakithi bayasizakala bakhe laphayana amahlamvu athile, baxebule ehlathini. Ngakho- ke kuyindawo ethile okufunakala ukuthi uma beyisebenzisa bazi ukuthi mhlawumbe umuntu kufuneka akhe kangakanani, kube khona ukuxhumana komnyango nalaba bantu abasebenzisa amakhambi. Kodwa-ke kuhle balekelelwe uma bewakha phela, futhi kufuneka kube khona nokongiwa kwemvelo. Kokubili kufanele kubuyiswe, kube khona. UNgqongqoshe ukhulume ngezinsika ezine, enye yazo okungukwenza izinto ngendlela eqhubekayo. Ngakho-ke kulokho esikubonayo ngukuthi laba bantu mabangalahlwa nje, kodwa futhi kufanele bakwazi ukuwakha ngoba siyaphila ngawo la makhambi abawathatha laphayana kuleli hlathi.
Okokugcina-ke, maqondana nezemvelo, kumhlonishwa ngithi siyazi ukuthi njengoba kuvele le mililo emikhulu ebikade ikhona, amahlathi ashileyo kube ngatshaliwe, bekungewona awemvelo. Amahlathi emvelo kukancane kabi lapho umuntu ezwa khona ukuthi ihlathi lishile labhebhetheka ngoba anamanzi awo avikela ukuthi ihlathi lingashi nje libhebhetheke liye phambili. Ngakho-ke thina, njengeqembu le-IFP, sithi akuqhutshekwe. Lolu hlelo lukamhlonishwa esiluncomayo, lokuba kutshalwe izihlahla zemvelo ziqhutshezelwe futhi zongiwe lezo ezivele sezikhona, siyalweseka. (Translation of Zulu paragraphs follows.)
[The hon the Minister has spoken about tourists. He has referred to the historic forests of KwaZulu-Natal like Nkandla, Shaka Zulu and Dukuduku. Now, I want to talk about a certain forest which is known as the Nkandla forest. It is a big forest and is well-known in history. Members of the royal family when they swear, say they swear by Cetshwayo as he is in Nkandla, because that is where King Cetshwayo was buried.
Very close to this forest, lies the homestead of the Deputy President. The Nkandla forest has a great historic record. Opposite this forest, hot water comes naturally from the ground. Therefore, we appeal to the hon the Minister to improve these forests so that visitors who come to these places will be helped, and people who reside near these places will benefit as they will be employed to build houses in which visitors will stay. There are many people who live near these forests. They should be informed about what is taking place regarding these forests. In other words, they should be considered as part of these forests.
We also appeal to the hon the Minister to establish a relationship with traditional healers who obtain their medicinal herbs from these forests. We know that our people benefit a lot from these forests because that is where they get their medicinal herbs. Therefore, people should be informed about what the Government thinks of these forests. They should be given an idea of the amount of medicinal herbs they are allowed to dig out and cut in these forests. The Government must consult with traditional healers. Traditional healers should be assisted in obtaining medicinal herbs. Nature must also be taken care of. The hon the Minister talked about four pillars, one of which is to move things in a continuous manner. Therefore, from what we see, we feel that traditional healers should not be neglected. They should be allowed to obtain medicinal herbs from these forests because it is through their medicinal herbs that our illnesses are healed.
In my conclusion on the environment, I would like the hon the Minister to know that since we have recently experienced big fires, the forests that were burnt did not have natural trees, they had trees that were planted by people. There are few occasions when one hears about the burning of natural forests. The reason for this is that natural forests have water in them which protect the forests from burning easily. We in the IFP say that we should proceed. We applaud this project of the hon the Minister. Natural trees should be increased by planting new ones. The old ones should be protected. We support this project.] Let me turn my attention to water affairs. In the past year parts of our country were heavily flooded. Meanwhile, Kenya is experiencing such an acute water shortage that it is unable to generate adequate electricity. The human impact on weather and climate has resulted in altered rain patterns. What measures has the Government put in place to deal with these wild swings between too much rain and too little rain?
Let me now look at water aquifers. In many parts of the world these have been depleted by the overpumping of water from the ground. In Australia this has led to the salt level rising, with damaging effects on plants and trees. How is our Government dealing with this situation?
Finally, Government has made remarkable progress in bringing water to those who were previously marginalised and discriminated against. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mme P K MOTHOAGAE: Modulasetulo, Tona ya Merero ya Metsi le Dikgwa, maloko a atlotlegang, borra le bomma, ke tlotla mo go nna go nna le seabe mo tshekatshekong ya tekanyetsokabo ya Lefapha la Merero ya Metsi le Dikgwa. Ke lebisa tlotla go bomme botlhe ba Aforika Borwa, segolo ba ba kwa metseng le kwa madirelong a temo a basweu, mo seabong sa bona go kgaratlela kagose[s]a ya Aforika Borwa le Aforika ka bo phara.
Metsi ke botshelo. Rotlhe re a itse gore dipuso tsa tlhaolele di dirisitse metsi jaaka sebetsa sa tlhaolele. Mo kgweding e e fetileng re bone matlhotlhapelo kwa Wolvekrans kwa Randfontein, Gauteng. Rrapolasa Dirk Pelser o ne a tsaya malapa a le matlhano, go akaretsa masea, a ba tlhatlhaganya le dikolobe mme a ba kgaolela metsi - fela dikolobe tsona di ne di na le metsi. Ke rata go buisa mafoko aga Mme Nothembisa Vumbane mo lokwalodikgannygeng, mo a reng:
We were treated worse than the pigs. While we had our water supply cut off by the owner of the farm, his pigs had plenty of water to drink.
Dilo tsena di diragala godimo ga Molaotheo o ofetisitsweng ke Ntlo e. Matlakala a re a bonang ano, a diragala mo godimo ga Molao wa Ditirelo tsa Metsi wa 1997, le Molao wa Metsi wa 1998. Tiro e e re emetseng e ntsi, go samagana le ba ba kgatlhanong le diphetogo. Matlakala a a diriwang ke borrapolasa ba tshwana le Dirk Pelser, a tshwanetse go fela. (Translation of Setswana paragraphs follows.)
[Mrs P K MOTHOAGAE: Chairperson, the hon Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, hon members, it is an honour to participate in the debate on the Vote of this Department. I want to honour all women in South Africa, especially those in the homes and on the agricultural farms of whites, for their role in promoting the rebuilding of South Africa and the rest of Africa. Water is life. We all know that governments of the past sed water as a weapon of oppression. Last month we saw a heartbreaking incident at Wolvekrans in Randfontein, Gauteng, where a farmer, Dirk Pelser, took five families, including children, and forced them to live with pigs. He cut off their water supply, but the pigs had water. I want to quote the words of Mrs Nothembisa Vumbane, who stated in a newspaper, and I quote:
We were treated worse that the pigs. While we had our water supply cut off by the owner of the farm, his pigs had plenty of water to drink.
These things happen despite our new Constitution that was drawn by up this House. These dreadful things happen despite the Water Services Act of 1997 and the National Water Act of 1998. A huge job awaits us, including those who oppose change. Things that are done by farmers such as Dirk Pelser should come to an end.]
I mean, these people are ruthless. Why must we be lenient with them?
Before 1994 no national institution was responsible for ensuring equitable and sustainable access to water and sanitation services. All these years the DP sat in this House, doing nothing. This morning, the hon Moorcroft told us about the pace of delivery, I am surprised …
Ke makaditswe ke se a se buang ka gonne ga nke aya kwa di kopanong tsa komiti e. [I am amazed by what he has said, because he never attends committee meetings.]
Rural water supply and sanitation was left to former homeland governments. We inherited more than 600 water projects and many of them were dilapidated. So, the DP, in trying to score political points, visited Keate’s Drift. Mr McIntosch, in a bow tie and bellbottoms, went to turn on a tap, when he knew there was no water.
In drawing up the Water Amendment Act of 1997, a long involved process of consultation was undertaken by the Department of Water Affairs. [Interjections.]
La ntlhodia! [You are irritating!]
