Chairperson, it is not the lack of maintenance. It is because our people, during this period, the last 25 years, have been free to move from wherever they had
been confined to by apartheid to where they hope to find a better life, and they are flocking to the cities. [Applause.]
Infrastructure in the cities is not sufficient to accommodate all of them. The result is what we are seeing now - a lot of informal settlements, particularly around the Vaal River. So, all five rivers that constitute the Vaal River system are polluted. It is not because our people do not want to ... it is not deliberate. Let me put it like that. It is because our people do not have the necessary facilities. It is an historical fact. It is an historical fact because apartheid was not a decent system. It was a system intended to service the interests of only a few against the majority of the people of South Africa.
The ANC has freed South Africa. It has put in place a system which treats all people as human beings, whether they are part of the past which was privileged, or whether they are part of the past that was humiliated by apartheid and its architects. So, when we talk about and deal with human rights today, we are talking about a fundamental change in the manner in which the country has been structured; in the manner in which the people of this country have been exposed and have had privileges which were very, very different. Today, thanks
to the ANC taking over power in the country, our people have access to all the services in this country.
We must thank the NCOP, today, for allowing us to participate in this kind of important debate.