Mr Speaker and Mr President, you will excuse me if I say that, for all the years that I have been in Parliament, your answers to the questions have sounded so familiar, and I can assure you that from the fraternity that I represent, the disability fraternity, very little has been done and has been seen and experienced on the ground.
With regard to the mentioned UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, very few, sir, of your government departments and their staff know about this convention. Fewer understand the content and the intention of this convention, and even fewer implement the relevant conditions and the requirements, Mr President. This is whilst your government finalises and implements regulations on a daily basis that impact and, more often than not, infringe on the rights of this most vulnerable group of citizens, which the convention aims to protect and support. We have numerous examples of persons with disabilities who are further marginalised on a daily basis. We have seen this with Sars. There are one or two printers of Braille books for blind schoolchildren in this country and, until today, no order has been placed for books for next year, and payments are in arrears for months and months. Those blind children are marginalised as we speak, sir.