Communities, trade unions, farmers, industrialists, scientists and environmentalists were contacted. This was done in order to give force to the constitutional mandate which guarantees a right to water access and a healthy environment that is not harmful. One is concerned, however, about how some of our industries are conducting themselves or whether they are undermining legislation. The Minister referred to the Iscor case and we hope that we are going to get results soon. Iscor might not be the only one in industry that is undermining us.
Water resources are a public commodity which are regulated to meet the interest of all users, whether they get their water from rivers, the sky or underground. No part of the water resources of our country will be regarded as private property. However, I want to tell the hon the Minister that it seems as if we are still having some problems. I am not sure how far the process of licensing of water has gone, but a certain farmer in our area in Lehurutshe has approached the Zeerust Town Council, saying that he has enough water on his farm and can assist the town council. The council raised this with me, and I referred them to Mr Narache at the regional office in Mafikeng. It seems there is some information lacking and some people are undermining what we have put in place with regard to this.
I want to raise the issue of hon chihuahua Tony Leon going to the Kaya Sands waste disposal site where he was accompanied by armed youths who were toyi-toying in front of him. I am not sure what message he was sending. He raised the issue of the Jukskei River being polluted. The Minister has been there before and he can share with this House information on what is happening in Midrand. They concentrate on the suburban areas and forget about the rural areas.
The LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: You are talking nonsense!
Ms P K MOTHOAGAE: O bua matlakala. Mphe tshono ke go bolele di kgang tsa gago! [You are talking nonsense. Give me a chance and I will tell you what you are about!]
They are happy that we concentrate on their areas. We are not going to do that. They must change … [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Hon member, please do not refer to the Leader of the Opposition as a chihuahua. [Laughter.] Do not allow your speech to go to the dogs! Deliver a good speech. Please continue, hon member.
Mrs P K MOTHOAGAE: Mr Chairperson, I would not be just if I did not address sanitation in this debate. In 1996, a draft White Paper on National Sanitation Policy was circulated. Consultation started in 1995 and provinces were consulted through workshops. Six departments were involved: Water Affairs and Forestry, Health, Education, Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Provincial Affairs as well as Housing. We saw that as a very comprehensive, co-ordinated and integrated approach. I would like to ask the hon Minister, what happened to that White Paper?
The Portfolio Committee on Water Affairs and Forestry visited nine provinces. The Portfolio Committee on Education visited the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. So, water supply and sanitation remain a serious problem.
I wish to take this opportunity to workshop the UCDP on its oversight role as parliamentarians. I want to say to hon Baloyi that if he is in his township and sees a blocked pipe or water that is not well managed, he needs to sit down with the council and resolve the matter instead of going to Radio Motswedeng FM.
This party should thank the ANC. They were given a chance to come back to this House and resolve the mess that they created with their bosses.
The ANC supports this Vote. [Applause.]
Mr S SIMMONS: Chairperson, hon Minister and members of the House, the New NP will be supporting this Vote. Owing to time constraints, I will only focus on my concerns on the budget and services rendered by the department in the past.
The hon Minister will observe from the budget that out of the eight programmes, six programmes make provision for, inter alia, mainly new salary improvements and improvements in conditions of service. Besides the fact that Programmes 7 and 8 do not include any salary improvements, the interpretation of the budget as to what amounts have specifically been budgeted for the various programmes, excluding the salary improvements, cannot be determined. Enquiries into that have to date not been responded to. Perhaps the hon Minister could assist and provide me with the relevant figures.
On a recent provincial visit by the portfolio committee, we noted many successful projects and how grateful the affected communities were, many of which he has mentioned here today. I also noted the many not-so-successful projects and the reasons for this as expressed by the various communities. A further concern was the many white elephants, such as dams that are not fully utilised or utilised to their optimum. One such dam is the Taung Dam in the Northern Province, which is situated in the former Bophuthatswana homeland which is a water-scarce area. When the portfolio committee visited this dam, it was more than full; in fact, it was overflowing. Crystal clear water was running over the dam’s wall.
It was also pointed out to us that two other dams not far from where we were were also not being utilised to their maximum. Lack of funds was the reason no infrastructure could be installed so that the water could be taken to where it was needed most. The Minister’s comments in this regard would be appreciated.
Two independent studies by nongovernmental organisations evaluated the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s community water and sanitation projects which have been in place since 1994 and found that between 50% and 90% of the projects were in total disarray.
Research done by the Rural Development Services Network found, inter alia, that about 40% to 60% of the rural people do not have adequate drinking water, and that only 26% of the projects were fully operational. Moreover, by 1999, the Government had cut the water provision in its budget by a massive 21,6% and a further 3,6% in the current financial year, which to me seems to be a shortcoming in the department. This state of affairs is totally unacceptable. Based on these findings, it seems that the success claimed by him and his department has been overexaggerated and that more people than estimated by him are still without potable water and sanitation services. I want to refer to the concerns of the commercial forestry industry. The National Water Act classifies commercial forests as the one and only stream flow reduction activity under the use of water category. Owners of timber plantations are required to register their plantation areas as water users and will require licences to continue with these activities. The licences are not permanent and their duration is restricted to a maximum of 40 years, subject to regular review at intervals of not more than five years. These reviews could result in the termination of licences with little certainty that adequate compensation would be paid.
Furthermore, the Act provides for charges to be levied on all forms of water use. In the case of forestry, which relies entirely on rainfall, the charges would inevitably have to be based on estimates of the extent to which the plantations reduce runoffs. The charges would be based on an area planted and average rainfall for the subcatchment concerned. No account would be taken of drier years or other variations.
The forestry industry will also be required to pay for water in respect of which no services are provided, which can therefore be regarded as a tax on rainfall. I appeal to the Minister that caution be exercised in this regard. This is a controversial and contentious issue, and we request that fairness prevail in order to placate all the role-players. [Time expired.]
Mna P M MATHEBE: Morena Modulasetulo, Tona ya tša Meetse le Paballo ya Dithokgwa, le bang-ka-nna, seo se ke kego se nkgahle ke gore motho a tle mo pele gomme a tle a bolele ka bošaedi le bošula bjo bo dirilwego ke phathi ya gagwe.
Mna Simmons o re boditše ka ga di-white elephant'' tša matamo, tšeo re
tšwago go di bona kua Northern Province. Potšišo ke gore na e ka ba tšona
di-white elephant’’ tšeo di agilwe ke bomang? [O tsenwaganong.]
MALOKO A HLOMPHEGAGO: Ke Ramodike!
Mna P M MATHEBE: Bjale ga ke tsebe ge e ba ``bonnete’’ bjo bo boletšwego ke Mna Simmons bo tlo kgahla Mna Van Schalkwyk gobane ke phathi ya gagwe yeo e dirilego mašula ao.
Naga ye ya rena ya Afrika-Borwa e šegofaditšwe ka meedi le meetšana, maope le dinoka tšeo, tše dingwe tša tšona, di elelago motšhaotšhele. Matlhakoring ohle e potapotilwe ke mawatle. Go agilwe matamo a go duta meetse a go tšwa dinokeng tšeo. Efela, se bošula ke gobane kabo ya meetse ao e be e sa fiwe batho ka go lekana. Mmušo wola wa malobanyana, wa majela- thoko, o be o hlokometše fela bagwebi ba balemi ba maburu. Dikanale tšeo di išago meetse ao baleming, di be di phatša ka gare ga metse ya gaborena, eupša bomme le dikgaetšedi ba gapeletšega go ya didibeng tšeo go nwelago ditonki le diphoofolo tše dingwe, go yo ga meetse a go apeya le go nwewa.
Meetse ao a tšwago letamong la Loskop ka Moutse, go la Mpumalanga, a feta diketekete tša batho ba Moutse a eya go fiwa balemi le badudi, bao ba ka tlalago fela seatla, ba Groblersdal le Marble Hall, ka baka la gore ke maburu. Se, ke seo se ke kego se seleke bathobaso. Batho ba gaborena, ge ba fetwa ke meetse ao, ba gapeletšega gore ba dumele gore a a ba rona. Gape re gapeletšega gore re dumele gore ke nnete gore morula o a hlaba, re ntše re tseba gore nnete-gona ga o na meetlwa. Tšeo ka moka e be e le ka baka la wona mmušwana wola wa majelathoko. [Legofsi.]
