Thank you, Chairperson, hon Minister, hon members of the NCOP and guests.
The way the Select Committee of Transport was treated by the Department of Transport during their presentation regarding the strategic plan is unacceptable. Neither the Minister nor the director-general was available when the committee was addressed. Fortunately the deputy director-general, DDG, did the presentation to the committee, and I must say she did well under the circumstances.
The statement made by Sake24 in Rapport last Sunday is horrific for any person who uses our roads in South Africa. An audit done by the SA National Roads Agency Ltd, Sanral, shows that 80% of South African roads are older than their lifespan of 20 years. It costs government - ie the taxpayers - more than R75 billion to maintain 300 000 km of roads in South Africa. According to the audit, gravel roads in South Africa are even worse than the tarred roads.
The time has come for local government and provincial authorities to take responsibility for roads in their areas and get the necessary skills to keep roads in a good condition.
The Deputy Minister, Mr Jeremy Cronin, also said that the information Sanral used in their audit was from the provincial and municipal authorities. He also mentioned that the money allocated for roads and maintenance from government to local authorities has not been used for these specific purposes, but for many other priorities.
The DA wants to know from the department: What happened to the responsibility and control mechanisms to allow the South African economy to slip to where it is now by sheer mismanagement of the maintenance of South African roads, caused by the loss of both financial and human skills? Any delays on road maintenance can cost up to six times more than the general cost when it is done timeously.
Despite this, Sanral is doing a good job in keeping our national roads in a reasonable condition, obviously at the cost of the motorist. There is no such thing as free roads, but for how much longer can we carry on delaying every time that a section of road reaches the end of its lifespan and needs reconstruction?
Hon Minister, the DA approves of what you and your department have been saying about the dedicated road fund. After all, this has been part of our DA policy proposal to your Ministry for a number of years now. The time has come to consolidate all fund streams into this fund. This, Minister, is the only way forward.
Sanral must do the necessary audit of road conditions and, as engineering skills at provincial and local government levels do not exist, Sanral with their higher skills based on experience would be able to optimise both scarce human and financial or capital skills required to keep our roads safe and pothole free.
The Minister and the Deputy Minister made mention in their forewords of the strategic plan and the role transport is playing in the economy of South Africa and how much money has been spent on roads, airports and other infrastructure and around cities hosting the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup event.
What about the roads in our rural areas? These are the places where we need sustainable growth to help our people who stay there to make a living. The economy is dying in the rural areas because contractors are not willing to get into the areas where the roads are in such a bad state. Public transport is not available and people must get to their workplaces on foot.
In provinces like Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West province, roads have totally disintegrated and it is better to travel next to the roads as opposed to on the roads. The whole road project budget for the North West province of R525 million for the year 2009-10 has been spent in three months! How is this possible? We are hardly touching the tip of the iceberg in this province.
The DA started a pothole campaign in the North West province recently, just to remind government how dangerous it is to use roads in such a bad condition and to tell government to do their job properly. I'm sure that those of you who travelled in those parts will love our beautiful DA warning signs.
The Taxi Recapitalisation Programme is definitely not on schedule. Many taxi owners are unhappy with the progress in this programme. With only 10 142 taxis being scrapped, it seems to the DA that this programme will never end, and that the budget for scrapping taxis is increasing year by year. Something new and innovative must be done, and the money rather put into a public transport programme such as the BRTs.
The DA believes that subsidising public transport is essential and happens in most countries in the world. [Time expired.] [Applause.]