Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers who are here, and colleagues, a country's level of development is usually identified by the type and level of infrastructure that it prides itself on. The lower the level of infrastructural development, the lower the level of economic development of a country, and this is an obvious yardstick of underdevelopment.
For the last week our portfolio committee and a number of other portfolio committees have been doing oversight on the state of readiness of Fifa host cities. They were checking roads, infrastructure, transport, health, tourism, home affairs, immigration, etc.
Although there is still a lot of construction going on, we were assured that the time frames will be met and we could clearly see for ourselves that this was true. A report on the oversight will definitely be tabled before Parliament in the near future.
When we check the vision of the national Department of Transport, it reads: "Transport, the heartbeat of South Africa's economic growth and social development". Its mission statement says that it ...
... needs to lead the development of integrated efficient transport systems by creating a framework of sustainable policies, regulations and implementable models to support government strategies for economic, social and international development.
As the Minister and the chairperson stated earlier on, the department's priorities for 2010-11 are: reducing transport costs; contributing to environmental sustainability by decreasing carbon emissions; eradicating backlogs in road, rail, aviation and maritime infrastructure; improving access to transport through greater spatial integration; reducing freight transit times; and developing the regulatory capacity required to enforce safety standards and reduce accidents in all modes of transport.
It is necessary for me to mention all these because very few people go into the system to check what the priorities are. These are the areas on which we as the Portfolio Committee on Transport will be doing oversight over the department.
The main areas that we as a transport committee were looking at during the 2010 readiness oversight were road construction projects; roads to stadiums; taxi industry associations; parking at stadiums; and checking clear signage to the host cities and stadiums.
It must be taken into account that this Budget Vote happens at a time when only 58 days are left before the biggest event ever to happen on the African continent commences. We were even advising some municipalities and government structures that if they wanted to succeed in their request for funding at this point, all they had to do was label every request as falling under 2010 projects and their request would be approved as soon as possible. I'm not sure whether it's legal what we were doing. This is the situation with this budget also; maybe we can try that. Everyone knows that the success of this event hinges on the ability of the country to provide up-to-standard infrastructure and systems. Therefore, government has identified the transport sector as one of the necessary conditions for the event. South Africa promised Fifa that we would deliver a successful World Cup and that is exactly what we are going to do. This year has been declared the year of action by the President of this country.
We should instead request much more than what is before us today, because if we wave the Fifa card, no one will ever reject our proposals. You never know with the opposition, because they are like a chameleon. They change colours according to what suits them. All they do is oppose anything the ANC says. Those who don't know and easily forget, the ANC, by the way, is the ruling party in this country. I'm happy that the ANC is my organisation. [Applause.]
Seventy percent of South African roads, according to the Automobile Association of South Africa, need urgent repairs, which will cost approximately R65 billion. As my colleague the hon Ngwenya-Mabila has already mentioned, overloading is said to be contributing to the destruction of the roads and is costing R650 million a year. As a result, road safety is compromised by potholes, rutted and slippery surfaces and lack of general road maintenance.
Avoiding references to the past would not be fair to us, because the reasons for the state of affairs lie exactly in the past policies of apartheid. During apartheid there were fewer tarred roads and they would, of course, be concentrated in the white areas. Nobody at this time would be worried about potholes. Now tarred roads have been extended to those areas that never even imagined they could ever have this "white privilege". [Applause.]
Therefore, it is hypocritical for the opposition to complain about potholes. They are, in a roundabout way, getting a taste of their own medicine. One can imagine an ambulance carrying a critically injured or ill person, rushing to a hospital on a gravel road with no bridges. By this I am not trying to justify anything; I'm trying to put things into perspective. I am trying to teach the opposition to stop mourning, whining and howling and to start coming up with possible solutions to the problem faced by our country, which we all love. [Applause.]
The solution, according to them, which might not be very clever, is for the ANC to relinquish power and give it to them. The question is: Is Cape Town better - or any other municipality run by the opposition?
If there are good things that used to happen previously, we must name them. For instance, the rail system worked better during those times than now. It stands to reason that that eased the pressure on the trucking of goods, which in turn helped save our roads.
The revitalisation of the rail system needs to be looked into by the department in order to reduce spending on road maintenance. The clever and caring ANC government is already doing something about this. In the state of the nation address the President committed government to maintaining and expanding the road network as well as ensuring that the rail network is reliable and better integrated with sea ports.
Hon Mbhele asked what the Minister is doing in terms of rail. In trying to solve some of these problems, the department is in the process of developing an integrated transport infrastructure plan, the National Transport Master Plan, NATMAP. That is where the ANC always comes in. The main reason for developing NATMAP is to examine, determine and crystallise relationships between various land uses in the country and their consequential multimodal transport requirements.
The opposition will always be unreasonable. They will always contradict themselves. They will always be hypocrites, always moan and howl, as long as the ANC is in power. The reason is not that the ANC is doing anything wrong, but because they want our power, which they will never get. I think that they know this pretty well.
The way they contradict themselves all the time is as if the ladies of the night, which you may call prostitutes, were to say that the goods they trade in are out of stock. [Laughter.] What a contradiction; it is very hard to fathom. That is the way the opposition thinks and behaves and it is surely not very clever.
They sometimes make me think of asking the President of the country to do an exchange with President Mugabe to rule this country for at least three months and then we'll see what the opposition will do. Maybe he might whip them into understanding this country's problems, especially if his deputy were my comrade whom I like, Comrade Malema.
Hon Farrow, I am very happy today and I would like to commend the DA at least for once. Hon Farrow, you didn't only moan and howl, but came up with recommendations and suggestions, which must be commended.
Hon Mbhele of Cope talked about congestion in the major cities. To him I would say that the engineering of these cities was not made for you and me. You cannot extend them and you cannot do anything. If you are in Cape Town you will either be staying in a hostel, Gugulethu, KwaLanga, or you will be in the Eastern Cape. The engineering was not for us to be here. That is why you cannot do anything about it - unless you start using helicopters. That is apartheid-era planning, which you cannot blame on this government.
Hon Lucas of the IFP talked about bridges being washed away in Limpopo. He never told us whether it was because of natural disasters, which we cannot do anything about as the ANC.