Le moo batho ba bego ba fiwa meetse, ba be ba sa kgathe tema lenaneong la go a aba. Gape ba be ba sa dumelelwe le go ka fa ditšhišinyo go abjweng ga wona. Le taba ya go ka nyakišiša gore ke batho ba bakae, mo nageng, bao ba bego ba se na meetse e be e se bohlokwa mmušong wola wa diganka, wa majelathoko. Ba be ba dira fela seo se kgahlago bona, e lego seo se bego se šulafatša magagaborena.
Ba hlomile dinagamagae tšeo di bitšwago ``homelands’’, tšeo re sa di ratego; gomme ba tšere maburu ao go bona ba rego ga a tsebe selo, ba sa a ratego, ba a romela gona dinagamagaeng tšeo go yo ba ditlhogo tša dikgoro tšeo ba bego ba re ke tšona di tlago direla bathobaso mešomo. Seo ba be ba se dira ka go tseba gabotse gore batho bao, ka ge e le bao ba sa kgonego, sa bona e tla fo ba go senya mo dinageng tša gaborena.
Mna Ramodike o be a le fa. Ke a tshepa o tla nhlatsela mo tabeng ye, gobane ge a be a le tonakgolo ya mmušo wa Lebowa, go be go na le monna yo a rometšwego ke maburu fao, e le hlogo ya lefapha la tša temo, meetse le dithokgwa. Dithutwana tša monna wa ntshe e be le ge a na le setifikeiti sa go rua dinôse. [Disego.] Go le bjalo, e be e le yena hlogo ya Lefapha la tša Temo le Meetse ka nagalegaeng ya Lebowa. Naa ka setifikeiti sa go rua dinôse, motho a ka kaonefatša maphelo a batho ge go e tla kae? Ke potšišo yeo re tlago e botšiša bona banna ba ba majelathoko.
Efela go tloga ka ngwaga wa 1994, Mmušo wa rena wa ANC o dirile dinyakišišo go ka hwetša gore e ka ba ke batho ba bakae bao ba se nago meetse. Re hweditše gore bontši bja batho ba ke badudi ba Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal le Northern Province, elego mafelo ao a tletšego ka bahlaki ba dinagamagaeng. Go leka go fetola seo, Mmušo wo wa rena o file batho ba e ka bago dimilione tše senyane le makgolo a mabedi meetse. (Translation of Sepedi paragraphs follows).
[Mr P M MATHEBE: Mr Chairperson, hon Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry and hon members, I find it interesting when people have the audacity to rise in this House and start talking about the evil acts that were committed by their party in the past.
The hon Mr Simmons has just referred to what he termed the ``white elephant’’ dams that we have in the Northern Province. The question is, who actually built those white elephants? [Interjections.] HON MEMBERS: Ramodike!
Mr P M MATHEBE: Well, I do not know whether the ``truth’’ that the hon Mr Simmons has just revealed will be appreciated by his boss, the hon Mr Van Schalkwyk, because it was his party that was involved in building those white elephants.
Our country is endowed with valleys and watercourses, streams and rivers. Some of these rivers flow throughout the year. South Africa is also surrounded by oceans. Some of the rivers and streams have been dammed up. However, it is strange to note that water from those dams was not supplied to the local communities in an equitable manner. The former apartheid regime was particularly committed to serving only the Boer commercial farmers. The waterpipes that carried water to those farming communities went through our villages, but our mothers and sisters had to share impure water with donkeys and other wild animals.
Water from the Loskop Dam in Moutse, Mpumalanga, was carried in pipes to small white farming communities in Groblersdal and Marble Hall, whilst thousands of local black people of Moutse were deprived of water. This annoyed the black communities. When our people are deprived of water they feel that they are being forced to accept that they are not fit to get water at all. We are also being forced to believe in the fallacy that a morula tree is prickly whereas we know full well that a morula tree has no thorns at all. This heavy burden was thrust upon us by the previous apartheid regime. [Applause.]
Even in places where water was provided, local people were not consulted in allocating it. They were not even allowed to voice their opinions in the allocation of water. The apartheid regime did not even bother to find out exactly how many people were without water. They did all this because they particularly enjoyed seeing our people suffer.
The apartheid regime established the hated ``homelands’’, and seconded useless Boer rejects to these governments as heads of departments whom they claimed would create job opportunities for blacks. They did all that to ensure that those rejects would retard our people’s development.
The hon Mr Ramodike was here. I am sure he would agree with me on this matter, because during his tenure as the Chief Minister of the former Lebowa homeland government, there was a man who was seconded by the apartheid regime to head his homeland’s Department of Agriculture, Water Affairs and Forestry. The academic qualifications of that man consisted of a certificate in beekeeping. Yet he was appointed as a high-ranking official in the Lebowa government. How on earth can a person with nothing but a certificate in beekeeping improve the quality of life of the people? That is what we should ask these rightwingers.
However, since 1994 our ANC-led Government has embarked upon a research mission to establish just how many people are still without water. We found that most of these people are in rural areas of Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Province, which are mostly inhabited by the poorest of the poor. In its endeavours to bring about change, our Government has so far delivered water to approximately nine million and two hundred people countrywide.]
In rural areas, the proportion served by this infrastructure has risen to 50%. About 4 million people received new supplies, and about 6 million people benefited through the improvement of the reliability and quality of the water supply. Since last January, the portfolio committee has visited all the provinces in South Africa. Our brief was to study how the Department of Water Affairs dealt with the backlog in the delivery of water services. Our brief was also to make suggestions to the department, especially on how to improve efficiency when addressing the backlog in the regions. We want to engage the department on the institutional arrangements. We are vitally concerned about the viability of local authorities. We have grave fears about the sustainability of some of the water boards.
The key finding from our study tour is that, while there has been a record of some impressive achievements, the backlog remains a source of frustration for our people. For the first time, as a member of this committee, I was shown the workings of purification plants, reservoirs and dams. We visited the Driekoppies Dam in the catchment area that covers our neighbouring countries, and where there is a standing co-operation between these countries. Driekoppies has great potential for creating employment opportunities when zoning plans and agricultural forestry nurseries get under way. We visited the construction site of the Injaka Dam, the purification plant and associated works which provide essential water to the nearby hospital and thousands of people who, up to now, have had a very unreliable flow of water.
When we deal with the delivery backlogs, we are addressing the result of our past. Apartheid was a crime against humanity, and that criminality included a vast waste of money. Resources were squandered in constructing monuments of stupidity. About R25 million was spent on constructing the Zoeknog Dam. The committee viewed the remains of this project, built under the homeland policy. This disaster continues to drain the financial resources and adds to the erosion of sensitive soil. However, plans are afoot on the part of the provincial Department of Agriculture to rehabilitate the scheme, but on a much smaller scale, to sustain a coffee plantation.
In the Northern Province’s working for water lead project, there is visible progress in reclaiming … [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mr M N RAMODIKE: Mr Chairperson, the aim of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry is, as indicated in the explanatory memorandum of this Vote, to ensure the availability and supply of water on a national level, and to promote the development of forestry.
There is no doubt that the former Minister of this department made a lot of strides and achievements in this regard, particularly with regard to water supply at a national level. We believe the present Minister will continue to make these strides and achievements.
The UDM supports this Vote.
Go le bjalo, mohlomphegi, ntumelele ke dire ditshwao-tshwao tše di latelago: Leina le lengwe la Northern Province, go tloga maloba, ke ``Meetse-Baloi’’.
Go a hlobaetša, ge Mmušo o laetša bokgoni kua marung - godimo ga dihlogo tša batho - mola kua tlase, mo batho ba tlogego ba tsoma thušo, Mmušo o bonala o itšhireletša ka letlhaka - go sa laetšwe bokgoni le go iša ditirelo bathong - mola re kwešiša gore Mmušo wo wa lehono ke mmušo wa batho le batho ka batho.
