Hon Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, His Excellency the President, hon Deputy President, Members of Parliament, colleagues and guests, this morning at 5am I got into the central line train from Khayelitsha to Kwa-Langa to do oversight, inspect and listen to the ideas our people have and together begin to address and fix their rightful demands of their government. These are our workers and general commuters who fertilize this economy and must be provided with quality services. I have set out a set of urgent interventions needed to return the central line service into an efficient, trusted and safe service. We are going to get the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Prasa, back on track, whether it is the Soshanguve corridor, uMlazi or Mamelodi. Under your leadership, Mr President, Prasa will be back on track. [Applause.]
Deputy Chairperson, we have spent a day listening carefully to the contributions of hon members on the state of our nation. The ANC government regards these debates as very important for our democratic project. The debate on the state of the nation address is aimed at strengthening our democracy, institutionalise it and remind us all that we are people with many views but one destiny, one nation and to get our nation working and our constitutional democracy sound. We must respect and welcome differing viewpoints.
We agree with Professor Wole Soyinka on constructive criticism, that the greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. Mr President, with that said, I want to share with the House a tweet I received this past weekend. A twitter-user by the name of Kid Colt tweeted a photo of his traffic fine. The charge on the fine is exceeding the speed limit of 80 km per hour by travelling at 75 km per hour. This speeding fine is the kind of 44 out of 10 type analyses of our body politics and political economy we have been subjected to for the entire day by the opposition. This is not what Professor Wole Soyinka was hoping for. It is therefore very clear Mr President that your marching
orders to the Department of Basic Education about tablet computers has to be supported because... [Interjections.]