Chair, as the Minister and the portfolio chair so competently explained, the Bill before us repeals some 51 Acts and only certain provisions of 14 Acts that required repealing. The Acts for repeal were identified in terms of the SA Law Commission's mandate to revise the South African Statute Book with a view to recommending, in conjunction with the Department of Transport, for repeal or amendment those Acts or provisions of Acts that are inconsistent with the equality clause in the Constitution, and are either redundant or obsolete. Many of these old laws had connotations of the old apartheid regime and were identified as no longer having legal effect. The task could not have been all that easy considering that the Acts go back to 1914 - actually, Minister, not 1936 - and are not always readily available through electronic media. In many cases the old Acts had to be sourced from parliamentary archives. The portfolio committee, to a certain degree, had similar problems, because "taking the word" of officials and the state law advisers for some of the Acts was clearly not the correct way of doing diligent oversight. But, needless to say, we managed to work our way through them.
Coupled to this was the limited response to the public hearings. The portfolio committee chair mentioned that there was only one or two people that came forward for comment since the Bill was gazetted some months previously. The only real comments of any note came from Transnet. Their subsequent interaction with the portfolio committee, as was mentioned, led to four Railway Construction Acts previously being considered for repeal, being excluded in this current Bill. The reason for their exclusion was that these Acts still have disposing rights for a varying period ranging from 2011 to 2016.
Under the circumstances, it was decided that these Acts should, therefore, run their course and as they expired we would repeal them. It was interesting to note that many of the removed Acts had supply links to manufacturers that are still in existence today, such as the Highveld steel company. One's mind cannot but think of what connection and the real purpose of those Acts were, way back then in the height of apartheid in 1960. But, more importantly, who benefited from these laws.
Repealing Acts of this nature does have its benefits as it requires one to go into the Acts, and to assess their merits in retaining anything in them or not. This is a bit like ensuring that one doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Fortunately, though, many of our current transport laws have an overarching effect which ensures a certain amount of safeguards to prevent any intended gaps occurring.
Whilst I have the podium I want to say that one of the concerns the DA has is that we may be doing away with Acts which could in many ways help, as they do, in administering our transport better. For instance, one of our Acts, which was previously repealed, could ensure better control and movement of goods now going by rail. Although this specific Act does not appear in this repeal Bill, our research now suggests that we should consider this Act. To this end, the DA will be submitting a Private Member's Bill to reintroduce applicable - and I point and stress applicable - provisions in the Road Transportation Act, Act 74 of 1977. This is to once more control and regulate the movement of certain goods by road with a view to ensuring that where parallel rail services exist these goods will in future be transported by rail.
The impact of the movement of heavy freight such as coal, iron ore, steel, timber and similar bulk products by road, has had a devastating effect on our roads, and the time has come for this practice to be properly policed. We are not saying that we want to introduce the authoritarian and dictatorial practices of the past through the old railway police, but certain provisions in this Act did help in the preservation of our road network by ensuring that road freighters first had to pass the scrutiny of a transport board and have a permit issued only if they met certain criteria. The DA has, in previous debates, actually mentioned to the Minister and his predecessors to introduce such a Bill or even a regulation for certain goods to go by rail, but so far that has fallen on deaf ears.
I trust that support will be given for this initiative when this Private Member's Bill is introduced in Parliament. This aside, the DA supports the Transport Laws Repeal Bill and can't wait to see the end of that. Thank you. [Applause.]