Go kile gwa bolelwa ka phaephe ya meetse go tloga nokeng ya Zambezi go ya Northern Province. Le lehono setšhaba se sa beile mokganya phatleng. Go tlatša dimpa, gape go a nyamiša, gore ge go na le matamo a magolo a dikgoparara, gomme a tletše meetse, gwa no hwetšagala gore batho ba sa phatša melala ye metelele, ba se `na meetse ditikologong tša bona.
Batho ba bangwe ke bo-seila-kgaka-bo-senwa-moro. Motho o botšiša gore wena o dirile eng, mola a tseba gabotse gore ka nako yeo o be a bina koša le rena. Lehono ka gore ANC e tšere marapa a pušo, o akalala kua marung le bonong, mola maloba re be re mo tseba e se lenong. Go na le ba bangwe bao ba bego ba šoma le rena, e le badiredi ba mmušo, le ba bangwe gape bao ba bego ba na le rena gona mebušong yeo go thwego ke ya majelathoko. [Disêgo.] Lehono ge ba bona ANC e tšere marapa a pušo, ke bo-hee-le-rena-re-tšwa- tokologong! Ao e tloge e le maaka a go tsebja ke Modimo! [Disêgo.]
Go a hlobaetša ge, ka nako ye ya diphetogo, go sa hwetšwa batho ba bohlale, bao e rego ge ba bangwe ba bolela, ba ba tseneganong. Ge motho a duletše go dira mašata, mola ba bangwe ba bolela, o khupetša magole le go hloka tsebo tša gagwe.
Go a hlobaetša ge, ka yona nako ye ya diphetogo, go sa hwetšwa ba bangwe, bao ba tsogago mašego ka baka la tšhego ya meetse, ba sepela maeto a matelele, ba rwele metšega dihlogong, ba e ya go ga meetse. Bao ba rego ge ba lle pelle, ka meetse a Lepelle, ba se kwešiše ‘taba tša bona, ba tlo fela ba boela morago. [Nako e fedile.] [Legofsi.] (Translation of Sepedi paragraphs follows.)
[Mr M N RAMODIKE: However, allow me, Mr Chairperson, to make the following comments: As from yesterday, the Northern Province is also known as “Meetse Baloi” (Water and Witches - It is perceived as being beset by the problem of droughts and an abundance of witches).
It is sad to see the Government channelling aid above the people’s heads while at grass-roots level, where the people need aid the most, the Government is hiding behind the bushes. There is neither skills development nor service delivery and yet we are led to believe that the present Government is a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
It was mooted, some time ago, that a pipe would be erected to bring water from the Zambezi River to the Northern Province. To this day, the people are still waiting.
Some people hunt with the dogs and run with the hare. A person asks one what one has done, whereas he or she knows full well that we were both here, singing together. Now that the ANC is in power, they keep their heads in the clouds, in the realm of the vultures, whereas we did not use to know them as vultures. Some of them used to work with us as civil servants. Others were even working with us in the governments that were regarded as being to the far right. [Laughter.] Today, when they see that the ANC is in power, they also claim to have been in exile! The Lord knows that they are telling lies! [Laughter.]
It is sad, at this time of transformation, to find that there are still people who are bent on interrupting others when they speak. Someone who does nothing but howl while others are talking reveals his or her own stupidity and lack of knowledge.
It is sad, at this time of transformation, to find that there are still people who wake up when it is still dark, due to lack of water, and walk long distances, with containers on their heads, to find water. Those who are full of sour porridge that has been prepared with water from the Olifants River, do not understand their plight. They end up going back home without any water. [Time expired.] [Applause.]]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! On what point are you rising, sir?
Mr J H MOMBERG: Mr Chairperson, on a point of order: I just want to say that while the hon member was speaking, there was no translation service. [Interjections.] Unfortunately, the indication was that there would be a different speaker, so no language preference was indicated. It is not Parliament’s fault. I think that, in future, we must just inform Parliament about language preferences.
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! We will inform the Whips.
Mrs M L NGWENYA: Mr Chairperson, hon Minister and colleagues, ke tlabja ke sepitikopo se se sa tšwago go tloga mo. [Disêgo.] Ke tlabja ke gore a na ruri se be se ka kgona go buša e le sepitikopo, ka gore le mmone gore le ka mokgwa wo a tlogilego ka gona mo, e fo ba ga sepitikopo. [Disêgo.] Rena ga re na nako ya batho ba bjalo ka yena.
Go e na le gore a bolele ka taba ya meetse le go phethagatša ditirelo, go be go tlo ba bokaone gore a re botše gore yena o dirile eng mo nywageng ye lesome, gobane gabotsebotse re tseba yena a na le motšhene wa go neša pula. Re a o nyaka! A a o tliše mo! O paletšwe. Le mo lenaneong la rena la ditho tša ANC re mo rakile. [Disêgo.] (Translation of Sepedi paragraphs follows.)
[Mrs M L NGWENYA: Mr Chairperson, hon Minister and colleagues, I am greatly perplexed by the behaviour of the traffic cop who has just left this podium. [Laughter.] What amazes me further is how a mere traffic cop like him can have the competency to govern. Hon members will agree with me that the manner in which he left this podium was typical of a traffic cop. [Laughter.] We do not have time for people like him here.
Instead of debating issues that relate to water supply and service delivery, it would have been a good thing for him to tell us exactly what he has done over the past ten years, because we know, for a fact, that he has a rain-making machine. We need that machine! Let him bring it here! He has failed! We have expelled him from the ANC. [Laughter.]] We all need water to live. We all know that fact. But the notion that all our citizens have a right to water is something which we fought for, and it is now enshrined in our Constitution - a right to have access to sufficient water.
For many, many people, this constitutional right has also become a reality in their lives. Many people who had to walk long distances to fetch water which was not fit for human consumption now have clean running water in their homes, or close to their homes. This is one of the great achievements of this ANC Government, and not Ramodike’s government. [Laughter.]
According to the latest research, 18 000 people in South Africa die every year from diarrhoea or dysentery. These diseases are caused mainly by the use of unclean water. The research further states that Government spends R4 billion annually on these two diseases. That is more than six times the annual allocation for community water supply and sanitation.
Therefore, the hon the Minister will note that the challenge of supplying clean water to our communities is essential. Surely, it makes a lot of sense to spend more money on water on which our lives depend. After all, access to sufficient water is a constitutional right. The returns to society, by spending more money on water, are high. So, while we clearly support this budget, we want the Minister to know that we stand behind him as he tries to persuade Cabinet that a greater share of the budget needs to go towards supplying the community with water.
I am grateful for the Arabie Dam report, and I will convey the message to my community. It makes me feel good. It is true that 3 million households from disadvantaged communities have received water, and that is, indeed, a great achievement. These communities are represented by us, the ANC, and not by the DP, the opportunists.
Not many of these projects have proved to be sustainable. A high percentage of the new connections are not working, and water disconnection has increased owing to nonpayment. Our challenge is to learn from our mistakes and to find better models and ways of doing things in a way that would result not only in increased delivery, but in both sustainable projects and delivery. We are not a defensive Government. We acknowledge our mistakes, unlike the previous regimes that were always howling and yet did anything and nothing.
Community involvement will be encouraged so that communities take greater responsibility for the maintenance of local water supply. However, in order to achieve this, there has to be a greater and consistent community participation in the design and implementation of such projects.
This time around, delivery must become a reality. All rural communities must enjoy their basic rights, especially the right to clean water. There must be local government capacity-building and local governments must be adequately resourced. Community structures must develop sufficient capacity to undertake the necessary task of managing water systems.
This ANC-led Government is in the process of reversing the damage caused by 300 years of colonialism and apartheid, which established the horrific homeland structures which became a real threat to us. However, we still feel that working together, we will bury the past. Working together, we will live as equals at long last. I just want to appeal to the DP that if it is part and parcel of this Government, it should be constructive, for once, and stop moaning and criticising without actually coming forward with a single piece of advice. [Applause.]
Mr P H K DITSHETELO: Chairperson, hon Minister, we are now dealing with the most essential commodity without which there can be no life. However, its importance is taken for granted and underestimated.
