Thank you, Chairperson. The members have tabled a very wide variety of statements and clearly I will not be able to respond to all of them.
Suffice it to say, that we are equally horrified at the disgraceful stabbing of Comrade Mcebisi Skwatsha at a meeting in Worcester and we will support the hon Sonto in calling for all persons, be they members of the ANC, any other party or the general public, to conduct themselves with due regard to the law.
This is absolutely disgraceful conduct and such people are not welcome in our organisation, and as leadership we will act against such people and ensure that we restore the confidence of the people of South Africa in the ANC as well as in its leadership. With regard to the matter of health care costs, as far as I understand the Bill on the matter of how we regulate costs in the health sector will come before Parliament and once it has been deliberated upon by the committee we will then have a decision.
Suffice it to say, the interest of government is to ensure that indeed we decrease the very high costs of health care in many, many private institutions in the country, given the need to have greater access for all South Africans to health care. Given the large measure of needs, it is impossible for the public sector to be the entire and single provider of health care for the majority in our country. We therefore do need a framework that would ensure that there is greater access enjoyed by all South Africans; and this is the intention of the policy.
As for the matter of the resignation of a public official, public servants may resign for a range of reasons and it is difficult for me to know the background and I would suppose the hon member and the committee could proceed to look into this further.
I would support the ANC's tribute to particularly the young men and women who sacrificed their youth and their lives for us to have the liberation we enjoy today. Many of them gave up their education, their homes, their youth in order to ensure that today we could stand here and engage with each other as leaders - as the President of the country called for yesterday - committed as leadership to building our society and not merely to point fingers.
This is what Stanza Bopape hoped for, as did all the other comrades who lost their lives and their youth in their sacrifice for liberation. And as we say this we recall that Monday 16 June is Youth Day and is again an opportunity for us to bow our heads in memory of all those young people who sacrificed for South Africa's freedom.
The Setas remain a matter upon which the Minister of Labour is fully engaged. He has indicated that he would work towards improving the performance of Setas. Hon members noted in the debate of the Labour Budget Vote that indeed there has been an improved performance. As government we will continue to ensure that the Setas do execute their full role. We must say it is a minority of the Setas that tend to let us down. The majority of Setas are performing very well and are providing skills that are very useful and taken up in our economy.
Finally, I think we all are very supportive of the efforts of the Minister of Minerals and Energy to improve health safety. It is not this government that seeks that there should be accidents in mines, loss of life and injury to our people, and I think that Parliament could certainly look at the matter of whether the Compensation Fund should be reviewed in order to provide improved support for those who are injured, maimed or, in fact, lose their lives. This is something that Parliament could hold hearings on and advise the executive as to the findings, but all of us are committed to increasing health safety and to our people being safe as they work in the mines.