Hon Deputy Chair of the NCOP, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, MECs from our respective provinces, my MEC, Ms Rakgoale, hon Members of Parliament, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I was listening to hon Ryder attentively and in his opening he said that Minister Zulu is one of his less favourable Ministers ... [Laughter.] ... and he went on and on but I just want to say that there is English saying which says; charity begins at home.
I was in the Fourth Parliament and served on the Portfolio Committee on Labour and we visited the farms in the Western Cape during that period and what we saw was a shame. Some people on the Western Cape farms were accommodated in containers. We went to some farm where people were accommodated in what used to be a pig stile. Those people didn't have anywhere to go except to stay there.
It is in this Western Cape, where in the last seven years there were recorded cases of people being paid with alcohol. I think it was the De Doorns area; I went to that farm together with the team. And then you wonder why people are abusing alcohol in this province and then say we have a problem of alcohol abuse and drugs. But the alcohol abuse was part of the plan of the apartheid system to keep our people drunk.
Children are exposed to alcohol before they are even born because their mother drink when they are pregnant and when the children are born, they are born with a hangover [babalas]. [Interjections.] And, when they reach a particular age, and start tasting alcohol, they hit the bottom. I am saying that if you really care - if the DA really cares - they should go and visit all these farms and improve the housing of the farm workers.
I don't know what to say about the fighters because they say they are pro- poor but they are pro-poor and they are refusing to support the budget that will benefit people who if they do not get a Sassa grant, might not get breakfast in the morning. And at the same time you want the Minister ... [Interjections.]