We applaud the principal aim of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, namely to ensure the availability and supply of water at national level, and to promote the development of forestry.
We further appreciate the policy-development strategy identified by the department, which augurs well for the philosophy of empowerment and privatisation, ie transferring commercial forestry functions to the private sector and community-owned structures; the leasing out of 330 000 hectares of state forests in collaboration with the Department of Public Enterprises; publishing draft norms and standards which prescribe regulations for water services, thereby representing a shift towards full- cost recovery from water users. We live in a competitive world and therefore we cannot ignore governing trends in the industrial and labour markets. It is imperative that salaries be adjusted from time to time, working conditions be improved and new innovations be introduced. Hence, the increment in administration, water source assessment, water resource planning, etc were justified and unavoidable.
It is equally important to note that this department is focused on service delivery by providing the necessary tools such as an efficient and cost- effective supportive administrative and management service, through the allocation of 531 new bursaries, the extension of the internal audit directorate and the strengthening of financial management and transformation in the department.
The devolution of certain responsibilities to provinces such as the transfer of water supply schemes to local authorities to ensure their proper operation and maintenance, support to local authorities in preparing the implementation of water services, development plans and the provision of support and advice on water resource management and the water users’ association and other water users is highly commendable, but must be followed … The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Hon member, your speaking time has expired.
Mr P H K DITSHETELO: … up closely in the teething stages to guarantee success and efficiency.
I support the Vote.
Muf T E ḼISHIVHA: Mudzulatshidulo na miraḓo yoṱhe ya Buthano ḽa Lushaka, hezwi ri tshi amba nga ha miḓalo, tsha u thoma, ri a livhuha na u fhululedza mihasho yoṱhe ye ya ḓidina musi vha tshi pfa khombo, vha ḓala- ḓala na shango uri vha thuse vhathu vhoṱhe vho kwameaho, vha sa sedzi uri nnyi ndi nnyi. Ri ri, kha vha fare nga u ralo vhunga Tshivenḓa tshi ri munwe muthihi a u ṱusi mathuthu.
Zwi dovha hafhu zwa vha tsumbo ya uri muvhuso u posa iṱo kha vhathu vha shango ḽashu. Ri tshi sedza kha mavunḓu maṱanu o kwameaho, hu na vhathu vho lozwaho vhutshilo musi wa miḓalo. Vhathu vha anganyelwa kha ḓana, mahumi mararu, na vhaṱanu na vhaṋa. A thi ḓivhi zwine Vho-Ramodike vha khou amba ngauri tshiṅwe tsho ṱuwisaho vhathu ndi madamu o bwiwaho, ha sa fhedziswe mushumo. Ndi ngaho vhathu vhahashu vho lovha nga u shaya vhudzulo na zwiṅwe.
Ra sedza, ri ḓo wana uri vunḓu ḽa Devhula, ḽi na vhathu vha ḓana na vhaṋa vho lovhaho nga nṱhani ha izwo zwa Vho-Ramodike. Mpumalanga ho vha na vha mahumi mavhili vho lovhaho. Devhula Vhukovhela ho vha na vhararu. Kapa Vhubvaḓuvha ho vha vha sumbe na Free Sate ho vha na vhararu. Kha vunḓu ḽa Devhula, hu na mivhundu i no swika ḓana na mahumi maṱanu yo kwameaho na vhathu vha zwigidi zwa maḓana a sumbe na mahumi maṱanu. Miḓi ya ḓana na mahumi mavhili na muthihi yo kwamea.
U wa ha maburoho na u kumbiwa ha dzibada zwi kha ḓi vha kwama ngauri hunzhi muvhuso wo fhiraho wo vha u si na pulane. Vho vha vha tshi sokou vhea vha sa ḓivhi uri vha khou ita mini. Ndi ngazwo musi wa mvula idzo, miḓalo a i ngo konou tikea. Zwikolo a zwo ngo dzheniwa, zwibadela ho vha hu sa swikei, na vhathu a vho ngo kona u ya mavhengeleni u ṱoḓa zwiḽiwa nga mulandu wa u tshinyala ha dzibada. Vhoramabindu nga itsho tshifhinga vho wana nḓila ya u itesa tshelede. Muthu o vha a tshi renga lofo ya vhurotho nga randa ṱhanu. Musi muthu a tshi ṋamela bisi kana thekisi, mitengo yo vha i tshi vha nga huvhili. Arali i rannda ṱhanu, dzo vha dzi tshi vha dza fumi.
Tsini na hune nda dzula hone, avho vha tshanda tsha monde vha ḓivheaho, vha tshi vhona vhathu vho takutshedza vha tshi khou lugisa dzibada, nge muvhuso wa Phurovintsi ya Devhula wo ṱuṱuwedza vhathu uri vha takutshedze vha ḓiitele, vho mbo takutshedza u fhura vhathu. Vho vhudza vhathu uri hu itiwe dzikonṱiraka ṱhukhu dzine vhathu vha nga dzhenela nga maḓana maṱanu uri musi vhathu vha tshi pfuka vha badele. Vha ri vha funa vhathu, u nga funa muthu ane wa dovha wa ri u mu pfela vhuṱungu, ngeno wa dovha wa mu badelisa? Izwo zwi amba mini? Fhedzi, ro zwi thivhela na muvhuso wo ṱavhanya u zwi pfa wa vha fara zwanḓa. Dzibada dza zwigidi zwa maḓana mavhili kha muvhuso wa Devhula dzo kumbiwa. Muvhuso uyo wo ṱahisa ḽa uri musi hu tshi lugiswa dzibada hu lavhelesiwe na idzo dzi re vhukati ha miḓi. Zwi ḓo ita u tshimbila havhuḓi ngauri na kha idzo bada hu nga vha na khombo samusi dzo tshinyala-vho.
Ri livhuha muvhuso washu nga nḓila ine wa khou shuma na vhathu. Ndi ngazwo ro vha na vhatikedzi vhanzhi. Vha maini wa Tshikondeni u re devhula vhubvaḓuvha, vho ri thusa nga magandakanda avho khathihi na u bvisa R20 000 ye ya ṋewa muvhusowapo uri hu lugiswe bada.
Rine vha ANC, ro zwi ita uri vhathu vha re na zwine vha nga ṋea, sa thuso, zwi ḓo ṱanganedzwa. Ndi ngazwo ro kona u ṋea vhathu zwiḽiwa na zwiambaro. Zwa zwino, vha khou ḽa na u ambara. Ri livhuha vhathu vho shumaho ḓuvha ḽoṱhe vha sa aweli uri bada ya Magoebaskloof na ya Thathe Vonḓo dzi luge ngauri dzo wa vhusiku na masiari lwe vhathu vha balelwa u fhira.
Ri tshi ḓa kha dzinnḓu, vhathu vhanzhi vho sala vha si na vhudzulo. Vho shumisa zwikolo na dziholo sa vhudzulo ha tshifhinganyana. Fhedzi, Muhasho wa Vhupileli na wa Vhulondavhathu, yo lingedza nga nḓila dzoṱhe uri vhathu vha wane madennde ane vha ḓo dzula lwa tshifhinganyana. Ri dovha hafhu ra livhuha na miṅwe mihasho ye ya shuma i sa aweli … [U fhela ha Tshifhinga.] (Translation of Tshivenḓa speech follows.)
[Miss T E ḼISHIVHA: Mr Chairperson and hon members of the National Assembly, when we refer to the recent floods, firstly, we thank and congratulate all the departments that got involved in assisting all people affected by the disaster without discrimination. We encourage them to continue doing so as it is said that one swallow does not make a summer.
It is also evident that our Government is always alert to the plight of its people. Looking at the five provinces affected, 135 people are estimated to have lost their lives. Hon Mr Ramodike spoke about the cause being the uncompleted dams and that is how many of our people died and so on.
Considering the death toll of 104 people due to what the hon Ramodike has just referred to, Mpumalanga had 20 deaths, the North West had three, the Eastern Cape had seven and the Free State had three. In the Northern Province 120 areas were affected, impacting on 700 050 people and 121 homesteads.
