Chairperson, hon Chief Whip, hon Minister of Transport and my hon fellow Members of Parliament, allow me to start by quoting a clause from the ANC manifesto which says -
... work together with the farming community to improve the living conditions of farm dwellers, including the provision of subsidised house and other basic services.
My entry point in this debate is rural development with a specific focus on the development of roads and public transport. It would be a disservice to our rural people if we fail to connect them with where the economic activity is located. Their linkage with the civilised world is through the provision of well-deserved infrastructure and the construction of good roads and bridges.
During our oversight visit to Mpumalanga, we visited Mbekeni, a village which is more than 30 km from Nelspruit. It is a remote area that is isolated from civilisation.
The only road that links them with Nelspruit is badly constructed and without a bridge. During the rainy season pupils cannot go to school. Teachers, who are commuting daily, can't reach their schools. When we asked them what their personal needs were, they responded by requesting us to provide them with a constructed road, a bridge and public transport that would link them with the civilised world, because all their other needs would be addressed by the first one.
From where I'm standing, I can hear their call and feel their desperation back at Mbekeni. It is against this background that we are making a humble request to the Minister to accede to their request.
We promised to be their voices and articulate their aspirations to Parliament to the best of our abilities. We hope that when we go back to Mbekeni village next year we will not be empty-handed. The Minister has said he has allocated R1 billion for road construction in rural areas. I think they will get their slice.
The youth is the future of this country. We cannot talk about any rural development that excludes them. We must be duty-bound to ensure that they are at school on time daily and learning.
Schools in many rural areas are still inaccessible to them. They have to walk from one farm to the other, from one village to the other in order to access education. As the ANC, we are therefore making a public clarion call that the Minister should provide them with scholar transport. It should not be left to the discretion of provinces to make choices.
National education allocations should be reinforced and the department should monitor the implementation of this service. The provision of scholar transport goes hand in hand with economic empowerment.
We hope most of the scholar transport owners who come from farms and villages will be afforded the opportunity to benefit from this economic activity. It would be rural economic empowerment in the true sense of the word.
Although the department came up with the Shova Kalula initiative, it has its own shortcomings, constraints, challenges and limitations. No audit has ever been made of the bicycles that were issued. There is no maintenance plan. The bicycles are of no assistance during the rainy and cold seasons. The intention was good, but has not achieved its desired results. The department needs to review this initiative.
We are approaching the Fifa World Cup in June. We are concerned about the safety of our people who are using the Airlink company for their flights.
We recently experienced a nasty incident at Limpopo airport during the period of Taking Parliament to the People when an Airlink plane failed to take off due to the failure of the ground power supply. This resulted in members missing their connecting flights.
The second incident also took place in Limpopo, still involving an Airlink plane which took off but immediately landed again due to a technical fault. We feel that its operation for the World Cup should be reviewed and their planes should be airworthy.
We have come far with the World Cup preparations and we cannot allow our country's name to be tarnished by one unscrupulous, irresponsible and greedy operator, whose intention is to destroy our dream of hosting a spectacular World Cup that will be remembered for many years to come. We call upon the Minister to review their licence because that will be a good thing to do.
Therefore, we support this Budget Vote. A o bokwe. [Let it be praised.] [Applause.]
Mr T W MCHUNU (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, on 13 April 2010, Minister Ndebele presented his budget speech in the National Assembly. He highlighted all the activities that government had initiated to ensure that our transport system provides a seamless, multimodel transport service throughout the duration of the World Cup to facilitate movements to all parts of the country.
Today, he has shared his views with this House. In KwaZulu-Natal we fully concur with the Minister. We certainly regard 2010 as a unique year in many ways. It will go down in history as yet another significant turning point for South Africa and the African continent.
We are also doing our part as the department in ensuring that this World Cup is a success, particularly with regard to public transport matters, road infrastructure development and safety initiatives on our roads, to mention but a few. However, Minister, we also agree with you that we must take cognisance of the fact that our planning must go beyond the World Cup.
Our department is operating in the midst of budgetary cuts and recessionary pressures on the national coffers. Notwithstanding that, we cannot shy away from discharging our duties and responsibilities.
Our budget seeks to strike a balance and we seriously want to share this with the House. We want to strike a balance between building new road infrastructure and the maintenance of the existing infrastructure. That is very important. There is nothing that you can overlook.
Those who have lived where roads are good will never think about expanding into new areas which have never had road infrastructure before; not through any fault of their own, not through the fault of this government, but through the fault of the history and the legacy of all the political parties before.
