Madam Deputy Speaker, let me express appreciation for the broad support. However, it's necessary to deal with some of the issues members raised here. For the life of me, I can't understand that all of the members of the portfolio committee sat through the hearings together, because it appears that it's not possible to find a meeting point somewhere in respect of this!
We appreciate what the hon Marais raised and I'm glad that he came a little way, though I think he is still held back by the likes of the hon Van Dyk and so on and can't come all the way. But I want to ask him to go back and read the Constitution. Section 40(1) says:
In the Republic, government is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated.
It's not "onafhanklik" [independent]; it's distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. So that gives the basis then for the other issue which the hon Groenewald missed, which is 229(b) and is also abundantly clear because it says:
... taxes, levies and duties appropriate to local government or to the category of local government into which that municipality falls, but no municipality may impose income tax value-added tax, general sales tax or customs duty.
So we are enabling municipalities to go forward. This is not a random power, hon Cupido, to impose whatever taxes they want or to simply see some soft targets and keep going for them. It sets in place a framework that is not about Trevor Manuel but has to be a durable framework that can provide a basis for testing such new taxes appropriate to municipalities that they want to or need to introduce. [Interjections.]