Fallen bridges and eroded roads have affected people’s lives, due to careless planning by the previous government. Their planning was haphazard and that is why the floods were so destructive. There was no schooling, hospitals were inaccessible and people could not go to shopping centres to buy necessities. Business people got an opportunity to raise the prices of their goods for a goodly return. One would buy a loaf of bread for R5,00. The taxi fare was doubled, so that if the normal cost was R5,00 one was expected to pay R10,00.
In my area, those from the right took the opportunity to cheat people who tried to help themselves by repairing roads after being encouraged to so do by the government of the Northern Province. They suggested that people should contribute R500 to form small contractors for the temporary construction of roads and bridges so that people had to pay to cross. They claim to like people and yet they intend to exploit them. How is it possible that they like them? We and the provincial government heard about this and put a stop to it.
About 200 000 roads were washed away in the Northern Province. The Government has appealed for repairs, which should also include community roads in order to make travelling easy.
We thank our Government for the way they have assisted people. That is why we had many people giving a helping hand. The Tshikondeni mine in the north east made their tractors available and contributed R20 000 to the local government for road repairs.
We in the ANC welcome any form of assistance, and that is why we could afford to give food parcels and clothes to people. As of now people are fed and clothed. We also thank the people who worked all day to repair the Magoebaskloof and Tate Vondo roads to make travelling possible.
When considering housing, many people have been left homeless. They have been temporarily accommodated in halls and schools. The Departments of Defence and of Welfare also assisted by providing tents. We also thank all departments that have worked tirelessly … [Time expired.]]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Hon members, the next speaker will be making his maiden speech. [Interjections.] Give him the courtesy of the House. [Applause.]
Mr D S MAIMANE: Mr Chairperson, hon members, let me start by congratulating the former Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, the hon Prof Kader Asmal, on leading a transformation programme that culminated in an effective and efficient supply of water to the people of our country, both in urban centres and rural areas.
The transformation process, as envisaged by the ANC, seeks to ensure that institutions that provide a basic service, such as water, must be efficient, effective, manageable and representative of the population of our country. It is in accordance with this vision that the Water Services Act, No 108 of 1997, was enacted by this Parliament in order to determine the manner in which the transformation of institutions, such as water boards, should occur.
This Act provides for a rare opportunity for municipalities to begin a process of accepting ownership of the water services work, accelerating cost recovery, and ensuring sustainable delivery of water. In some cases municipalities have opted for partnerships with water boards. In the eastern region of the North West province a water services contract has been entered into between Rand Water, the Eastern District Council, Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa and Winterveld TRCs. Such a contract enables a municipality to provide water efficiently to the people within its area of jurisdiction.
A challenge that remains is the use of equitable shares by municipalities. Guidelines should be developed to ensure that a certain percentage of equitable shares is appropriated to water so as to cover the needs of the indigent people. It is against this background that I believe that the transformation agenda of this country is safe in the hands of the ANC. [Applause.]
Modderspruit - a village in the North West province, next to a town known as Brits - is enjoying the fruits of a water services provision contract between a water board and the municipalities mentioned above. Funding has been secured for the upgrading of the water services work from an RDP standard to a high level of service. Furthermore, the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Comrade Ronnie Kasrils, has announced guidelines for public and public-private partnerships. This will enable municipalities, as water service authorities, to appoint capable water service providers, which will increase their capacity to speedy delivery and ensure sustainability through meaningful cost recovery programmes. It is, therefore, important to encourage public partnerships. The Minister needs to be commended for this marvellous work.
While such marvellous plans of delivery continue, we need to remind this nation that the former Lebowa government, under the leadership of Chief Minister M Ramodike, constructed a dam which remains a white elephant to this day. [Interjections.] Such poor planning and inconsiderate decision- making are characteristic of all bantustan governments which enjoyed the support of the apartheid NP government.
The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry leads a programme known as Working for Water. This programme has dealt a serious blow to unemployment in some rural areas of our country. Again in Brits, there exists a project known as the Kwena project. This project has created jobs for the people of Maboloka, Bapong, Mmakau and Letlhabile. The Working for Water programme has become a real enemy to poverty and unemployment. [Applause.] It is, therefore, essential to create a pool of resources to ensure its continuation.
I had an opportunity of meeting people employed in a Working for Water project in Mpumalanga. They told me that they are not only getting jobs, but they are also trained in areas of small contractor development. Such training will enable them to become contractors in future. In this regard we need to congratulate Dr Guy Preston, who is the leader of this programme at the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. I would like to say to him in Setswana:
Nko ya kgomo mogala tshwara thata, e sere o utlwa sebodu wa kgaoga.
[Applause.] Operation Ukuruka is also an important programme led by our Minister. It is important in a sense that it sensitises our people around the dangers of exotic plants. We need to commend hon Minister Kasrils for this. [Time expired.][Applause.]
Dr M S MOGOBA: Mr Chairperson, hon Minister, South Africa is basically a dry country, compared to water-logged countries like Holland, and our rivers, compared to the large rivers of the world, are like small streams.
It is ironic that this year we had devastating floods that left a trail of devastation, particularly on the services and infrastructures of poor communities. Water is a national challenge in terms of supply, distribution and care of it as a scarce commodity.
Some areas have new dams and potable water, and this has brought some smiles to many poor communities. However, many large villages, like Phokwani, are still waiting. A village, such as Matlala Mohlalaotwane is next to the Arabie Dam, but still has no water. Even the much appreciated donation from the European Community seems to have been depleted by consultants, leaving the communities high and dry. Strict measures should be instituted to ensure that the millions of rands set aside for projects end up in the communities for which the money was intended.
The hon the Minister has rightly said that white elephants will not be tolerated under his regime, and that they will become African elephants. I want to assure him that when the African elephant arrives in those villages that I have referred to, there will be ululating and celebration because it will be a long-awaited arrival. [Applause.]
It is observed painfully that the general picture of spending shows that nearly 50% of the budget is used for professional services, and that the next considerable slice goes to personnel and transfer payments. Whilst this slant is inevitable in a highly technical field like water services, the use of local human resources, properly trained of course, would go a long way towards ensuring that services are improved and that the communities who are in dire need of water are the ultimate benefactors.
Water service boards need to be overhauled and transformed so that local people can be empowered to manage water for their communities. Intensive campaigns should be launched to train many local black African technicians and engineers so that they can take part in the construction of dams like the Komati, Driekoppies, the beautiful dams build in the Lowveld regions, the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme, or even the Kariba Dam.
When water flows nearly everywhere South Africa will become the rich and beautiful garden which God intended it to be. And with that picture and that hope in front of us, the PAC will be happy to support this Vote. [Applause.]
Mr M M MASALA: Mr Chairperson, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has made great strides in bringing solid management to the chaos in the forestry industry that was inherited from the apartheid state. At the centre of this chaos were the contracts that the former government and homelands entered into with sawmills. These contracts were everlasting. They agreed to supply timber in perpetuity. They were conceived as an incentive to sawmills to invest in processing plants in rural areas. [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! On what point are you rising, sir?
Mr J H MOMBERG: Mr Chairperson, on a point of order: The television monitor is not working.
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! They will be checked by the technical staff. They are now on. Please carry on, sir.
Mr M M MASALA: Most of the contracts were with white-owned businesses. The long-term nature of the contracts created a barrier to entry and made it difficult to bring black participants into the sector. Many of the contracts were practically impossible to bring to an end. In 1996 there were 29 of these contracts. To date, 26 of them have been converted into new contracts, thanks to the negotiating skills of the department. However, three of the contracts are in the hands of the diehards who are still resisting transformation. The department has, however, approached the Minister to decide about these three.
The National Forests Act has fundamentally changed the way timber is supplied in South Africa. It will lead to much greater representivity, efficiency and fairness in the sawmilling sector. The sale of state forests, amounting to 330 000 hectares of forests and five sawmills, is in full swing. Already the interministerial Cabinet committee has approved four preferred bidders for the forestry packages.