Therefore, there is no question of us not concentrating on building new roads in the rural areas. We would like to share with this House that our road infrastructure has been allocated R3,72 billion. Of this infrastructure budget, R1,9 billion is for the construction of new roads and R1,6 billion is for the maintenance thereof.
A serious challenge facing our department is the ongoing floods which can never be anticipated. Due to the budget constraints and the increase in volumes of traffic, the rehabilitation and periodic maintenance programme is falling behind. Our road network is deteriorating at a rapid pace and additional funding will be required to ensure that our road network is conserved in an acceptable manner.
To crown it all, more than 70% of our road network is also beyond its design life and if not attended to immediately, it will end up in a state of disrepair. In the long run, it will cost the government 18 times more to construct these roads if they are not attended to urgently.
The state of our roads combined with high traffic volumes, overloading of heavy vehicles, poor drainage and high levels of rainfall contribute to the high occurrence of potholes, especially in our province. Our department receives only R1,6 billion of the required annual funding of R3,2 billion for maintenance. This shortfall increases the backlog at a rapid rate.
It would require at least an additional R2 billion over a three-year period and R2 billion to bring the road network back to the required minimum level of service. Therefore on that score, Minister, we are extremely excited about your idea of forming a road maintenance fund. We are extremely excited, especially if it is designed to help us in the provinces and in the municipalities because that is where the backlogs are.
What I would like to say to my colleagues who have spoken before me is that instead of being negative, we should be applauding what the Minister is doing now. He is beginning to address all these issues that we are all complaining about. We should not present them in a negative manner at all times.
What I've also noticed is that one of my colleagues is beginning to remind me of what's happening in many legislatures - time and again the DA claims that it's been their policy all the time and, therefore, the ANC is now implementing it.
I regard that as a very clever way of trying to find answers where you do not have answers. You cannot have policies that are older than those of the ANC. The ANC is older than you. You are new. Your policies are just policies that are copied from the policies of the ANC. You do not have new answers. That's the story you must relate. You just don't have new answers. We have policies that are a foundation for democracy that have been introduced since 1994.
As I have indicated, Minister, this year is unique in many ways. It is also momentous in that it marks the 20th anniversary of former President Nelson Mandela's release from prison. We remain anchored in his principles of peacemaking as we, together with the leadership of the taxi industry, facilitate conflict resolution and peacekeeping within this industry.
Like you, Minister, we hold the view that the taxi industry depicts black economic empowerment at its best. Therefore it's closer to our hearts as government. It is on that score that the issues of instability in the industry have been elevated to the level of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster so as to ensure that a comprehensive and an integrated strategy of dealing with taxi violence is achieved.
We can also share with this House that to support the transformation and development of the taxi industry within the province, we have allocated R6,5 million which will be controlled by the government. The R6,5 million will be run through the Public Finance Management Act, PFMA, and so we don't suspect any wrongdoing at that end.
To this end, we are also prepared to support you, Minister, and the department to deal with the subsidies of buses, because all of these are legacies. When we deal with the buses, you must remember how these bus subsidies were allocated in the past.
They were never allocated by the ANC government. Before that they had excluded millions of people in South Africa. When we deal with these legacies within the context of the shortage of funds, people must appreciate that. The best that you have done we applaud and we cherish it, Minister.
Regarding road safety, again, it is our concern and view that government has over the years embarked on a number of road safety initiatives; yet road accidents, crashes and fatalities continue. Our department plans to take road safety initiatives a step further by opening a platform for a symposium where communities and ordinary people will share with us what their ideas are in trying to curb this ongoing saga.
I want to say that in keeping with the government's response to unemployment, we also continue to create job opportunities through the implementation of the Expanded Public Works Programme. This programme emphasises the need to focus on our investment in social infrastructure in a manner that addresses severe conditions of underdevelopment and entrenched poverty.
That is why we have programmes such as Zibambele, which has been instrumental in creating a number of jobs within the tight economic environment, focusing especially on youth and women. Our Zibambele programme is still the key to eradicating poverty. Thanks go to you, Minister, for the introduction of such a good programme during your time as MEC in the province.
The Vukuzakhe programme is one of those that are designed to help emerging contractors, to provide opportunities and to empower them through the transfer of skills to all historically disadvantaged communities.
In conclusion, in the light of the budget constraints mentioned above, we continue to provide access to and advocate the safety of all our road users. We firmly believe in working together with our communities to realise our departmental vision of prosperity through mobility. I thank you.