Thank you, hon Chair. I wish to thank the hon members for their contributions and their advice. We have been taking notes and we will do the best we can to take on board all the views that have been shared with us here.
Starting with the hon chair, and the issue of postsettlement programmes, we have the strategy, as we said in the report, but we did not have the capacity to implement it. We are building that capacity now. We think that this is one area that will receive a lot of our attention over the next few months.
Indeed, the policy speech is very clear on basic infrastructure: economic infrastructure, social infrastructure, even ICT, and public amenities. We think that these are very vital things to open the minds of especially our young kids in rural areas.
With regard to the question of access to government services by the hon Mlenzana, indeed we see ourselves as catalysts in this regard. We see ourselves as co-ordinating these kinds of functions, and getting other departments involved in rural areas. We think, given the fact that the President himself has profiled rural development, the challenge we have been experiencing historically of not participating - at least from the point of view of national and provincial government departments and integrated development plans -will be resolved. The experience, hon Chair, of Giyani is very instructive in this regard.
Hon Mashile, it is true regarding the vacancy rate. You know, directors are very important in a department, because they are the people who do the actual work, not the planning as such but basically managing and running the projects. This is an area in which we have been found to be wanting and we have taken a strategic decision that we will focus on this area.
Hon Walters, of course the hon members have dealt with the question of government to government. We have spheres of government, one government with three spheres. Therefore it is correct for us to work together, but at the same time to understand the nature of the relationship that has been created by our Constitution in South Africa. We will definitely work with the provincial government of the Western Cape.
The Lutzville-Ebenhaezer land claim has been partially settled. Those farmers who have accepted our offer have been paid out. At the moment we are working with Agri Wes-Kaap to develop a mentoring arrangement with those farmers. So, there is progress being made in that regard.
This is the challenge. In the policy speech we are making the point that one of the things that will have to be done in order for us to expedite the settlement of claims is to improve the manner in which we work. We are busy with an analysis, and in our analysis we have found that if we could improve in this area it could make a huge difference in all the provincial offices. We are looking at the provincial offices and how they work, how they actually do the work of research and interacting with people, and also how they make people understand the status of their claims, because this is key. People don't understand. We think people don't understand because they don't have the information. From our point of view, we think this is an area we need to deal with.
Of course, when it comes to willing-buyer, willing-seller, there is a myth about investors and markets. Investors want certainty; that is what they want. They want to know about the policy of this country. We need to get to a point where we make it clear to them so that they understand - because investors do understand - that this government is unable to raise R71 billion over the next five years, between now and 2014, in order for it to be able to buy 30% of the 82 million hectares of land. We need to make people understand, even those who own the land, that it is impossible for us to achieve this target, because we don't have the money. I think it should be very clear to everyone that this is the route we are going to have to go.
We have to go to them and say: "Fellow South Africans, we are unable to buy this land with this amount of money, especially under the current economic recession in the world." But at the same time we must continue to contribute to national reconciliation, and therefore convert this whole notion of land as a superprofit-making venture by becoming part of the effort of all South Africans to work together and reconcile the haves and the have-nots.
You know, Anton Rupert said: "If they don't eat, we won't sleep." [As hulle nie eet nie, sal ons nie slaap nie.]
He was talking about the fact that if we continue to deny the majority of our people, particularly black people, in this country access to and ownership of land, we will not even enjoy that which we do have. It will be a matter of time. That will happen. As government we must avoid that. We must lead the country away from a situation where the one who doesn't eat causes the one who can eat, not to sleep.
The hon Deputy Minister is actually in charge of arranging a workshop with our chiefs so they can talk about this to see how we can correct this, because the kings are the traditional leaders. In the rural areas the chiefs own the land on behalf of the people, so it is important that we meet and decide how we are going to democratise the way in which we use this land, because in the rural areas there is no question of ownership. We must democratise the manner in which land is utilised so that everybody has a say in it, so that no one can say that they cannot access land in our country for them to live on. [Interjections.]
The workshop is coming, Sir, you should not worry. We have addressed 13% of that. We hope that when we arrive in these rural areas and tell the chiefs that we would like to use their land so that the people can benefit from this land, the chiefs will agree. [Applause.] Thank you very much.