I am sure the Minister is aware of the growing current of resistance building up from the disadvantaged sectors of our people regarding the process of awarding contracts. As we democratise our country, as we strive towards the empowerment of the disadvantaged and the levelling of the playing fields so skewed by apartheid, it is critical that the privatisation of state forests is not ruled by the principle of the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the disadvantaged. That is the law of the jungle.
Recently, the committee visited the provinces and we discovered that the disadvantaged communities closely linked to commercial forests in places such as Mhlahlane, Weza and a lot of others, were completely left out of the processes. I appeal to the hon the Minister to find creative ways in which all South Africans, especially those who are disadvantaged and linked with these processes either directly or indirectly, could be armed with resources and information that would enable them to participate effectively alongside the advantaged.
The National Forests Act has as one of its key aims ``to promote greater participation in all aspects of forestry and the forest products industry by persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. We must ensure that legislation passed by this House is always implemented as it was intended. The restructuring of commercial forests has tended to overshadow the other good work being done by the directorate of forestry.
Community forestry is designed to meet local, social, household and economic needs and to stimulate local economic development. About 100 woodlots, mostly in the Eastern Cape, have been set up to supply rural communities with wood. As we move towards participatory democracy, we are ever strengthening the power of the people to take control of their own destinies. We encourage the forestry directorate in its endeavours to move towards participatory forestry management by the communities themselves.
On that note, I … The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Your speaking time has expired, sir, on that note. [Applause.]
Mr D A HANEKOM: Mnr die Voorsitter … [Mr Chairperson …]
Mr J H MOMBERG: Gooi kole, Derek, gooi kole! [Tussenwerpsels.] [Turn up the heat, Derek, turn up the heat! [Interjections.]]
Mr D A HANEKOM: Ek sal water gooi en nie kole nie! [Gelag.] [I shall put a damper on things rather than turn up the heat! [Laughter.]]
Hon Chairperson, hon Minister and hon members, I have been given the job of acting as a kind of sweeper, and that means picking up the points that have been made in the course of the debate and responding to some of them. However, there is another sweeper that will follow, and that is Ronnie Kasrils, and he comes with a much bigger broom than the one I have. So I will let the Minister do most of the sweeping in responding to the points made. In fact, not many controversial points have been raised. There are some points which one can elaborate and pick up on. I want to highlight a few things rather than picking up on the points.
The hon Minister spoke about four pillars. Now, in those days of struggle we, of course, knew the four pillars of our struggle like we know the ABC. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said, and I picked up the first three pillars, but I did not really pick up the fourth pillar. I think it had something to do with ``small is beautiful’’, but the Minister will have to clarify that.
What I like about the Minister’s approach, though, is that we have a task ahead of us - a very important task. In order to do it, this Minister with a military background is going to approach it with military discipline. [Laughter.] So we are going to find the most effective ways of doing it. That is good, because that is where we sometimes fall short. We have good policies, good programmes, good legislation, but in doing it, we do not often succeed, because we do not always find the right ingredients. I think that with the Minister’s approach, we are going to really do it. Much has already been done, but much more needs to be done.
Perhaps we can look at this task of providing clean water to all our people, which is a constitutional right, and analyse it, and reduce it to two major objectives. On the one hand, as the Minister said, there is the question of a water resource. There is limited water available that needs to be conserved very carefully. Our water resource has to be managed and conserved very carefully so that water could be available to our people for ever. That is very important.
On the other hand, we have to make sure that that water which we conserve gets to our people and to water users, and that means for a range of water uses: for irrigation and agriculture, for industry, for mining, but especially for millions of people whose lives depend on it, and that is drinking water. That has to stand right on top of our policy. [Applause.] That, I believe, is what we are doing.
I am going to concentrate a little bit on affordability and availability of water to people who need it to live. Without water, we die. Without air, we die. The difference between water and air is that we do not pay for air. Air is abundant. There is enough air. Yes, sometimes it gets polluted, like water gets polluted. But there is an abundant supply of air and not an abundant supply of water, and that is the big difference.
So it is quite correct that people should pay for water which they use. It is a scarce commodity. However, it is not correct that poor people who cannot afford to pay for water should not get it. We need water as much as we need air to live, and we cannot watch poor people not get sufficient water because they cannot afford to pay for it. That is unacceptable, and that is our big challenge.
We must look at making that notion of a lifeline supply, and that is that basic requirement for our lives on which our lives depend, free. We cannot do otherwise. I think there we have to look at all the most effective models built into the hon Minister’s four pillars in making that a reality. It could be done through crosssubsidisation or differentiation in tariffs. Those things need to be done.
We have good models and good examples which we can look at now and draw on. We have models in small towns and in large cities. Take the model of Hermanus. Let us look at the hon Minister’s two objectives once more: conserving the water resource and getting water to people. Both of that happens very well in Hermanus. Poor people are getting water at affordable rates or no rates in both Hermanus and Durban. However, at the same time, as hon members know, in Hermanus water is being conserved more efficiently in the process. So both objectives are being met: Poor people are getting free water and our water resource is being managed more carefully and efficiently.
In Durban, Durban Metro obviously indicates that it can be done in bigger cities, so it must be done. Therefore we believe that there is consensus here in Parliament that this should be a policy which the Minister as Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry should drive. The first 6 000 litres, or something to that effect, should be free.
Concerning the consequences to big users or the consequences to cost recovery, I do not think that is so consequential. The fact that people get their first 6 000 litres free does not really make much difference, because the wasteful water-use or the additional water will pay for that first 6 000 litres, and that is important to note. So: ``Drive it, Ronnie, drive it.’’ That is something that we want to see implemented countrywide. [Applause.]
We, in the ANC, are not embarrassed about our policy of putting poor people first. We put the poor first, and we will do it. We will not be embarrassed about it. Our task is to eradicate poverty once and for all. So, Comrade Ronnie should not be worried about the green image that he is getting now, because green and red are quite compatible. We want him to remain red. [Laughter.] [Applause.]
Comrade Kader Asmal had an era and he will be remembered for putting in place good policies, good legislations and good programmes - Working for Water, community water supply and so forth. Ronnie Kasrils will have to be remembered as picking up that spear and taking it one step further in ensuring that poor people in our country will not be discriminated against, that every person in our country will get an adequate supply of clean drinking water. I am sure that we will remember Comrade Ronnie Kasrils for that. [Applause.]
Lastly, just a word or two. As a member of this portfolio committee, I must say that our chairperson, Comrade Sonjica, has given good leadership to what we are trying to achieve. [Applause.] When she was first made chairperson of this portfolio committee, she was so humbled by it and so frightened of the enormity of the task. She has more than risen to that task. I am sure that I am speaking for all members of the portfolio committee. We would like to pay tribute to her for the way she is managing this process. [Applause.]
The MINISTER OF WATER AFFAIRS AND FORESTRY: Mr Chairperson …
HON MEMBERS: Metsi! Metsi! [Water! Water!] [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! Before you begin hon Minister, hon member on what point do you rise?
Ms F I CHOHAN-KOTA: Mr Chairperson, I am rising on a point of explanation on the obsession of the hon Jan Momberg on the issue of the TV. Just by way of explanation, Chairperson, you do remember that we rescued him from the media-crazed DP, and there are certain things that one just cannot remove from some people. [Laughter.] [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES: Order! That is not a point of order, but I will allow it to go. [Laughter.]
The MINISTER: Mr Chairperson, I want to thank all the hon members who have participated. They certainly showed unanimous support for my approach and budget. Many thanks for that, and thanks to all members who are here today, for showing such great attention. I thank both sides of the House, from the left to the right, geographically, although politically that would be right to left. I am sure the hon Moorcroft will not mind my saying that.
Let me immediately say of the hon Moorcroft’s contributions - he was one of the first to contribute from the DP - that I sat there, listened to what he had to say and applauded what he said, and I thank him very much indeed. What counts is constructive inputs and criticism. I would say that if his party adopted the approach he has adopted, then perhaps the DP would not experience what they feel as a kind of bitterness and frustration when their leader speaks or when some of them speak.
I would say that the hon member Moorcroft has given an example to any opposition party about how to engage constructively and how to make criticisms and points. I want to tell him that I am looking forward - I have met him a few times, as I have met other members of his party in my office when I was with Defence - to a further meeting on what I consider to have been excellent points concerning the development of the partnerships.
There are some aspects of the leaks and the harvesting of water that I have not dealt with, because I did not have time, but I think he put them creatively and, certainly, the hon member picked up my key theme about partnerships with industry, agriculture and so on, in a very interesting way. And that is the way we are going to follow. The hon member Hanekom said in his rousing finale that all of us must work together, because we must have consensus on water - this colourless fluid that everybody requires.
Prior to the hon member Moorcroft’s input, the chairperson made an excellent speech, and I want to thank her for that. She did raise certain points regarding integrated rural development. I thank her for that, because I did not quite deal with it myself. She also raised the issue of sanitation and other points. Obviously here, I am not going to deal with every single point made by those who spoke. If I did, I would keep members here way into the weekend, and I think we have better things to do - and that is constituency work - instead of listening to me here. What I would like to say to the hon Moorcroft on the issue of partnerships is that we are working with organised agriculture to improve water use and efficiency. The hon member from the IFP raised some very important points, and I thank her very much. I would say that I totally agree with her about the importance of those indigenous forests, Nkandla, where, as she pointed out, Deputy President Zuma also comes from, as do many of her party, too, such as Rev Musa. Of course, it is also the place where Cetshwayo sought sanctuary. I could not agree with her more, that we are - I strove to make this point and I hope members listened to what the hon member who comes from those areas was saying - not doing sufficient to develop the indigenous forests, which are such centres for culture, medicines, and for the study of our history.
I know that when I have spoken to both the Deputy President, the young man from Nkandla, and the Premier of the Eastern Cape, who comes from the Amatola forest, where Maqoma and Sandile, the great Xhosa generals, fought the colonialists, they became very excited about how we could develop these places in the way the hon member described.
There were points that the hon member made on the fires, the issue of the indigenous trees, etc, and I am glad that another member reminded us about a campaign I did not refer to, given the time factor, and that was the Ukuvuka campaign, which is also a partnership between Government, the private sector and even the media - the Cape Argus group - and Santam. It must be repeated elsewhere in the country.
The hon member made another interesting point which time did not permit.
She asked me what we were doing about the development of our underground
water, called ground water''. Someone new to this area of water such as
me, heard the termground water’’ and thought they were referring to the
water in the dams. I then discovered that when civil engineers talk about
ground water, they mean the underground water in those aquifers.
I want to link up with hon Hanekom when he said that he missed my fourth pillar. I was running out of time. The fourth pillar is flexibility, and I said that small is beautiful and it is not only the big things that matter. I will give an example. I had very interesting meetings with the Borehole Operators Association of South Africa and the Water-Driller Operators of South Africa and they asked: Minister, why are we not exploiting the underground aquifers more? And they said that the best water for whisky is ground water, meaning the underground water. I tried it and I agree. [Interjections.]
But that is exactly what I mean. I can link the two points together. So, jumping back to hon Hanekom, the fourth pillar is going in for big schemes and finishing the white elephant of Arabie, but also looking at the development of the simple stuff, the boreholes, the aquifers, and the harvesting of water, as the hon Moorcroft pointed out.
On the issue of harvesting, the Chilean ambassador told me how in Chile in the water-dry area up on the Andes, they put nets up on the mountains and the nets catch the mist, and the water runs down and they harvest an enormous amount of water. I said to him that I did not think that South Africa lent itself to that. Of course, foolish me, ignorant me!
I go to the Northern Province and I am at Turfloop. We have a water institute which my department set up there and I hear that the local people up on the Eastern Drakensberg nearby have been harvesting, for years, water in the Chilean model. What has happened there now is that they are not using it to drink. The water from the mist that rises over the Drakensberg is so pure that they have set up a little business. About half a dozen people are selling that water to laboratories, and they have managed to get a SMME going. The water sector is a very interesting one, indeed.
I was asked by the hon Mothoagae about Kaya Sands. This was a case where I visited a waste site. In the old days, I would have called it a rubbish disposal site. My director-general has said to me: Please do not use terms like that. That means one just dumps rubbish there. They might have done it in the old days. A waste disposal site is where the waste is meant to be managed. It is put into land fills where one has trenches around and where one puts down plastic on the base and where one must ensure that any poisonous matter from the disposal does not run into the water system or the ground water in the rivers.
Of course, the Jukskei River is a disgrace. It is a river we must try and save. It is in the state it is in because of the industry and the density of population in Gauteng. I did say to the hon the Leader of the Opposition who visited the site - he challenged me to visit it and I am being very honest with the members of his party that I have been to places that he has earmarked. I will go to any place that members earmark for me, because I have to be a servant of Parliament and of the public - about that particular site that I did not find it to be any worse than any other site in the major cities of our country and, in fact, it was in the process of closing down. It was meant to close down at the end of June and, in fact, no more rubbish is being dumped there. Only construction debris is being placed there and the rubbish is going elsewhere. I am prepared to go to places, but I am not prepared to go at the drop of a hat.
The hon Simmons raised a number of interesting points. I want to say to him, though, that as far as the Taung Dam is concerned - it is very wonderful that a dam in that dry arid area is more than full now - we are dealing with the Department of Agriculture about how to use the water in this dam. Many members have made this point. We find dams all over this country. Often they are very low, sometimes they are full. The Taung Dam does not seem to be using water for anything.
In the past, as members pointed out, and as they pointed out to hon Ramodike, the previous governments wanted to build dams and provide water for the irrigation farmers, basically, privileged farmers. Irrigation farming takes 51% of all the water we use in this country, and they still pay - I would say - far too little for it. I take the point made by Mr Moorcroft. They put these dams everywhere for that purpose.
One has Arabies, which is a very good case in point. For villagers living there, as well as near these other dams, no provision was made to put in the piping to help the local community with their basic domestic water or to help them become emergent farmers. For us, the question now is - of course, we are looking at this - how we help to convert those dams into something for the Arabie villagers, etc. It is a phenomenal expense in terms of the capital that is required, and that is why it is not being done that quickly.
Regarding the issue of the Taung Dam, we have to start changing such places from being the white elephants that they actually are into something that could be very beneficial. The town is running out very fast.
In response to the contribution made by the hon member Ramodike from the UDM, firstly, the Zambezi River is not a river on which we can claim any rights. There are eight countries who live along the Zambezi Basin. They have the right to lay claim to the Zambezi, not us, not the Northern Province. In fact, for us to obtain water from the Zambezi River, being at the end of the queue, before those countries who were able to come in on this first, would be absolutely prohibitive.
That hon member built a dam called Zoeknog which collapsed. I would like to ask him what he is ``soeking’’ from us now … [Laughter.] … because we are really very ready to take positive input. My earphone was working well, and I did hear what he had to say. He made some points which made me laugh a little bit.
Regarding the issue of the failed schemes - someone else made a point about this matter, and I think it was the hon member Simmons who dealt with the Taung Dam issue followed by the hon Ramodike - most of them were inherited from the homeland Bantustan. These dams and schemes had been put up with absolutely no interest in sustainability, operation and maintenance, and trying to rehabilitate them is costing us a fortune.
Of course, people are frustrated with us now, and they are saying to the department and this Minister: Why can we not get anything from these irrigation schemes, canals and dams? I have been to certain places in Ciskei, and we are trying to find literally R250 million to rehabilitate Ciskeian irrigation schemes that were put up for the so-called emerging farmers, and which are completely silted up, and we require that kind of money to get them going again.
I have tried to deal with everything that was raised, and I would have been very ready to continue doing so. I am looking at my clock here and it indicates that I am left with five seconds. Therefore all I can say is that I have listened carefully and I have written down hon members’ points. I have my department officials here who have taken notes. Everyone who has contributed will get a response from us on those issues. The red light is on.
I would like to thank hon Hanekom. The colour is red. I am proud to be green. I want to thank all members. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
The House adjourned at 12:30. ____
ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS
FRIDAY, 9 JUNE 2000
TABLINGS:
National Assembly and National Council of Provinces:
Papers:
- The Speaker and the Chairperson:
Report on Parliament for 1999.